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.