Is Reading's Democratic Party the weak link in city politics?

Ernest Herbein Schlegel’s post on Facebook says Reading's Democratic Party has problems. The Reading Eagle newspaper seems to ignore the parties, which are a vital part of democracy and, in my opinion, a reason that better candidates don’t get on ballots, especially in the city. This stuff should be transparent to voters.

I'd like to know how the party reaches out to Spanish-speaking residents and potential leaders from the next generation.

“As a committee with a total 88 seats we have only 42 filled. We struggle many times for a quorum. We have aging Democratic office holders that will create a void in the future upon their retirement if we don't act now to build the party. By not acting, our party appears to be contracting, potentially thereby limiting opportunities for political participation and weakening both civil society and the accountability of party leaders to followers. We must have strong leadership. We must have a strong voice in the Berks County Democratic Party.”

Is the GoggleWorks' momentum running out?

By Steve Reinbrecht

The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts is supposed to have a big role in brightening Reading’s future.

“By all counts, Reading is well on its way to an historic period of revitalization and prosperity,” says the state’s KeystoneEdge webpage about the city. “It might have begun with The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, a community art and cultural resource center founded in 2003 in a former safety goggles factory.”

“The GoggleWorks, the biggest arts center of its kind in the nation, calls Reading home. As a renovated factory building set in the heart of Reading, it sparks hope that the arts can jolt life into the city,” according to an article in January2013 in Curator, an online arts magazine.

“Art is one of the best ways to redevelop the city,” retail magnate Al Boscov, who was instrumental in creating the GoggleWorks, told Berks County Living magazine in October 2013. “Art is fueling the rebirth of the city of Reading.”

“Can the arts revive Reading?” asks a Reading Eagle story about the arts center this week.

But is the GoggleWorks, which opened in September 2005 at the cost of $13.5 million, succeeding?

It never has been able to cover its expenses without rich people and philanthropies donating a huge chunk of its roughly $1.7 million annual budget, including more than $1 million in 2012 and 2013. For example, Boscov donated $570,000 in 2012 and $300,000 in 2013. Marlin Miller, another founder, donated $550,000 in 2012 and $300,000 in 2013.

Some artists who have had studios in the GoggleWorks since it opened are leaving. Too few people visit their studios, some say. One says the GoggleWorks is failing its mission to engage the neighbors: “To nurture the arts, foster creativity, promote education and enrich the community.”

Many city residents don’t visit or know much about the place.

The Berks tourist-bureau website virtually ignores the GoggleWorks.

A row of never-leased retail space right across the street is starting to look trashy.

But the GoggleWorks’s leader, who started in July 2012, says he has the answer to get more money to sustain the arts center and attract young artists to live and work here.

Reading Eagle recycles news instead of digging it up, further dullifies politics

The Reading Eagle, the best place to get local news in Berks County, is branching out.

Having coverage nailed down tight in Berks, the Eagle is now covering the Pottstown area. For some reason, people love to call things “tri-county.”

The Eagle also promises more political coverage, now devoting an ambitious whole page every Monday, though I doubt it’s in response to my recent observation that Berks needs better political coverage.

Anyways, I was writing about LOCAL political coverage, especially local school boards, which are very political, make very important decisions, and produce news that can be fun and interesting to report and read.

But the Eagle is devoting more space to … WIRE STATE NEWS?!

Monday’s initial “The Briefing” [exactly what Time magazine calls its dumbed-down, office-cooler-one-line-providing wrap-up] is 95 percent state news, most of which we heard about days ago. Did you know bottles of Prosecco were exploding in liquor stores?

The page must be easy to produce – just order some poor copy editor to mindlessly extract it from the Associated Press wire service.

News editor Ron Southwick gets to write a column about state news when he should be counseling the very young staff reporters on job basics such as how to work a beat and how to develop sources so when they piss off the officials they can still get the story.

Nobody who really follows state politics will follow it in the Eagle. Who could think Berks readers need bios on seven old white guys going through the budget motions in Harrisburg?

The Eagle is sitting on a gold mine right here in Berks – high demand, very short supply makes LOCAL news really valuable. Just have to dig it up.

Tattoo convention coming to Wyomissing

I couldn't find anything about the Pagoda City Tattoo Fest in the Reading Eagle or on Greater Reading Convention and Visitors Bureau's website.

It's Aug. 8-10 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. I regret that I neglected to get the name of the woman promoting the convention at West Reading's Art on the Avenue festival on Saturday. She said lots of local artists will be there.

