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The two items today said a lot to me personally and
at least to me are somewhat related.
As far as Penn's tenancy goes- I truly have not
understood why there has to be an office at Penn that DECIDES what is
best. Why not offer affordable rents that will stimulate commercial
activity and let the free market take over as to what is and what is not
needed. I don't think that Penn needs to charge suburban mall rents to
cover their mortgages. They could create a great commercial atmosphere by
going for something more urban and community oriented than suburban mall, again
my opinion. We have tried to make an investment in our community- with our
money (unlike many of Penn's programs which
tend to always use other's money) and it has been a very hard struggle. I
think that if Penn would think more of local community and less of big
commercial enterprises the whole area could benefit more.
On unions- I am not a big fan -coming from a small
mill town that was broken by the unions refusal to change. And from the problems
we encountered with our construction ( I still don't understand, if I am paying,
why I can't hire a friend and artist to work for me, who wants to work for me
etc.). Somehow this is not my choice at all. And all phases of
construction have to cost in excess of that if we had built on the other
side of City Line avenue. With that said-we have always tried to pay a
living wage to all of our employees. The one exception is our employees
that we have under a program to help people with mental problems get
re-acclimated to the work-force. Government regulations force me to only
hire them on a very limited basis and for minimum only wages or they will have
to sacrifice some of their SSD benefits. I don't understand why those that
are trying to help themselves aren't allowed a little leeway to make things
better for themselves- but unfortunatley, those are the current
restircitons and I have to go along.
End of my soapbox.
Thanks
Vince (and Abbraccio)
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