Glenn wrote:
A brief synopsis to guide you.
In 2004, the new Spruce Hill Civic Association representative, Ed
Halligan, made a serious crusade and demanded that now that he has
moved into the neighborhood the only event in the A park will be his
Spruce Hill May Fair. With 48 hours remaining before a scheduled music
and arts festival planned for nearly 9 months, it appeared that the
permitted festival was going to be canceled without prior notice.
Glenn gets his facts wrong, as usual. I've posted baout this before, and
here are the facts, again.
I was the founder and leader of the festival organization with almost
all of the financial and legal responsibility as I had held for the
previous 5 years.
Glenn has never been the "founder" of the festival organization. The
Festivals began around 1970. As far as the "festival organization" goes,
Glenn was one of many festival organizers over the years (including Tony
West and Chris Leswing). He's never turned it into a formal
organization; at best, he was the first among volunteers who'd filled
out the forms and clung to the bank accounts.
When I successfully intervened by contacting elected leaders at this
late and busy time and stopped this outrageous maneuvering, Tony West,
Brian Siano, and Ed Haligan managed to persuade the department of
Recreation beuracrat to violate the city's contract and deliver an
expensive "showmobile stage" to them instead of the contracted liable
party, me.
Glenn has now vaulted into the realms of fantasy. I've posted the story
before, and a detailed recap is in the listserv archives. In a nut: We'd
all agreed to be present when Rec delivered the stage for the Festival.
Two days before the Festival, Glenn goes ballistic and starts accusing
everyone from Spruce Hill to E. Howard Hunt of trying to close down the
Festival. Tony and I settle things with Rec, and Glenn suddenly reneges
on the agreement and demands that _only he_ be present when the stage is
delivered.
Well, Saturday morning rolled around, and everyone_but_ Glenn showed up.
Ever since, he's tried to portray this as a tale of his heroism against
evil Nazi automatons. But it's a story of his own failure.
The delivery crew apologized to me at the end of the day and explained
that they had been ordered to deliver the expensive equipment to these
jerks at an EARLIER TIME and NOT CALL ME as we had confirmed and had
done for years. The crew knew that I was required to sign a contract
accepting liability for this equipment.
Lord knows what the Rec guys told Glenn, but it ain't true. We'd _all_
known, for weeks, that we should meet the Rec truck around 6:45 that
morning. That's when we showed up. Glenn has no reasonable excuse for
not having been out there, on time, to meet these responsibilities he
goes on and on about.
One sign of Glenn's egomania turns up here. Notice that he does not
mention the presence of Cheshire Agusta, who had been co-running the
festival that year. She was present. She was as much an old festival
hand as Glenn was. She was working for the Festival, and not for the
FoCP, Tony, Ed or myself. She took the responsibility of being present
when the stage was delivered-- not Glenn. But Glenn's erased her from
his account, in order to present himself as the heroic defender of the
Festival.
Brian is lying that I agreed to their final attempt at bullying.
When I learned they intended to intervene and "intimidate" the city
workers when I received the stage, I warned Brian that I would call
the police if any of them attempted to interfere. I even called the
police in advance to tell them that I was concerned about this
occurring at 7AM. Please note, the police have always been supportive
of the festival.
Well, Glenn's lying here, too. He'd agreed. Glenn had always cited the
Rec people's placement of the stage as a factor in the problems. So we
were all concerned that the stage wouldn't get placed properly. Glenn
had agreed to be there with the rest of us.
As far as "calling the police," was concerned, I don't recall that,
mainly because we chalked it up as an empty and hysterical threat. It
does raise an interesting question: how could Glenn even _call_ the cops
when he was clearly _sleeping_ at the time we were out there?
I apologize to the people of West Philadelphia for not bringing legal
action for breech of contract against the Department of Recreation. In
hindsight, I realize that incident may have been the last opportunity
to save Clark Park as a free and open park for all Philadelphians and
their visitors. I was so burnt out from the years of fighting with
FOCP while I tried to establish the festival and its tradition as a
celebration of local art and the neighborhood. When my group was
afraid to pursue legal action, I just gave up.
Meanwhile, the Festival continues, Clark Park endures, the Dude abides,
and Glenn... _dissolves_.
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