Philipsburg 2: Electric Boogaloo

So yeah, the Borough got back to me on those tickets, and boy, did they really show their ignorance and stupidity. How anyone in this town could possibly believe that the people "leading" them could even remotely be competent is beyond me. Far, far beyond me. We're talking Voyager 2 beyond.

If there was ever an indicator that the Borough's agents are completely retarded, it was on the front of the envelope. On it was my correct license plate number, but under that, the word "Blazer."

Blazer.

Fucking BLAZER!!!

OK, now, it doesn't take a genius to tell the difference between an Chevrolet Blazer and a Ford Explorer, which is what I drive. Nevermind the fact that there's a Ford logo and the word "Explorer" on my tail hatch, and a big ol' Ford logo on the grill (not to mention the two "Explorer" plates down the sides). It's a Blazer.

Sure as shootin', Cletus, it's a Blazer.

(Yes, I hate Chevy, and I associate it with people who could have walked right out of Deliverance. Sue me for being biased, because a colony of toothless hillbilly freaks drive rustbuckets with the Chevy name on them and glorify drivers of Chevy vehicles in NASCAR. Ask them to trade in that 1983 Celebrity on a different make and they'll probably pull some sort of weapon on you and ask you if you're "plum loco.")

But anyway, back to the letter. Yeah, Blazer. Strike One. Anyhow, I open the envelope and pull the actual document out and look at it. The first thing that hits me is that it looks like some stupid teenager with an ancient copy of Micro$oft Word hurried this out. Different font sizes, completely unnecessary, used for emphasis of points that would be just as visible if the font were actually uniform.

I mean, come on! This is supposed to be a government agency, a public service! Try and look professional, why don't you, so people actually respect you and take you seriously! Christ on a fucking stick anyhow! The Federal government may spend extreme sums of money on simple crap like putting out documents, but at least those documents are uniform, for crying out loud.

You people look like today's college kids turning in papers in Internet slang. Sad, sad, sad.

Now, on to the contents of the letter. Obviously, I've edited out my license plate number for privacy reasons, but the text is otherwise exactly as it appears in the letter. While I can't duplicate the logo for the borough's sad-sack letterhead, it's still essentially as-is. I have made no changes or exaggerations, other than the changes already mentioned. Font sizes are relative to how they appear on the letter as well.

Now, witness ignorance at it's best, and your tax dollars in action:

PHILIPSBURG BOROUGH
P.O. Box 631
4 North Centre Street
Phone (814) 342 3440
Fax (814) 342 5608
ordinancedept@iqnetsys.net

Date: 12/12/07


To Whom It May Concern:

####### is the Plate on your Blazer.

On 12/07/07, 12/10/07and12/11/07 you recieved parking tickets for parking 2AMto7AM on your vehicle. You paid the first ticket so we know you are aware of the violation. Our office doesn't like giving tickets unless we are forced to. Please find another place to park your vehicle overnight on the side streets that are not posted for 2AM to 7AM signs or we do have permits available. Contact our office so we don't have to issue any more parking fines. We will resume the tickets effective 12/17/07, if you continue to violate the signs posted on the streets.

Thank You
W(illegible) D. McDonald 140046 (handwritten signature)
Philipsburg Borough Ordinance Officer

Now, who wants to be the first to point out the errors in this letter? First of all, they continue to insist that I drive a Blazer. Is it really that easy to mix the two up? I don't think so, they both look pretty damned distinct to me. With the blazingly obvious aside, it's time for me to play English Teacher and correct their homework. First, the list of errors:

1. No dashes between the prefixes and suffixes of the phone and fax numbers
   
2. No spacing between 12/10/07, "and" and 12/11/07 in line one.
3. Should be a comma after 12/11/07 on line one.
4. No spacing between 2AM, "to" and 7AM on line two.
5. Should be a comma after "ticket" on line three.
6. "The" in "overnight on the sidestreets" is not necessary.
7. Should be a comma after "signs" on line six.
8. The sentence beginning on line four and ending on line seven is run-on, and should be divided.
9. The comma after 12/17/07 is unnecessary.
10. Should be a comma after "Thank You" in the closing.
    

