Saying goodbye to Chick's will take some time

Bridgeport is losing an institution. What was your favorite meal? Mine? I went through the wings, the mussels and more, but the tuna melt, my favorite by far. In this week's rant I, well, I don't really rant at all, but I do go down memory lane and remember a childhood kind of Chick's. If you didn't frequent Chick's in Bridgeport, tell us about your favorite restaurant. Where is it, what kind of food did they serve, and what was/is your favorite dish?

What a difference a party makes

About 10 years ago former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell was able to get gambling passed under the guise of providing property tax relief for Pennsylvanians. Now Democratic Governor Tom Wolf is proposing a budget that will provide property tax relief, if he can only raise taxes. Unfortunately, the local school property tax will remain. Please tell me we're not falling for a different sheep in 'Wolf's' clothing. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Here's this week's rant. 

Should all documents produced with taxpayer dollars be open to the public?

I probably do this every year, and if you’re a regular reader you may be able to recite the following from memory, but I think it is important to keep alive what I consider to be one of the most profound statements from one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. “We’re it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” At the heart of the quote is Jefferson’s well known distrust of a government with too much power, and the power of a free press. In this week's rant, I take a look at national Sunshine Week, and at all the documents that should be available to the taxpaying public. I guess the issue here is, do you agree?

The sweet smell of vindication

It doesn't happen very often, at least for me, but when it does, why not enjoy it? In last week's rant I talked about the possibility of Montgomery County, PA following in the footsteps of Montgomery County, Maryland...about 10 years ago. The vindication came when I read a report by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia that talks about doing the exact same thing!

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but are all terrorists Muslim?

This week’s rant is about President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Obama told the audience that we should make sure to not get on our high horse about the violence taking place in the name of Islam because Christians are also guilty of the same sins. Of course, he had to reach back nearly a millenium to the crusades to make his analogy. He did try to bring his analogy a little closer to our time in history by referencing slavery and Jim Crow laws, but I’m not sure either was linked to Christianity. There has been national outrage over Obama’s remarks at the breakfast, and perhaps rightfully so, but in my opinion, his remarks are right in line with other remarks he has made about terrorists over the years. He doesn’t seem to want to link terrorism to Islam. Think about that for a minute. Can you think of any act of terrorism carried out in recent memory that wasn’t done in the name of Islam, radical though it may be. And I’m not by any stretch of the imagination trying to say that all Muslims are terrorists, but it sure is starting to seem like all terrorists are Muslim.

Where would you spend your money if it wasn't going to property taxes?

Long headline, I know, but that's the gist of this week's rant. What’s your biggest bill every month? For most of us, it’s going to most likely be the amount of money you pay toward your mortgage, or your rent. Unless of course you’re driving around in a Lamborghini, then you probably have a higher car payment than I have a mortgage payment. But let’s just go with your mortgage payment. Now, depending on what you paid for your home, and how long you’ve owned your home, there’s a chance the amount of taxes you’re paying each fall may just exceed the amount you’re paying each month for the actual house. I was talking with someone who lives in a nice house, not a McMansion by any stretch, but a nice house, and I was shocked to learn they were paying $8,000 a year in school district property taxes. That works out to, oddly enough, $666 a month. I’m not saying the devil is at work here, but I will say the devil is certainly in the details. Imagine you have an extra $666 a month in disposable income. The first thing I would do is try squirrel away about half of it, but I’d almost guarantee I’d be spending the other half.

Which piece of the puzzle is Norristown missing?

That's probably a loaded question, but it needs to be asked. There are a lot of good things happening in Norristown right now, and there is momentum for revitalization, but it certainly hasn't kicked into gear just yet. So what's missing? In this week's rant I look at what I believe just might be the missing piece.

Would you donate a dollar to save your town?

How much change do you have in your pocket or purse right now? Chances are, it’s close to a dollar, maybe two. If so, how much would it affect your ability to pay your bills this month if you were to send one dollar to a worthy cause? And what if you knew that dollar could make a difference? I mean a real difference. Norristown is on the brink of revitalization, but there are certain key pieces to the puzzle that also have to be in place for it to make a real come back. A town not only needs to be clean, and safe, and have a thriving business community, but it also needs to have a vibrant arts scene. Unfortunately, the arts community cannot be self-sustaining. It needs the help of the communities it serves to keep the creative juices flowing. To that end, the Centre Theater in Norristown is struggling and it needs your help. In this week's rant I explore the possibilities of what a dollar could actually do for the county seat of Norristown, Pennsylvania.

