Reading politician gets spanked for putting common sense above party loyalty

by Steve Reinbrecht

The Berks County Democratic Committee kicked City Council Vice President Donna Reed off the committee Saturday in a 29-24 vote.

The party ejected her because she supported Jim McHale, a Republican, over Wally Scott, a Populist, in the election for Reading mayor last fall.

That violates county committee bylaws.

I don’t follow inside city party politics. But hubbub about the city’s new mayor and its fallout will affect life across Berks County and is fodder for better local journalism.

It’s clear Reed has critics. She said many were rallied for Saturday’s vote.

An orthographically challenged Facebook page called “Friends for Ernie Schlegel” cited her “vulgar and repulsive actions in openly supporting a Republican Candidate in an election cycle.”

This, “along with her increasingly erratic behavior as a Committee Women, have undermined her ability to stand as a Committee Women for the Democratic Party,” the Friends site post says.

Reed, who is in her fourth term on City Council, seemed unrattled.

“People [at the meeting] for the most part were nice,” Reed said. “It was a protracted debate. I can still attend the meetings as I am an elected Dem official, and the chairman encouraged me to keep coming.”

The ousting had little practical effect on her, she said.

“Not really. Actually, [it] might enhance my reputation.”

I worked with Reed for years in the Reading Eagle newsroom and know she is smart, hardworking and dedicated to improving the city.

* This post was corrected Feb. 1 to say that Reed is in her fourth term on City Council.

Former mayor defends Reading’s Act 47 status

by Steve Reinbrecht

Last week, Reading Mayor Wally Scott blamed predecessor Tom McMahon, who served Jan. 5, 2004, to Jan. 2, 2012, for the city’s financial problems.

Real-long-time Reading Eagle City Hall Reporter Don Spatz duly reported Scott’s dissing of McMahon during his rambling hour-plus State of the City speech, but didn’t ask McMahon to respond. That’s shoddy reporting no editor should accept.

“He [Scott] said former Mayor Tom McMahon put the city in the financial stress it's in, and got it into Act 47, so the city's problems are the fault of this council and that mayor,” Spatz wrote.

In response, former Mayor Tom McMahon said Saturday that Scott doesn’t understand the city’s position.

“He clearly has not understood the financial history of the city, including budgets, contracts, pensions, negotiated or arbitrated settlements over the past 30 years, or he would know at least some of the reasons why act 47 made so much sense,” he wrote in an e-mail.

McMahon referred to then-state-Economic Development Secretary George Cornelius’ remarks about his decision to accept Reading into Act 47.

In November, 2009, Cornelius told Reading leaders:

“Act 47 isn’t a cure; it’s merely life support. Don’t sit back and think some state coordinator will fix things, or that the problems will resolve themselves. If Reading is to thrive as a vibrant economic driver for Berks County, if the city is to be self-sustaining, everyone in Berks County will have to work hard to make it happen.”

McMahon said he still believes the city needed to enter the Act 47 program.

“But I don't believe he [Scott] has the capacity to be able to visualize how to emerge from Act 47. 

“It was meant to give us a breather to avoid bankruptcy, which any sane person would want the city to avoid.

“It will be hard to replace the revenue stream it brought.

“I actually feel sorry for him in a way that he does not seem to have the tools to be able to deal with the job at hand.”

McMahon said Scott doesn’t understand Act 47, including the benefits it brought to the city by way of commuter tax.

“Wally's first month of childish blathering does not bode well for this city.”

Reading Mayor Wally Scott: If I fail, it's your fault!

by Steve Reinbrecht

It’s clear that Wally Scott will be a failed leader. He’s following the Trump model – claiming he has simple solutions to the city’s problems and that critics and opponents and other leaders are incompetent or evil and haven’t been smart enough to think of them.

The difference between the two men is – Trump has not been elected.

The main message in Scott’s State Of The City address: “If I fail, it won’t be my fault. People are working against me.”

For Reading to improve, facing the obstacles it does, leaders will need to behave professionally and work together for a common goal, trying to rise above petty, emotional differences. The best thing a mayor can do is fairly explain the facts and the costs and benefits of very tough decisions to the public. It's not really his job to make those decisions. 

Instead, from the start, Scott has blamed City Council and called out its clerk, Linda Kelleher. That seems to be his tactic – he doesn’t defend his decisions with reason, but attacks the other side for its evil motives.

He’s made it abundantly clear he will not work with Council.

"I will either put you in your place or I will ignore you," he said.