Ten blatant grammatical errors. I thought you people were supposed to be "professional!" Well, now the Borough of Philipsburg is a laughing stock, for all the world to see. So, folks, here I present to you the letter as it should look, if it were typed by a monkey with a lobotomy, or someone more competent:

PHILIPSBURG BOROUGH
P.O. Box 631
4 North Centre Street
Phone (814) 342-3440
Fax (814) 342-5608
ordinancedept@iqnetsys.net

Date: 12/12/07

To Whom It May Concern:

Plate #: #######
Vehicle Make: Ford
Vehicle Model: Explorer

On 12/07/07, 12/10/07 and 12/11/07, you recieved parking tickets for parking 2AM to 7AM in a zone posted against such. You paid the first ticket, so we know you are aware of the violation. Our office doesn't like giving tickets unless we are forced to. Please find another place to park your vehicle overnight on side streets that are not posted for 2AM to 7AM signs. We also have permits available. Contact our office so we don't have to issue any more parking fines. We will resume the tickets effective 12/17/07,if you continue to violate the signs posted on the streets.

Thank You,
W(illegible) D. McDonald 140046 (handwritten signature)
Philipsburg Borough Ordinance Officer

And there you have it, with my emphasis on the proper identity of my vehicle. Not really that hard to make it look like a human actually typed it, is it? Fonts are normalized, grammar is corrected... Was it that difficult? Nah! If I can do it, anyone can do it! Fuck, I've read blogs by foreigners with even the slightest grasp of English grammar that look better. Since this is a Government Document, and is therefore in the Public Domain, you peons can feel free to copy and paste my template for future use by your offices, should you decide you want to look like an actual, professional Government Agency.

You know, it might help your image, what with the wasting money on the Front Street Project and not being able to pay for a police force. There's also the matters of the personal infighting and bickering, and all the controversy over filling one stupid Borough Management position, and your mismanagement of the Rowland... But I digress.

Now, how shady is it that it's not mentioned anywhere in the borough, on any sign or any publicly viewable space whatsoever, that there are parking permits available. In Pittsburgh, my adopted home, the signs clearly show what permit zone it is, letting the public know that permits are indeed available should you reside in that zone and wish to park without fear of tickets.

Philipsburg? No, they'll only tell you if you think to ask about it at all (with no helpful hints or information even suggesting they're available), or after they give you a couple of expensive parking hits and start fucking with your license.

Dirty pool, old man. Dirty pool indeed.

Philipsburg, this is your wake up call. Someone with the stones to take you to school and expose your smug stupidity to the rest of the world has arrived, and he's not happy. The fact that you're an insignificant little shit town that no one really looks at or cares about at all will no longer allow you people to get away with this type of shinnanigans. There is a whistle blower among you, and he won't shut up.

Either clean up your act, or I will continue to post examples of how you people make complete fools of yourselves. Even your precious Philipsburg Journal will be pilfered for any shred of evidence that you people are nothing but a bunch of stuck-up, ignorant, self-righteous losers who want nothing more from their jobs than the paycheck and the pat on the back, along with anything else you can get away with on the side. You people are pathetic, and should be ashamed to even try and call yourselves "Public Servants."

Granted, I've done shit I'm not proud of. But at least I can pony up and admit that I fucked up. I don't just idle myself and continue with bad practices. Maybe you all could learn a lesson from the kid with the big mouth and the International Soapbox to get it heard...

An Open Letter To The Borough of Philipsburg, PA

So, an entire summer of nothing, and then, suddenly, three tickets in five days? What, do your CEOs only work certain months, like when you're desperate for revenue?

If you think I'm paying these tickets, you have another thing coming.

And what are you going to do, suspend my license? Yeah, that'll solve the problem.

You people need to seriously get your act together. You expect your residents to shell out $25 a clip for parking tickets? HA! Let me guess: You need to pay off that brilliant Front Street renovation, don't you. Dipped a little too far into the budget for that, did we?

Listen to me, and listen good. My girlfriend lives here in this building. She has an 11 month old son. And the closest free parking available is blocks away. What you're telling me is, we either have to bundle up and carry a fairly large (but not obese) toddler several blocks in the middle of Central PA's winter weather, or we have to run several blocks, bring our vehicle back here, and fight with the people trying to park in these same spots for Representative Conklin's office, right? We have no choice, because a resident with no off-street parking has no business PARKING IN A NON-METERED SPOT IN FRONT OF HER APARTMENT.

Look. You people are a joke. You can't even hire a Borough Manager without squabbling amongst yourselves. How do you expect to run an entire town when you people let your petty personal bullshit get in the way of actually accomplishing anything? You just had to make a circus out of the situation with John Knowles and make a big deal out of hiring someone new, only to pick up someone who came with controversy already installed.

