Welcome to the Coatesville Dems Blog

Public Corruption in Chester County, PA

I believe an unlikely mix of alleged drug trafficking related politicos and alleged white nationalist related politicos united to elect the infamous “Bloc of Four” in the abysmal voter turnout election of 2005. During their four year term the drug business was good again and white nationalists used Coatesville as an example on white supremacist websites like “Stormfront”. Strong community organization and support from law enforcement, in particular Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll has begun to turn our community around. The Chester County drug trafficking that I believe centers on Coatesville continues and I believe we still have public officials in place that profit from the drug sales. But the people here are amazing and continue to work against the odds to make Coatesville a good place to live.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Falandez James Court Documents

Mr. James had his first contact with the Magisterial Court System when he was 13. He had his first contact with the Common Pleas Court System when he was 15.

Most of the Magisterial Court Documents are traffic violations

The Common Pleas Documents are serious stuff.

Numbered from most recent to older.

Falandez James Court Documents

Magisterial Courts

1.

2.

3.

4

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12

13.


Common Pleas Court

1.

2.

3

All this and he is barely a man. 

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Falandez James named as alleged shooter


Police name suspect in Coatesville homicide

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
COATESVILLE—Police have named a suspect in the shooting death of 16-year-old Carron London.
Falandez Monroe James, 22, of Coatesville Read the Daily Local News article here:
DOB 03/01/1988
This filing in Judge Gregory Hines' District Court today Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Today is the birthday of the Interstate Highway System




The article in Wired describes one half of the system. The other half is the FHA mortgage program and the Zoning Law that went along with it.

Maybe the road designers didn’t foresee the degradation of our towns and cities and the end of small farming the interstates eventually brought but the people that designed the overall system including FHA mortgages did.

The Interstate Highway System was part of a military plan that was not confined to transportation. Zoning to insure a spread apart population was the other part.  Strategic long range bombing came into being during WWII. In Europe and Japan the population was centered in large close knit cities. It was relatively easy to kill large numbers of people in cities compared to the country side.

The zoning that we now universally use prescribing large lot sizes with parking came along with the FHA mortgages. Until the Civil Rights Act was implemented FHA mortgages were segregated to whites only and eliminated blacks or other races from locating in the new suburbs thus confining blacks to the now deteriorating cities. You could say that the military planners designed the system to kill off blacks first in the event that the United States was attacked by bombing raids.

Blacks were excluded from FHA mortgages and were thus confined to the populations that the military said were easy targets for bombing designed to create firestorms. Later the spread our population apart (except for blacks)  strategy still was a part of national defense. When the hydrogen bomb and the universal annihilation that went along with it was implemented the military significance of the Interstate Highway System and FHA inspired zoning disappeared. Deterrence and mutual annihilation was the only effective defense.

The designers of the Interstates and FHA partly by accident and partly by design have left us with social isolation, racial isolation, air pollution, stormwater runoff pollution (mostly from suburban lawns), extra transportation costs built into our isolated industrial system, family farms converted to suburban housing and large petro energy reliant industrial farms isolated from markets.

All US municipalities have adopted the FHA inspired zoning that insures widely separated homes or businesses with parking lots. Altogether our Zoning uses an incredible amount of land. We get around it with “zoning overlays” such as we have on the “flats” in Coatesville and the “Village Commercial Zoning Overlays” in small towns like “Skippack Village in Montgomery County.  

We try to ease the isolation and congestion of highway driving by bringing back rail transportation, trolleys and buses.

The article states, “Shopping plazas and malls catered to their needs, and America’s suburbanization became complete. This was not foreseen by the interstate system’s designers, and old forms of traffic congestion gave way to new.”  It was foreseen and the shopping plazas are designed into our Zoning. The FHA and the Zoning that went with it together with Interstate Highway System isolated Americans from work, school, play and each other. The new efforts of town and city planners are a way to get back the connections we once had.