Norristown needs to resolve itself to revitalize

In my latest rant I go off about New Year's resolutions and how people pretty much dumped them after the first couple of weeks of January are in the books. I think people should resolve to do things when the moment strikes, not at the end of the year when they're thinking about all the things they should have done before the calendar came around for a change.

Calling Christopher Walken: Norristown needs more cow bell!

In my latest rant I talk about the good things in Norristown that are attracting people to downtown again, but, as I see it, there just aren't enough venues. We need more cowbell! Within the past couple of years we have seen new restaurants come along, including Banh Mi and Almaz Café, to join La Michoacana and August Moon, two established restaurants that anchor Main and Arch streets. The international flair is there, we just need to bring everyone together to talk about it, and more importantly to tell people who live outside Norristown about it. The addition of the new Five Saints Distillery, which is expected to debut sometime late this year, will add another dimension to Main Street. August Moon also hosts Second Saturday jazz nights every month drawing a crowd from far and wide to come into town to hear authentic jazz that might make you think you were sitting in a speak easy on Iberville St. in New Orleans. But the restaurants alone won’t keep the momentum going. We need specialty shops, and more eateries, to complement the two theaters we have in the county seat. The Centre Theater is holding ‘A Night of Wine and Roses’ with two live shows on, you guessed it, Valentine’s Day. Tickets can be purchased at thecentretheater.ticketleap.com. There are a lot of other events at the theater, which is currently undergoing a series of renovations throughout the building to attract a more diverse audience, including a space for music lessons and a small independent and second run movie theater. Theatre Horizon, celebrating its 10th anniversary, continues to produce stellar stage productions, and also holds acting classes, hosts an autism drama program as well as an after school drama club. These are the things that attract people to downtowns all across America. And we need more of them.

Journalism's future in 2015 and beyond

No, I'm not trying to channel Buzz Lightyear, I'm just thinking about the future of our newsrooms. In this week's rant I take a moment to reflect on the past year, but spend the majority of time talking about what the future of journalism holds. I think it's a bright future. You may not. No matter where you stand on the subject always remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: "Were it left to me to decide whether there should be government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Well said, Tom, well said.

What deserves our attention in 2015?

Last week's column caught me off guard, but I'm already gearing up for my first column of the New Year. What's the biggest issue facing us in 2015? Property taxes are still in my cross hairs, but is there something else that deserves more attention? Just in case you missed it, here's last week's rant. And, when you're sitting around the house this weekend, take a moment or two to think about what really gets you fired up. It might just be something we should all be a little ticked off about.

Trying to put a bow on 2014 just won't work

More people than I imagined actually showed up in this year’s mid-term election. I was predicting somewhere along the lines of our primary, which was dismal. Less than 19 percent of voters in the county level and less than 7 percent in the county seat decided it was worth their while to vote back in May. The general election was much healthier, with more than 40 percent turnout on the county level. But honestly, I can’t in good conscious put a bow on turnout until we get a little closer to the 70 and 80 percent turnout, and sometimes 90 percent, we see in third-world countries. When we do get there, or at least get close to those numbers, perhaps then we could take a look at the size of our government on the state and federal levels. For this week’s rant, though, let’s concentrate on state government. Did you know we have the second largest state legislature in the United States? Well, did you know our second largest state legislature actually costs twice as much as the largest, California’s, by about double? Let’s try putting a bow on this slippery little devil when 2015 rolls around, shall we? There have been several attempts in the past. A couple of years ago Speaker of the House Sam Smith offered up a bill to reduce the size of state government. The first time around it died in the Senate because of inaction. Surprise, surprise. The second time around, just last year, the speaker split his effort into two bills, one for the House and one for the Senate, but of course, members of both bodies decided to tack amendments on that, I’m speculating, they knew would probably table the proposals. There’s a lot going on in Harrisburg that even the most experienced bow tier would have trouble getting into one shiny box, but we simply cannot give up on the effort. Closer to home, we did pull off a major redesign of all of our newspapers in the Philadelphia area. And, we actually put some bows on them during Breast Cancer Awareness month. On a personal level, I joined the newly formed board of the Greater Norristown Society of the Arts and we’ve been working extremely hard this year to breathe new life into the Centre Theater. We’re nowhere near putting a bow on the theater, but we are making strides toward getting the society to a solvent level. We’re launching a new music school that we’re hoping will become all the rage. Think about it, a music school in Norristown. What’s next, a symphony orchestra? And, of course, it wouldn’t be a rant if I didn’t end this week’s column with the biggest missing bow of the year, property tax reform. We just don’t seem to be able to get that bowed tied, even a little bit. Just when you think we at least have a piece of ribbon wrapped around a portion of the problem someone comes along with a pair of scissors.