How much did you spend on Front Street? $2 million? Money well spent, eh? No, not hardly. So Front Street now looks like Bellefonte, minus the hills. And what's that going to do, hmm? Yeah, it looks nice, and it'll be a while before you have to repair it again. But what about the rest of the town?

Still looks like a festering redneck hellhole to me, kids.

And what financial benefits was fixing Front Street supposed to bring? I don't see any businesses stampeding over each other to get any of the many available storefronts. Nope, just looks like Bellefonte without the hills to me, and only for four blocks. The rest of the town? Still looks like it did in 1985. It showed its age pretty badly back then, and how do you think it looks after 22 years without any real effort to correct or stifle it?

Looks like Front Street used to. But hey, Front Street looks good, so money well spent, right? Right. Pat yourselves on the back.

Meanwhile, Philipsburg simply can't afford a police department, can it. Couldn't waste $2 million on a police department when we can make Front Street look like Bellefonte, could we? Glad to see you have taxpayer money priorities lined up there, kids.

Hello. Wake up. You live and work in a SEVERELY ECONOMICALLY DEPRESSED REGION. Looking to your past isn't going to save your future. Yes, Philipsburg has minor historical significance. But that's pretty much limited to anything with "Rowland" in its name. And don't even get me started on how you (the owners) and the board of directors at the Rowland have fucked up that gem. The Rowland is the best asset you people have at your disposal, and you're letting it stagnate, and the whole time, it's going deeper and deeper into debt.

But hey, Front Street looks nice, doesn't it? You bought some pretty Xmas lights and banners, and you're really, really proud of it, aren't you?

You don't need my $75. What you need is for all of you to be fired, with prejudice, and replaced with people who can actually manage a town like this without some stupid pet project that will blow up in their faces. Yes, the Front Street project WILL BLOW UP IN YOUR FACE. What seemed like a nice idea at the time will come back to haunt you down the road.

When your pipe dreams of a historical revival burst, and Philipsburg is finally swallowed by the sprawl of State College (and yes, that will eventually happen, give it two decades), your stupid decisions now will transform Philipsburg into an afterthought. It will be an eyesore. The people? They'll be no less trashy than they are now. It'll become State College's bastard child.

But hey, Front Street will look nice, won't it.

I'll be waiting for your response. Since you people are so concerned with the past, you can type it up on your precious typewriter and send it Pony Express to the address associated with my license plate number. And I'll expect detailed explainations as to exactly why you spent $2 million on Front Street and not a police department, or on any serious sort of economically viable development whatsoever.

And you can bet I'll publish every word you say right here, because your letter is a Government Work, and all Government Works are in the public domain.

You know, Pittsburgh (my adopted home) has a permit system that excuses residents from tickets on the streets they live on. It allows them to park in areas otherwise designated similar to the particular block of Presqueisle in question. Why don't you consider that? Your CEOs obviously like to pick and choose when they give out tickets, so that'll give them more of their precious free time to drive around jamming out to Neil Diamond.

Or would you like to come here and tell my 11 month old step son that he'll have to brave the cold just to make it to his Aunt's house?

Get your acts together, people, unless you want your names forever tied to the decline and ultimate downfall of a once-proud Central Pennsylvania town. You make the call. And you make it without my money.

Going About It The Wrong Way

The Borough of Philipsburg, PA is fucking it up.

Ever since their Downtown Revitalization Program began, it's been doomed to failure, purely out of mismanagement. Noone on that board has any idea what they're doing, or how to go about doing it.

The goal is blazingly obvious: Philipsburg is a run-down former boom town that's gone to hell in a handbasket in the last 20 years, and you have to do something to try and revive at least part of that boom spirit.

Now, the state is trying to kick in: Philipsburg is part of the larger "Corridor O" project, an offshoot interstate (possibly I-322) between I-99 and I-80 from State College to near Clearfield, designed to take the traffic burden off of US 322. The problem here is the Acid Rock dilemma outside of State College, where the deviation north from 99 takes place. The delays this places on the entire 99 project, as well as the connection, delays any potential growth Philipsburg might gain from it. This, of course, has nothing to do with the Downtown Partnership, but it doesn't help their case much.

Not that their case holds much water. Right now, Philipsburg's DRP is spending a metric-assload of money - $2 Million - on... Wait for it... Waaaaaaait for it... Hold on, you're gonna love this... It's worth it, trust me... Here it comes... Old Timey Street Lamps.

Yeah. Old Timey Street Lamps.