Most of what I wrote about above is explored in detail in “Save our Land, Save our Towns” by Thomas Hylton:

The link brings you to a website devoted to town planning. Tom Hylton is a local guy from Pottstown. 

The book and a video of a PBS TV show is in all of our libraries.  

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The mantra seems to be if you have an arena it better have an anchor tenant

From the Allentown Morning Call about the Stabler Arena in Allentown PA:
“Location is another problem, said Allentown Fair Marketing Director Bonnie Brosious. The world's largest concert promotion company, Live Nation, which has ties to thousands of the most popular acts, routinely requires those acts to agree not to play any venue within 90 miles of a concert they've booked through Live Nation. While the Valley's proximity to major concert venues in New York, Philadelphia and Hershey puts residents close to the action, it also prevents major acts from coming to the area if they are booked in one of those places, Brosious said.” From:
Goodbye Aerosmith, hello badminton
Once the largest concert venue in the Lehigh Valley, complex courts smaller shows and offbeat competitions
By Matt Assad, OF THE MORNING CALL
June 20, 2010

It seems to me that if you want a performance center you better have an anchor tenant like a minor league team to carry the ball between performances.

The Velodrome plan currently before the Coatesville RDA would act as an anchor tenant to enable musical and theatrical performances of a more intimate variety than Philly, Reading, Allentown and Hershey have.

Maybe most importantly, just as the Lehigh Valley Velodrome does for the Allentown area, a Coatesville Velodrome would serve as a recreational and fitness center for Coatesville and Chester County.

It would also put Coatesville on Google Earth as THE United States East Coast professional bicycling center.

The Pro Cycling Tour wants an indoor Velodrome in South East Pennsylvania.  I get the impression that the primary reason the Pro Cycling Tour has centered on Chester County is because the Chester County Economic Development Council can be their “anchor” financer.  

This is the second time around for the Pro Cycling Tour in Coatesville.  I believe Coatesville’s superb transportation options make us the Pro Cycling Tour’s first choice.

And the “Manayunk Wall” has nothing on Graham Avenue.

I didn’t mention the other presentation at the RDA meeting because it is in the conception stage and the Velodrome is close to completion. But the Velodrome would only help Mr. Jennings plan for a theatrical center. It would broaden the reach of Mr. Jennings’ theater from a local to an international level.

Pro Cycling Tour presentation to the Coatesville RDA June 21, 2010


David Chauner, “I think what our interest, rather than going through the whole presentation we did the last time, is to let you know where we are in the projects.  We are very interested in fast tracking the project. We are obviously very into the Coatesville site, although we are looking at other sites in Chester County. We have secured additional seed money financing from… our financial partners.   We are ready to start going to actual drawings, engineering studies and so on.  What we would request from the City of Coatesville is an opportunity for the next 60 days is to sit down with your people and discuss the feasibility of this project on the flatlands. Discuss what the terms of an arrangement might be for procuring property and how we might go about that. At the end of 60 days, if we haven’t reached agreement we’re going to need to move on and then you guys will obviously be looking at other projects.

We’ve talked to both Gary (Smith) and Tim (Conner) about this and our interest is in moving as quickly as we can. Once we get to the end of the 60 days we feel we’re going to know exactly what we need in terms of finial financing where the sources are going to be and so on. We do have a number of different financing sources both through the Chester County Economic Development Council as well as various banking relationships…

RDA Solicitor Pat O’Donnell, “This would be a 60 day period during which you would ask the Authority to not entertain other potential proposals. And in return the Redevelopment Authority would receive what?”

David Chauner, “I will commit to procure the land based on terms of what we have discussed here.”

Pat, “You would agree not be researching other sites.”

David, “Yes, absolutely.”

Pat, “Would the Redevelopment Authority receive any remuneration?”

David, “No.”

“By the way, during this period we would be investing as much as $40 or $50 thousand for further site development and cost analysis and so on. We are definitely investing during that period. That’s one of the reasons why we want to make sure that by the end of end of that period we reach agreement on how to acquire the property.”