Reading Eagle lacks vital political coverage

Doesn’t it suck when incumbents run unopposed?

In Berks County, the Democrat who planned to challenge the Republican state representative in the 130^th District has abandoned the race, saying he can’t get support because no one thinks he can win. The district, entirely in Berks, comprises Amity, Birdsboro, Boyertown, Colebrookdale, Douglass, Earl, parts of Exeter, Fleetwood, Oley, Pike, Rockland, Ruscombmanor, and Union.

In a one-source story on Page B3 in the Reading Eagle, no-longer-hopeful Russell Diesinger said support and financial help, even from the local Democratic party, were lackluster.

This is important!

Does it mean democracy is over? The Republicans win without a fight? I hear people complain about the worthless state government, which can’t shrink itself, reform property taxes, impose taxes on frackers, properly fund schools … .

For the story about Diesinger, why didn’t the Eagle reporter ask Democratic Party Chairman Tom Herman why the local Democrat organization didn't do more for its challenger?

The Lancaster newspaper knows this stuff is important – it ran a front-page story this week about the Lancaster County GOP’s new chairman.

The Lancaster reporter frames the issue: “With five chairmen in the past four years, the challenge for the county GOP has been to find leaders who are willing to stick around long enough to provide some continuity. Republican registration in the county has stayed at about 53 percent during that time.”

“Kirk said his tenure as chairman will be focused on getting voters to the polls on Election Day.”

What are Berks parties doing to improve Berks’ pathetic voting turnouts?

In the Eagle:

“As for the lack of funds, Diesinger said he suspects many people and groups get discouraged about supporting a candidate going up an incumbent. With the recent redrawing of district lines, incumbents have an even stronger advantage, he said.”

“I think it's the fact that people don't believe you can win,” he said.

What ‘people’ is Boscov thinking of?

A short story in the Reading Eagle on Wednesday about competing proposals to fix up major buildings in downtown Reading helps me understand why Al Boscov isn’t the best one to help develop the city.

He thinks the city is empty!

"I don't know that there's an easy way to magically get people to come downtown," the department store magnate said.

Man, open your eyes! Downtown is full of people. Foot traffic galore. Thousands of people of all sorts walking up and down Penn Street and among its side streets all day long.

Oh – maybe Boscov isn’t thinking of “those people” but instead of rich, white people – the sort who drink foo-foo coffee and beer and buy expensive handbags in West Reading.

What about fixing up Reading to benefit the 80,000 people who live there? Though poor, they have money, have needs and are looking for fun.

Developer Alan Shuman, Boscov’s opponent in this project, seems to get this. His projects tend to improve neighborhoods to benefit residents, like the first grocery store built in Reading in decades. He’s railed about the City Hall red-tape that discourages new business, although the city is working on that.

Boscov’s vision perpetuates the “us vs. them” mentality. I know Reading is full of hard-working, smart people with kids who rely on public transportation and would love to have more businesses downtown. What about a Boscov’s department store?

Boscov was further quoted: "You have to make the city attractive, and the people will find you."

How about façade improvements downtown? The city has a program, but I never see news about it. Perhaps its 21-page application could be pruned.

As in many cities, it will be when the residents themselves are helped to create fun places – perhaps markets, restaurants, unique shops with thong-wearing mannequins, plazas – that people from everywhere will visit.

Reading Eagle letter writer does better journalism than Eagle reporter

Even if the staff of the Reading Eagle are loth to find numbers to support their facts, at least one letter-writer gets the idea, providing better journalism in Berks.

Steve Simone’s letter-to-the-editor June 17 uses numbers to blow away the two Republican county commissioners’ argument that project-labor agreements keep workers out of Berks and lead to harassment and intimidation.

It’s an issue that has caught a lot of attention as conservative Republicans beat their anti-union drums across the country.

In a story May 30, Commissioner Christian Y. Leinbach, a Republican, said project-labor agreements are "a threat by labor union leadership. If you don't sign, you're going to face intimidation and harassment.”

Many reporters would follow up such a charge with a request for examples of intimidation and harassment.

In the article May 30, Commissioner Mark C. Scott, a Republican, said companies are not coming to Berks and job opportunities are being lost because of the influence of organized labor.

But Eagle reader Steve Simone provides facts:

“Since 2000 there have been about 126 publicly funded projects valued at $500,000 or greater put out for bid in Berks. Of those 126 projects 86 have been awarded to nonunion contractors who come from outside the county. An examination of private contracts yields similar results.”