City Council will have to try to stop him, and in doing so, will appear to demonstrate that he is correct.

In his speech, he repeated again that City Council should have picked his nominee, Rei Encarnacion, for managing director --the most important job in the city – no matter his qualifications.

Encarnacion had a lot of support in the community. But that’s not good enough! The city needs qualified, professional administrators – more than any elected officials! It was never made clear to me that Encarnacion has the qualifications, and Scott never made them public. Why doesn’t Encarnacion run for office?

And Scott has appointed Encarnacion’s sister, Josephine Encarnacion, as director of human resources. Such a coincidence, that the best-qualified candidates for two top positions, in Scott’s opinion, are in the same family!

That move echoes former Mayor Joe Eppihimer, a Scott protégée, who appointed the brother of a major supporter, Ricky Peña, to run the human-resources department.

Scott blamed former Mayor Tom McMahon for leading the city into financial distress. He said McMahon got the city into Act 47, and explained that the city's problems are the fault of this council and that mayor.

In reality, the city’s problems are those shared by most small cities – the incapacity of the tax base to properly fund operations.

And most news organizations would have made some effort to get comment from McMahon, so publicly and unfairly dissed.

Scott perpetuates the unproductive “us vs. them” mentality, pitting city residents vs. “outsiders,” by dismissing the needs of commuters to have streets plowed.

"I don't feel I have to answer to anyone but the people of the city of Reading," he was quoted. But to succeed, he will have to negotiate with business leaders and Berks County and state officials, at least.

Scott said many city ordinances - such as its quality-of-life rules and tickets - are meant only to make money for the city without doing anything for the people.

Does he have alternate plans to enforce laws requiring weeds to be cut and trash to be disposed of properly?

And Scott is going to have the understaffed police department give out parking tickets.

He seems to be reinventing a lot of wheels on a train that’s mostly off the track.

Berks County has tried nonprofit journalism

by Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle has had recent stories and editorials about the owners of the big Philadelphia newspapers donating them to a nonprofit foundation.

In general, more people are reading the news than ever, but getting them to pay for it is the hard part. In any case, the world needs new ways to fund good journalism – which is necessary for good leadership on every level.

In a letter to the Reading Eagle, Kevin Murphy, president of Berks County Community Foundation, wrote: “Nonprofit ownership of news media outlets is hardly new. Propublica, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR have long provided this country with some of its best (and hardest-hitting) journalism. The list of nonprofit-owned media outlets is actually quite long, and their editorial quality seems relatively unquestioned.”

In fact, Berks County has tried nonprofit journalism, but it fizzled.

In 2009, Murpy’s organization raised more than $500,000 to start bctv.org, designed as a website to support investigative and citizen journalism in Berks. I left my job as a copy editor at the Eagle to become the bctv.org managing editor.

“The web-based Hub [news platform] will include in-depth reports on local issues by an independent investigative journalist, supported and amplified by regional citizen journalists. An editor will manage the Hub and provide web-based opportunities for community feedback, completing the information cycle,” according to the business plan, written by the community foundation.

We posted stories such as:

How painkiller addiction was driving people toward heroin abuse

How Reading Hospital was buying doctor practices

How the Reading School District had been rife with nepotism

Why many women don’t report domestic abuse

Why so few Latinos had elected positions in Reading

How Reading’s health needs were worse than the rest of the county

How it’s hard to get investors and tenants for downtown apartments

The business plan said the project was to “adhere to strictest journalistic standards and ethics.” 

That’s what got me in trouble. After three years, when the grant money ran out, BCTV executive director Ann Sheehan fired me for insubordinately posting a link on bctv.org after she had told me not to -- a link to a newsworthy statement by then-Mayor Vaughn Spencer. I was fired for doing journalism, but not one of the originally gung-ho supporters of bctv.org defended me, except for then-board member and former Reading Mayor Karen Miller. Another board member told me it was time to lose my ideals.

Since then, bctv.org has not had a professional editor. It has turned into a bulletin board for news releases. It seems to have little or no original content. See for yourself.

The reason it fizzled, and perhaps the reason Murphy didn’t mention the experiment in his letter, was that the wrong non-profit was selected.

Leaders at Berks Community Television had no interest in doing journalism or effectively promoting the project. Staff had no skills or interest to find sponsors or expand coverage to get more donations, or even spell names correctly. One of the colleges would have been a much better choice.

The Reading Eagle could use some competition, however it gets funded.