Pat, “Would we have kind of a memorandum of understanding, if you will. In real estate it’s called a letter of intent that might outline an anticipated purchase price or anticipated schedule? Or would it just be hey, we’re going to hold still for 60 days and you are going to hold still for 60 days?”

David, “I think we would be more than willing to submit a formal request for that 60 day period to indicate what will be accomplished during that period and go back and forth with you until we agree and if you agree move forward and do the studies and surveys that we need to do and as best we can get the right answers by the end of that period. And at the same time discuss with you and come to an agreement as to how the land would be acquired for the long term value to the City of Coatesville…

Pat, “We are probably a little shy of taking any action tonight.” We can only take action at a public meeting and the next one is July.

RDA Treasurer-Jon Kasitz, “Are you proposing to buy outright?”

David, “To be honest with you I can’t answer that right now.”

”We would like to sit down and discuss what’s the best for you and what’s the best for us in both the short term and the long term. The idea here is to create a working partnership that benefits both parties. We all know that there’s challenges, there’s risks, there’s rewards going into a project like this. We are very, very into this project. We want to do it in Chester County. We will do it in Chester County. We’re willing to put all of the other sites on hold for the next 60 days…”

Joe DiSciullo, “Over the next week I think Ted would like to talk to both of these gentlemen.

Ted Reed, “We will do that…”

Joe, “Before we would like to make any type of decision. So, it’s not where the balls going to be dropped. It’s just there are things we can do, that don’t have to be done at a public meeting. So we don’t have to wait for July 15th.” (The next RDA meeting)

David, “Those of you who know us, know me, know we’ve been at this project for a long time. There are a lot of sites we’ve looked at and a lot of places where we’ve gone. One of the hold ups has been getting our finial financing and one of our hold ups has been getting an initial financial partner, which we now have.  And the second hold up has been the site we want to locate this velodrome on and this center. So we’re willing to just negotiate with Coatesville for 60 days, we can concentrate on that.

We’re going to be spending anywhere from 30 to 70 thousand dollars just on the site analysis where ever we go. And we just want to make sure that if we spend that money, go through all of the discussions, that at the end of that period that we don’t have to go somewhere else.”

Ted Reed outlined the relationship between the RDA and the Coatesville City Council regarding the sale of property.

When questioned about the time frame David Chauner said:

“Like I said before, we want to move as fast as we possibly can. We have to explore all of the sources of financing, which include some participants that have been very interested in this project from the beginning. And I think our goal would be to have the facility up and running in time for the 2012 Olympics.  A training program that would go along with it we’d like to institute as quickly as we can, that may be unrealistic. But, at first I said the 2008 Games.

Now it’s 2012 and we do have a plan for a program leading up to the 2016 Olympics to develop local talent, cycle talent. When I was directing the track up at Lehigh County Pennsylvania we created a program that produced 16 Olympians including Marty Nothstein an Olympic Champion. What’s really appealing to us to, is the fact that there’s a lot of talent, cycling talent in the United States that’s not been discovered, not been given an opportunity. And one of the big programs that we want to institute here is a youth program to get kids involved in cycling. Teaching them the right way to ride bikes safely as well as compete...cycling programs for kids in Philadelphia and It’s amazing what they are doing with these kids… We’ve got 4 or 5 hundred kids in the program and it’s changing their lives. For them to be able to compete locally…learn how to ride bikes, it’s a great opportunity for the community. And it’s something that’s personally sort of a give back thing for me…the sooner we can get started, the better.

Pat O’Donnell, “Coatesville was approached for a velodrome for the City three or…”

David Chauner, “Five”

Pat, “five years ago. Wasn’t there a study done there?”

David, “There was a study done and actually the City paid us $50,000 to do a feasibility study and we had the results in January of 06.  And we were working very closely with Jean Krack and when we presented at his last meeting, actually the meeting before that was his last meeting and we presented to a completely new board of supervisors.” (City Council).