OK, so, let's take stock here. You spent all that money on the Simler house. That ugly ass eyesore on Second Street that noone gives a shit about. How many visitors a year does that bring in? Hmmm? Lots of tourist dollars being generated by that little miracle? No? Not really? Awww, too bad. On the bright side, though, I hear it made a great urinal for wandering drunks when Dreamer's was still serving...

Let's see, what else have you guys accomplished? Let's shoot for Heritage Days, probably the only thing you do halfway right. The only problem is, Heritage Days is where you really display your biggest and most problematic dysfunction: Egotism. You people seem to have this sense of entitlement, because you're doing some thing "for the good of the community," that allows you to use the banner of "community service" to elicit free stuff, thus saving you money for stupid projects like old-timey street lights.

Usually, Heritage Days is a showcase for local flavor: food, goods, and even talent. Local musicians look forward to the annual showcase for an oppertunity to get out there and get heard. Now granted, alot of the kids don't get this chance because, hey, let's face it: The music they play sucks and isn't proper for a community fair like this. But there are plenty of adult contemporary musicians in the area willing to do a "Bob Sagget on Full House" deal and pull a clean, fun show.

Trouble is, this is how they make their living. So asking them to "donate their time" singles them out, over all others, as a second-class participant. Every other local business that sets up shop on Front Street is there to do one major thing above all other minor things: SELL SELL SELL. Make money.

The local musician should be no different, and should be compensated for their performance. Asking them to donate their time when everyone else is allowed to schill their services is unfair. Entertaining the public is an industry, just like selling polish food and baseball cards and ice cream for the band or whatever. PAY THEM ACCORDINGLY.

Then, there's the biggest mistake of all: Your mismanagment of the Rowland Theater. This, above all others, saddens me the most, because the Rowland is like a home-away-from-home to me. I saw my first movie (E.T.) there. I volunteered there when I was in High School. I was employed there for over a year as Projectionist.

And that whole time, I've watched you neglect and misuse the one true historical asset that Philipsburg can and should boast about.

All you want is class, class, class. Symphonies that bring in maybe 100 people. School plays that do OK, but mostly out of parental and familial obligation to attend. Auctions for shit that's way to expensive for the locals to even think about affording. Class Class Class.

HELLO! Philipsburg is NOT a class town. It's a drunken blue-collar redneck and bored, misguided kids town. Duh.

Use the Rowland the right way for once. Movie festivals every so often, movies that people wanna see: horror flicks, comedies, action pics, old school scifi, b-movies, indie films... Rock shows, too. If security is done right, then you won't have an incident like Shut Up and Play 3. Yes, that was a goof. But one goof. I'm sure that you, in your ever-persistent quest to get people to donate time, could get some of the local fire departments to provide some local muscle if you gave them Security t-shirts...

With the State Theater in the process of a reboot, the Rowland could be a big draw to the college population over at Penn State - IF IT HELD THE RIGHT EVENTS.

And don't go patting yourselves on the back for doing such a wonderful thing for the community just yet, folks. It's time for some accountability.

So, you're tearing up Front Street right now. Big mess. Pain in the ass for locals. All to wire up some old timey street lamps and possibly convert the thing back to two way. But! What happens if the tourism dollars you're expecting to gain from this little adventure don't add up to what you spent, even over a good span of a few years? Simler House hasn't produced squat but urine stains and laughs as people drive by.

You know, there's this big old empty lot on the corner of Front and Presqueisle. You know, old sporting goods store and apartments? You remember! Come on! Big red building, biggest fire the borough's probably seen since the Pierce Opera House (bet you don't remember THAT one!)? Yeah, that big old chunk of dirt between the Dollar Store and CNB. Why don't you do something constructive with that, eh?

I have a few ideas in mind, but you people are too busy trying to ease your concience by convincing yourselves that you're doing a community a good service. All you're doing is wasting time, money, and annoying the hell out of your residents, who grow more and more restless and bored with every stupid project you undertake. If you really, REALLY want to revitalize Philipsburg, you need to do one simple thing:

STOP LIVING IN THE PAST AND MOVE INTO THE FUTURE. The ONLY way Philipsburg will survive is if it moves out of the 19th century and into the 21st. Technology is Philipsburg's only hope, and putting in new old-timey street lamps which you can decorate with pretty lights and banners throughout the year isn't quite the right step.

You're wasting what's given to you, and misusing what you already have. I think it's time for a general cleanup of managment and reshuffling of priorities. Meantime, finish your little streetlight project. Because that's what brings them flocking to town, right? Right...