To be fair, state legislator pay should be frozen

As I look back on my columns for 2014 it seems like I’ve written one long column, I’m talking novel long, about the need for property tax reform in Pennsylvania. Along the way I complained about some of the things our state legislature deemed more important than providing relief to property owners, who are being held hostage in the name of public education, and while I know my words have not fallen on deaf ears, our elected officials have been successful in sidestepping the issue the entire legislative session. In their defense they have been busy, though. This past legislative session a total of 369 proposals were enacted, according to witf.org, a Harrisburg-based media outlet. House members introduced 3,160 proposals, and 1,091 resolutions, while their counterparts in the Senate introduce 1,981 proposals and more than 500 resolutions. Man, that’s a lot of paperwork. Somehow or another, our state legislature found a way to come together to pass 369 bills during this past legislative session. And yet not a single measure on property tax relief found its way to the governor’s desk. To be fair, though, neither did a measure on liquor privatization or pension reform. You know that guy in the office that always looks like he’s busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest, that’s our state legislature. While I’m not one to complain, as I tried to explain in my complete rant in this week's column, which you can find in its entirety right here, I’m suggesting we freeze the salaries of our state legislators right where they are.

Our elected officials give life to bills, or crush them

This entire year I've written about property tax reform. Now, while I'm not political expert by any stretch of the imagination, I do pay attention to what's going on in the world of politics, both here and abroad. One thing that has become perfectly clear to me is that our elected officials can give life to a bill in a matter of days. They can also sit on a bill until it suffocates. Or, they can simply crush it. In my latest rant, I talk about, you guessed it, property tax reform. How are the bills designed to bring some form of relief to property tax owners doing?

Venting about something other than politics

With just a few weeks left until Election Day, I thought it would be a good time to vent about something other than politics. In this week's rant, I take on drivers, or more accurately, people who don't know how to drive.

Time to put ISIS in deep freeze

It's not often that I agree with our president, but when it comes to ISIS, or ISEL or whatever you want to call them, our president has it right. We need to bomb them right off the face of the planet. In my latest rant I talk about a particularly disturbing segment of a recent 60 Minutes airing that should have gotten everyone's attention.

Real quick, where will you be on Oct. 4?

Next up on the agenda...Oct. 4 craft beer and food fundraiser for The Centre Theater Who needs tickets? I describe it all in my latest rant in The Times Herald. We have a fundraiser coming up on Oct. 4 for the Centre Theater. We’re doing a craft beer and food pairing event to raise money for the venerable venue. It promises to be a great afternoon, starting around 4:30 and going until 7:30. I’ll be the guest bartender, so come on by and say hello if you’re in the neighborhood. If you’re not in the neighborhood, make a U-turn and come on over anyway. The fundraiser is going to help the entire theater, but just in case you had no idea what goes on at 208 DeKalb, I’ll let you in on a few of the events. Wallafest is held every summer and features about 16 bands over two days. There are plays and poetry readings, and there are kids programs as well, lots of programs for kids. Citizen Paine is an off-Broadway show that will be making a return appearance this fall, and we’re in the planning stages for the upcoming theatrical season. Oh, and we’re just about to launch a music school. Did you know there was a music school in Norristown? We’ve been lucky enough to get a couple of donations from our two local state representatives, Matt Bradford and Mike Vereb, and we’ve purchased a few instruments. We’re teaming up with the Police Athletic League to brings kids over after school to give them a taste of the arts through this incredibly low cost program. Come down Oct. 4 and I’ll tell you all about it.

The new Times Herald is turning heads

I don't know if you had a chance to see it yet, but we've changed! I talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of going through a redesign in my latest rant.

Naming names in the war on property taxes in Pennsylvania

It's time to start naming names in the war on property taxes, and I do it here, in this week's rant. We've been talking about property tax reform for so long I can now type property tax reform with my eyes closed. Unfortunately, our elected officials don't seem to care about how long we've been talking about. Why should they when they know they have a few more years in office to mull it over. But guess what, those years are up, at least for our House members, and for half the state Senate.