Half of bctv.org’s money was local, half was from the Knight Foundation, a non-profit whose goal is “promoting journalistic 

excellence in the digital age.”

It's not happening in Berks County.

Flint disaster could not happen in Reading, water official says

by Steve Reinbrecht

Reading and Flint, Mich., are each known as among the poorest cities in America. Neglect and cover-ups at a criminal level seem to be emerging in the Michigan community.

Could contaminated water be poisoning residents in Reading as it has in Flint?

No way, a Reading Area Water official said Thursday.

“Quite simply, there are no parallels between the city of Flint water system and the Reading Area Water Authority water system,” authority solicitor Michael Setley wrote in an e-mail.

“The fact that Flint may have an impoverished population and old pipes had nothing to do with the toxicity of their water.”

The problem started when Flint switched water sources, according to Reuters:

“Flint, under a state-appointed emergency manager, switched to Flint River water in April 2014 from the Lake Huron supply that Detroit uses to save money.

“Complaints about the water began within a month of the move. But Flint did not return to Detroit water until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead, which can cause brain damage and other health problems, in Flint tap water and in some children. Corrosive water from the river, known locally as a dumping ground, caused more lead to leach from Flint pipes than Detroit water did.”

As many as 9,000 children may have suffered lead poisoning, the Times reported.

RAWA serves about 150,000 people. It draws water from Lake Ontelaunee, which is not contaminated with lead, Setley wrote.

“RAWA has no plans to switch the source of its water. Therefore, there is no risk that RAWA’s system will experience the water-source-related problems plaguing Flint.”

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama said that Flint officials keeping the truth from customers was inexcusable.

That couldn’t happen with Reading’s water, Setley said.

In Pennsylvania, the Department of Environmental Protection mandates routine water sampling and testing. It also requires public disclosure of any event that violates DEP water quality standards.

I found the state's website dauntingly difficult to navigate, but the information seems to be there.

According to the DEP website, RAWA had no lead problems in 2014 and one a year at least back to 2009. The violations are listed in the authority’s annual reports.

“Absent fraud in water sampling and testing, which I can’t imagine, it is virtually impossible to keep a water quality issue a secret. There are simply too many sets of eyes on it every day,” Setley said.

Thieves take all four wheels from two Berks County vehicles

by Steve Reinbrecht

At least twice in the past couple of weeks, Berks residents have woken to find all four tires on their Nissan vehicles stolen.

The photo is of a car in the first block of Wyomissing Hills Boulevard, struck in the first week of January.

In response to a note from a resident, Wyomissing Police Chief Jeffrey Biehl said that thieves stole all four wheels in a similar crime in West Reading about a week earlier.

It would appear there is a black market for Nissan tires and wheels, he wrote.

“I see no need to be frightened, but spread the word for residents to be vigilant for strange cars or people in the area.”

Reading Council snubs Latinos; Reading Eagle response is leaden

by Steve Reinbrecht

Many Latinos in Reading are upset because City Council snubbed the Latino community by voting 5-1 on Monday to place an old white man in a vacant council seat rather than a prominent Latina, Johanny Cepeda.

For one, it invoked an important message in Obama’s speech Tuesday.

In his Reading Eagle column Tuesday, City Hall reporter Don Spatz scolded Cepeda’s supporters for not following the process.

“Sorry, folks, but you have to know the rules before you grouse.”

Neither Spatz’s article about the vote Monday nor his column mentioned that Cepeda is the executive director of the Berks County Latino Chamber.

She’s also a successful downtown-business owner, having run Mi Casa Su Casa restaurant on Penn Street for years.

And she’s gotten her feet wet politically. Last spring, she lost a primary challenge against Councilman [now President] Jeff Waltman by 78 votes. She had a record 117 write-in votes in November.

So why give the spot on council to John Slifko? I’m sure he is a wise, fair and ethical man who knows a lot about the city and its governance. But isn’t it time to have leaders more representative of the city?

On such an obviously important issue, the Eagle had a duty to poll each member on his or her vote: How can you justify giving this seat to an old white man instead of a Latina woman?

In general, Council cited their secret interview scores. Slifko topped Cepeda. Just math.

Latinos won’t vote and get engaged in local politics until they think they have a chance.

That hurts everybody.

It opens the way for demagoguery as we see in the rhetoric of the new mayor, Wally Scott.

He says he wants a Latino, “Rei” Encarnacion, as his managing director. But observers say that’s a cynical ploy because he knows Encarnacion does not meet the requirements. Where is his résumé?

