Assessing cost vs. value of the Cedar Street acquisition According to the Borough, they recently purchased those properties at below market value. Borough claims a purchase price of $250,000, and Andrew Smith, Jenkintown’s top selling real estate agent tells us that price is well-below market value. Indeed, Zillow backs him up. The current combined “Zestimate” for both properties is $485,000 for a potential $235,000 profit. It just happens that this amount lands […]
Latest News / Policy
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Jenkintown’s Pocket Park: Buy now, ask permission later
It took nearly six months, but the Borough finally decided to let us in on their quarter-million-dollar secret: A park no one asked for. On Wednesday, we received like many of you the official email from the Borough announcing this transaction. As we know now, the ink has dried on the purchase. The two plots now belong to the Borough, or more appropriately, to you and us whether we want it or […]
Livestream / Policy
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Jenkintown Borough Council Meeting, January 23, 2017
I think we made a little history here. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has live-streamed a council meeting. This video is a cleaned-up version of the live-stream and resides on YouTube. As this was a first-time attempt, we look forward to improving the quality of the video (if not our own Council). If you’d like to help in this effort, please get in […]
Policy
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Finding a better way for Jenkintown to pay for better sidewalks
What brings more value ALL of Jenkintown? A well-built pedestrian infrastructure for all the Borough or a pocket park on Cedar? Like it or not, I probably know more about sidewalks and pedestrian policy than at least 95% of the population. That and a couple of bucks will get me a cup of coffee at Velvet Sky, I know. Yet, we continue exploring this issue because we believe in its […]
Policy
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Another clear sign most Americans are broke – CBS News
Our last “unexpected expense” was a requirement by the Borough to spend $3000 to fix their sidewalk. “Fifty-seven percent of Americans don’t have enough cash to cover a $500 unexpected expense, according to a new survey from Bankrate, which interviewed 1,003 adults earlier this month.” https://apple.news/AFjZswNehT-KbMuUJc-VSww
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The nuclear arms race and how we live today
Nuclear weapons did destroy our cities. Just not in the way we expected. We Jenkintonians are fortunate that the great wave of urban renewal mostly passed us by. We had a close call, though. Most people don’t know that the state had planned an expressway that would have run roughly down the West Trenton line right-of-way and interchanged with Route 309 at about the Wyncote Apartment towers. Those who live […]
Policy
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Gauntlet retrieved, I ran for Jenkintown Borough Council
I took up the gauntlet. Since starting this campaign almost two years ago, more than a few people have asked why I don’t just run for Borough Council. A few, such as our neighbor Daniel Gans, have all-but-dared me to do it. I never had any political ambitions and had no desire to run for office at any level. We all know people who we’d describe as natural politicians. I’m […]
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Happy Holidays from Walkable Jenkintown and the Garbin family
Louise, Cecelia, and myself (plus our cats Alice and Brini) wish the best for all our neighbors this holiday season and well into the new year. Good luck to the new councilors. We look forward to working with them!
Policy
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Blowing gold into the street
Jenkintown budgets $14,000 each year to remove nutrients from your yard Rick Bunker’s pompous bloviating aside, you do not own the sidewalk in front of your house, but Jenkintown Borough requires you to fix it. You do own all the leaves that fall on your property, and yet Jenkintown Borough will come and collect them — for free. All you need do is rake or blow them into the street, and the borough […]
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Who pays? Does it matter?
In a recent post by our friends at StrongTowns, Kevin Posey compares sidewalk funding mechanisms in various communities against their WalkScores. Using this tool, let’s check a few cities to see how high their walk scores are under the following two conditions: The city spreads the cost of building and maintaining sidewalks among all taxpayers, as with streets and highways via taxation. The city puts the onus of paying for […]
Policy
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Jenkintown’s permit application data: The story so far
We have so far reviewed more than 150 permit applications out of about 250, and there are a few immediate take-aways: Some residents may have gotten badly fleeced. We’ve found several instances where contractors — often the same one — provided vastly different estimates for roughly the same work. Almost everyone paid more — sometimes significantly more — than what George Locke called “PennDOT’s going rate.” Costanzo is so far the worst. D&D was the best, […]
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Exercising my rights
I just spent an hour up at Borough Hall reviewing the copies of all the sidewalk permit applications between April 2015 and September 26, 2016. Rick Ware, our Right-to-Know officer was most accommodating, particularly when I showed him the ruling that does allow me to photograph the records, despite his original assertions to the contrary. One other point: Yesterday, Rick Bunker accused me of “wasting taxpayer dollars” on my “quixotic” […]