“Obviously we’re going to pull out that material, but it think times have changed… in the interim period we spent a lot of time in Montgomery County and we worked very closely with the Governor’s management team and we actually had a five million dollar pledge from Governor Rendell in writing so if we could secure the site in Montgomery County then we would be covered by the… for five million dollars. Our developers were on a different time frame from our investors so that didn’t work.

But I’m actually meeting with Governor Rendell tomorrow. We run the City bike race in Philadelphia and we need to talk to him about that. I can give him this…tomorrow.”

Pat, “He’s very familiar with and fond of the City of Coatesville; he comes to the parade every year.”

David, “And he’s a big fan of cycling. He’s been mayor of the City of Philadelphia.  We run a big race in Philadelphia; we have for 26 years. And the Governor is a huge fan. We’re actually meeting in his office tomorrow the future of the race in Philadelphia; how to expand it, how to alter it for different aspects of cycling…

Pat, I don’t think anybody at this table was involved five years ago… Is there anything out of the City worthwhile sharing?”

David, “At that time we were trying to determine what the best site that was available. There was one site at the intersection at route 30 by pass. We looked at it and determined that was not big enough for what we wanted.

“Jean Krack had called us up… He kept the information and he would be glad to help support a study.”

David Chauner mentioned that former Coatesville Assistant City Manager and later City Manager, Jean Krack originally got them interested in the City of Coatesville. 

Monday, June 21, 2010

The RDA voted to officially remove/release Mosaic Development Partners

I’m beginning at the end of the meeting again.


The RDA voted to release the RDA and the City of Coatesville from Mosaic Development Partners. Within the next week the City of Coatesville will be released from Mosaic Development Partners. 


Chetty Builders was released from the north side of the flats earlier.


Presentation by Pro Cycling Tour at Coatesville RDA tonight

From
Agenda for Monday, June 21, 2010
5. Presentation
    b. David Chauner – Pro Cycling Tour
The RDA meeting is at Coatesville City Hall. The meeting begins at 7 pm.

From Pro Cycling Tour News

EXCERPT:
"The 2,500 seat arena and velodrome, a steeply banked wooden track, will be capable of hosting high level national and international competition and will provide a much needed year round facility for training and development of young cyclists. Although the velodrome and comprehensive cycling program will anchor the facility, the building is designed for multi-use including added seating capacity for concerts, other sporting events and community activities...


The only other indoor velodrome in the United States opened in 2004 in Los Angeles and has become a site for national and international cycling events, championships and youth development programs.  There are 22 outdoor velodromes in the nation, the closest and most successful being the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in TrexlertownPA, a magnet for cyclists that has been in summer-only operation since 1976...
Velodrome Management Group, LLC has been researching sites in the Philadelphia area for several years and recently decided on Chester County due to its proximity to Philadelphia and central location in SE Pennsylvania, home to thousands of cyclists and cycling events. CCEDC is helping them find a ten to fifteen acre site that, ideally, is close to rail lines and major highways and in a community that has nearby hotels, restaurants and businesses to service visitors. An added plus will be close proximity to other recreation and entertainment facilities as well as a location that could be easily reached by bike path.
 Built at a cost of approximately $15 million, developers expect the velodrome to create nearly 100 new full and part time jobs and that $25 to $35 million will be pumped into the local economy by some 50,000 out of town visitors each year.  IMC Construction of Malvern, R2 Architects of Vorhees, NJ and V-Worldwide of Detroit have been selected to assist VMG with the project."
It looks like the City of Coatesville has all the ingredients for a world class indoor velodrome. It also looks like the companies involved have what it takes to make it happen. Does the RDA and City Council have what it takes to allow it to happen? 