Only Brian Twyman, whom I’ll assume doesn’t believe he is white, voted against Slifko.

A long time ago the human resource director under Mayor Paul Angstadt told me he worried about the future of Reading.

He saw that before long, the majority of the city would be people from backgrounds very different from those who had been in power since the beginning.

His worry was that the people in charge – mostly old white men with a few old white woman – would not work to teach the new Latino leaders how to run the city. Not only the elected officials, but leaders in every sector.

He pointed to other cities, which became black majorities, that suffered harmful problems in leadership when white voters began to be outnumbered.

Instead of making sure the transition went smoothly for the benefit of everyone, outgoing leaders clung to proprietary issues and political fiefdoms, as is natural.

They prevented a new generation of leaders from getting the best information, the best advice – but most importantly the experience they need in agencies they would be taking over.

Reading Eagle should demand that new mayor explain firing

by Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle is right to choose Wally Scott, Reading’s new mayor, as top of the list of people to watch in 2016.

  

I hope the newspaper itself will be reporting his actions.

It could start with why Scott fired David Kersley on Monday, Scott’s first day on the job.

Kersley, the city’s business analyst, apparently announced his termination on FaceBook about 5 p.m.

He was hired under Mayor Tom McMahon in December 2009, and has an MBA.

National Public Radio featured Kersley as somebody arriving to turn the city around.

“In Reading, there was even a box of checks sitting uncashed in somebody's office. It was discovered by David Kersley, another expert called in from outside to help Reading.

“Kersley found the checks through one technique he uses to understand how a city functions: Sometimes he'll imagine himself as a piece of paperwork, and walk himself through the system.”

As part of his job, he wrote articles for the Reading Eagle explaining policy .

Monday evening, I could find no mention of him on the Reading City Hall website.

I haven’t read an interview by anybody asking Wally Scott whom else he plans to fire.

Politics, not science, sways Reading Eagle’s worldview

by Steve Reinbrecht

The leaders of the Reading Eagle embarrass the community they claim to represent with their editorial Saturday, Jan. 2.

The writers at the most important news-gathering organization in Berks County flout scientific consensus that human activity has contributed to a dangerously warming climate.

Why? Were they handed a conservative-friendly headline and told to fill the space below it with any old words? Were they really trying to support their thesis? Can’t they identify the real issues connected with global warming? Why not comment on some issue in Berks, which they should know something about and certainly needs more commentary? Who knows? This is another example of the often bizarre judgment of the newsroom leaders.

I am compelled to point out this hypocrisy or ignorance or Tea Party pandering or laziness of thought or whatever would lead grown men to publish something like this editorial in a highly visible spot in their newspaper.

Members of the community, if they want the community to improve, should also question the judgment of these opinion leaders at the Reading Eagle. 

Next, the newspaper will send investigative reporter Ford Turner – still struggling to usefully explain how opiate addicts can get treatment around here – to find out, “Did God create the world 7,000 years ago, or could Darwin be right?” He’ll interview Jon Scott, Ellen Horan and Chris Leinbach.

The Eagle editorial doesn’t even try to defend Saturday’s headline: “No doubt Earth is warmer, but what's the cause?” Its own content states that people are heavy contributors.

For some reason, it quotes three politicians -- President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Secretary of State John Kerry -- not scientists. It quotes a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, again with little relevance.

It quotes an organization called Environmental Research Letters:

"There is a general consensus among biophysical scientists across the United States that climate change is occurring; humans are contributing to it; and climate science is a trustworthy, mature and credible discipline.”

According to the Letters, [according to the Eagle] more than 90 percent of biophysical scientists surveyed across disciplines at major universities believe humans are causing rising temperatures.

So what’s the debate?

On the other side, the Eagle presents an undeniable scientist, Judith Curry, a Georgia Tech professor who told a House committee in 2013 that there's so much uncertainty about natural variation in the climate that she doesn't know what's going to happen.

But even she agrees humans are causing much of the warming.

A National Public Radio article says that Curry said “human activities are contributing to global warming, but she bridles at the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ] consensus that humans are ‘largely responsible’ — in other words, that more than 50 percent of global warming to date is caused by human activity.

“ ‘It might be around 50 percent or even a little less. I mean this is what we don't know,’ she says.”

From this, the Eagle concludes:

“There is no doubt that the climate is getting warmer, but we don't know if it is being caused by man or Mother Nature.”