And Simone clearly understands the importance of good local newsgathering:

“Shame on the Reading Eagle for printing these obviously incorrect statements without any follow-up. Your failure to challenge or attempt to verify only serves to legitimize these opinions that results in a great disservice to your readership.”

I hope the Eagle’s leaders understand this and work harder to hold officials accountable for their actions and statements rather than simply providing a platform for their dogma.

Do fancy surgery suites trump basic health care access in Berks?

A short story in the Reading Eagle on Monday suggests the local newspaper is out of touch with health care for the poor in Reading.

The story was about the Daniel Torres Hispanic Center in Reading, giving its 2014 Amigo Award to Reading Health System [formerly known as Reading Hospital].

The story said that Michael Toledo, the center’s executive director, praised the hospital's Reading Health Dispensary at the Berks Community Health Center at 838 Penn St. 

Don’t the writer and editors know that Reading Hospital shed the downtown dispensary in June 2012?

If I’m wrong, or if the hospital has taken an interest since, I must have missed it. I could find nothing to such effect in the hospital’s or newspaper’s public archives. So as far as I know and could find out on each organization’s websites, the Reading Health System does not have a dispensary at the health center.

In fact the Reading Hospital tossed the dispensary it did have there to the brand-new health center, mentioning it lost $3 million a year there, pretty much wiping its hands of providing care in the city.

A young woman from Reading told me that she was diagnosed with a thyroid problem in May. A mother in her 20s, she is suffering mood swings, hot flashes, nervousness, hair falling out. Her doctor gave her blood tests, which confirmed it. But treatment can’t start until she sees an endocrinologist. The next appointment available under her Medicare coverage? Oct. 16. The woman is frantic.

Many poor people tell me that when their children are sick, they head straight for Reading Health System’s emergency department. It’s easier and more convenient – sitting in an ER with a distressed child! – than getting an appointment with a doctor, they tell me.

I don’t know anything about health care finance or providing health care to poor people, but I like to ask questions. For example, why can’t Reading Health System peel off, say, $5 million from the $350 million it plans to spend on a surgical center in West Reading and donate it to the health center in downtown Reading so that poor people who are doing all the right things don’t have to wait months to get routine but vital treatments?

Or how about a million to pay some energetic young Spanish-speakers to explain to poor people waiting around the ER how it really is better to go to a family doctor?

Attracting surgeons and keeping Berks Countians in Berks for their surgeries are undeniably economic developments. But better attending to the more-routine needs of all our human capital would go further to improve life in Berks.

Greater Reading Convention & Visitors Bureau website is sadly out of touch

I’m Damien Hipster, and my job is to find a cool place for my software company in Delaware to hold its yearly convention. We do smart things all day and then want to go out at night. 

We like visiting small cities rather than stuffy resorts, and somewhere I heard about Reading, Pa. I’ll take a look at their tourism site, Greater Reading Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Take a Ride, is the logo. Right, the Reading Railroad! We’ll take a train ride! 

[Click, click, click, hmmmmm.] OK, I’ll look for that later.

I know I heard about an incredible arts center in Reading. I know we’d want to see that. Maybe buy some art. Here, “arts and culture.”

Hah! The Amish. No thanks. Done covered bridges, libraries and museums. Hmmm. What’s the name of that arts center? I’ll scroll down a bit … 

Daniel Boone … Ephrata Cloister? Forget this … maybe under “attractions” …

“If there is one word that best describes the attractions in Greater Reading, it would be ‘unique’.” [sic] 

This is getting pretty lame.

“We're home to North America's only pagoda, one of Pennsylvania's natural wonders, and a miniature man-made village.” Wow.

What’s wrong with this site?

Good news media know how to make numbers interesting

Many journalists know the best way to start researching a story is to find the data. Of course data have problems, but if everyone can agree at least on the numbers, you can start to get at the truth. Calling the Grand Poobahs for comment should be the last part of truth-gathering.

Data-driven reporting is kind of a buzz word in the news business, especially now that website technology provides beautiful ways to display and interact with numbers and graphics on tiny screens.

The Reading Eagle has missed this boat. Jason Brudereck is good at crunching Census numbers. Weather stats are sliced and diced to reveal surprising facts about Berk’s micro-climate.

But the use of graphs and charts is mostly ploddy in the print edition, and basically nonexistent on readingeagle.com.

The irony is that the Eagle’s crew of young reporters has probably studied data-driven reporting in college and would love to incorporate it. One drawback is it does take time.