Contact Information
Marketing/Sales/Public Relations/Administration
Pro Cycling Tour, LLC
Marketing/Administration
203 West Chestnut Street
West Chester, PA 19380
610-696-1866
610-696-2106 (Fax)
info@procyclingtour.com
Operations, Staging, Equipment Rentals
Jerry Casale
COO
Pro Cycling Tour LLC
506 Bethlehem Pike
Ft. Washington Pa 19043
267-470-4853
267-470-4958 fax
JCasale@procyclingtour.com

About Pro Cycling Tour

Pro Cycling Tour is the country's leading cycling marketing and event management company. Based in the Philadelphia area the Pro Cycling Tour creates and manages a variety of cycling events and special programs for corporate sponsors, non-profit organizations and municipalities.

With over 40 years of combined cycling experience, the PCT team of marketing executives and operations experts, many of whom have worked together for over two decades, formed the company in 2000 out of the knowledge that cycling offers a unique platform to accomplish a variety of communications objectives for clients through expert marketing to America's growing audience of cycling fans and participants. As a sponsorship vehicle, PCT believes that cycling offers uncluttered advertising, communications, marketing and brand-building opportunities to corporations looking for a unique sports sponsorship forum.
Range of Services
·         Design cycling events and programs that meet specific client objectives
·         Create and execute comprehensive marketing packages including sponsorship sales, media support, product merchandising, on-site signage and corporate hospitality
·         Establish marketing partnerships to leverage sponsor value
·         Develop appropriate infrastructure to ensure sound fiscal control and clearly establish intellectual property rights
·         Prepare and manage detailed event and program budgets
·         Manage all logistics and operations from permitting to actual execution
·         Operate full service public relations, media relations and publicity programs
·         Implement contracts which protect all parties
·         Provide management services and project personnel
·         Supply a variety of event staging equipment and services to special event organizers through PCT's Special Event Rentals division.
For more information, contact:
Pro Cycling Tour, LLC
Marketing/Administration
203 West Chestnut Street
West Chester, PA 19380
610-696-1866
610-696-2106 (Fax)
info@procyclingtour.com

Special Events Rentals provides turnkey services including manpower and equipment for any special event. SER helps clients develop an effective crowd control and staging facilities plan. With over 20 years of experience our professional staff can handle all aspects of your event from set up to break down.

We can provide:
·         Full Service Event Production
·         Crowd Control Barricades
·         Platforms
·         Tents
·         Entrance Ways
·         Start/Finish Grids
·         Sound Systems
·         Announcers
·         Individual Rentals also available
We have provided services for the following events:
·         American Eagle Outfitters Tour of Pennsylvania Presented by Highmark Healthy High 5
·         Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling
·         Barclays Global Investors Grand Prix
·         T-MOBILE INTERNATIONAL, presented by BMC Software, San Francisco
·         Bell to Bell Bike Ride, Philadelphia to Valley Forge
·         2003-2004 Tour of Hope
·         The Wachovia USPRO Championship, 500,000 spectators (21 years)
·         New York City Cycling Championship (3 years)
·         The Thrift Drug Classic in Pittsburgh (6 years)
·         The First Union Grand Prix in Atlanta (5 years)
·         The Norwest Cup in Minneapolis (3 years)
·         1991 and 1992 Vintage Gran Prix Auto Festival in Philadelphia
·         1992 Presidential Inaugural "Bells for Hope" parade in Washington, DC
·         1993 Welcome America Festival in Philadelphia
·         Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade
·         1992-1995 Unity Day in Philadelphia
·         Nelson Mandella Award on July 4
·         1995 Mummers Parade
·         1995 premier of the BMW Z3 for the movie "Golden Eye" in Central Park
·         1995 Olympic Test Event in Stone Mountain, GA
·         1996 Olympic Trials, cycling road races in Pittsburgh
·         1996 Olympic Trials, cycling time trials in Martinsburgh, WV
·         Centennial Olympic Games, Atlanta, GA - all cycling events
·         Paralympics Atlanta, GA - all cycling events
For More Information Contact:
Jerry Casale
COO
Pro Cycling Tour LLC
506 Bethlehem Pike
Ft. Washington Pa 19043
267-470-4853
267-470-4958 fax
JCasale@procyclingtour.com