Ray,
That Fenton did not cooperate with the investigation is not a judgement
on cooperativeness of his character, and I did not write: "Fenton is not
a cooperative man," which would be a true ad hominem argument. It was
just a statement of fact. He did not cooperate with this investigation.
No one has disputed this claim with a conflicting account that alleges
cooperation. He may have had wise, legitimate reasons for not
cooperating. Knowing John much better than you do, I am sure he had good
reasons.
You write that my second article was "an attempt to legitimize BIDs by
presenting them in a positive way." Quite the mind-reader, you are! BIDs
don't need to be "legitimized"; they are creatures of law. I explained
the process of successfully establishing a BID. To study that, one needs
to look at a BID that has been successfully established. I was quite
surprised, though, to discover how free of opposition the Mt. Airy BID
had been. I did not "make a case" for it; that case had just been made,
entirely without me. I pushed hard to look for dissenters, looked under
the usual rocks, found none. So a fact emerges: some BID proposals are
more popular than others. Make of this fact what you will. And read my
third article, while you're at it. Get out of your parochial cubicle on
Locust Walk and check out the rest of the city you live in.
If you have a tip on a BID in the city that is experiencing significant
opposition or dissent, please let me know. I was the first writer in the
city to publish the opposition UCD ran into from Blackwell.
I can hardly have any dependency on "UCD or its proposed BID." Its
proposed BID specifically excludes me and has no relevance to any
community activism I engage in, so I have publicly declined to take a
stand on it. The company that pays me to report couldn't care less about
UCD or Penn or FoCP or Ray Rorke; none of the above has ever been worth
a plug nickel to us. We're interested in stories that shed light on
citywide issues of governance, and local service districts in general
are increasingly important players. Perhaps you find this bad news.
Still, it's news you have a right to learn.
-- Tony West
ucd's statement was: 'UCD has made numerous documented attempts to
contact John Fenton asking him to respond to the matter under
investigation. Our calls and letters have gone unanswered.' that's a
statement of fact. in your article, you state: 'fenton is not
cooperating with the investigation.' that's a judgement on your part
about fenton, not a statement of fact. there are any number of
legitimate reasons fenton might not have been able to communicate with
ucd, reasons that you might not have known about, reasons that had
nothing to do with cooperativeness. you might take more care, when
writing for public newpapers, to avoid the ad hominem.
In that article, I wrote nothing at all about UCD's proposed BID,
because it bears no relation at all to Fenton's activities or the
subject of the story. UCD at this time is an SSD, not a BID.
your article was entitled "Blackwell Battles Penn Over Services
District: First in a Series." at the end of the article we learn that
it's the first in a series of articles about "how different
neighborhoods tackle the challenge of supplementing public services."
your next article, "What's in a Bid? More Local Services or Just
Taxes?" makes the case for a 'winning bid' in mt. airy, and is an
attempt to legitimize bids by presenting them in a positive way. as
we all know, the legitimacy of ucd's proposed bid took a big hit when
the whole fenton affair blew up and blackwell publicly voiced her
alienation with ucd/penn.
Yes, you, Ray Rorke, are befuddled. Q.E.D.
ergo: I can see clearly what you, tony west, cannot. how dependent
you've become upon ucd and its proposed bid, how that dependency is
tenaciously defended, how intimately it's wrapped up with your
personal need to control focp...
[aka ray]
----
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the
list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see
<http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
