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Kicking and Screaming
State Rep Thaddeus Kirkland already is poo pooing the plan to build a new soccer stadium in the city of Chester for a pro team.
“Our kids don’t have a rec center, we don’t have a new boys club, the girls (YWCA) is falling down around them … our newest school is over 30 years old, but we’re building things for adults and, quite frankly, for a whole different population of people than the (residents in the) City of Chester,” said State Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, D-159, Chester.
Did he ever think of this: The first might help lead to the second. And maybe then, the third, a fourth and a fifth.
Or is it the fact that its going to be somebody else who gets rich off the deal that sticks in his craw?
Oh yeah, Chester Community Charter School was built six year years ago.
It's owner is getting rich running it. But then the Chester kids who go to it are finally getting a decent education in a safe environment. Sounds like a fair trade.
“Our kids don’t have a rec center, we don’t have a new boys club, the girls (YWCA) is falling down around them … our newest school is over 30 years old, but we’re building things for adults and, quite frankly, for a whole different population of people than the (residents in the) City of Chester,” said State Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, D-159, Chester.
Did he ever think of this: The first might help lead to the second. And maybe then, the third, a fourth and a fifth.
Or is it the fact that its going to be somebody else who gets rich off the deal that sticks in his craw?
Oh yeah, Chester Community Charter School was built six year years ago.
It's owner is getting rich running it. But then the Chester kids who go to it are finally getting a decent education in a safe environment. Sounds like a fair trade.
posted by Spencerblog at
7:56 AM
14 Comments:
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And yet Chester residents are lining up to get their children into that school.
The public schools in Chester are and have been abysmal. That someone can make millions of dollars and still provide a better education that what has been provided in the city by the government schools is the scandal here.
I've been to the school and I've seen how they go about things with my own eyes.
I've interviewed the school's top administrators, talked to students, parents and teachers there.
David, have you?
BTW, the school opened for business in 1999, but the kids attended class in trailers. Construction wasn't finished until 2001. (That's SIX years.)
The charters schools are money makers for the CUSD.
”…we’re building things for adults and, quite frankly, for a whole different population of people [whites] than the residents of the City of Chester [blacks].
We don’t have soccer in our schools. I don’t see kids in Chester running around kicking a soccer ball.”
Notice how retired drug dealer Kirkland invoked his usual “Us vs. Them” racial coding while criticizing the coming Soccer stadium. They talk about the “subtle racism” from whites; there ain’t nothing subtle about Kirkland’s racism.
Think the Libs on the Daily Times Editorial Board will take him to task for this as they surely would were he a white and interjected such unnecessary racially charged comments? Don’t bet on it. They still refuse to print a critical peep about CU succeeding in their search for a replacement black Superintendent. How do you suppose it would have gone over if a whiter district endeavored to place a white super?
But Kirkland is right about one thing: ”I think our priorities are messed up.”
Yeah, Thaddeus, your always inserting race into issues where it doesn’t belong is evidence of your messed up priorities. Folks like you are the problem with Chester. But the voters there share his ugly attitudes and keep returning him to office.
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Here's a thought. Why doesn't Kirkland fix some of those problems instead of just standing around pointing them out for other people to fix? He's the one in the position to get grant money (or what ever they call the WAM money these days). Why doesn't he build a rec center?
What a moron. Why would you be against a positive change for Chester? The kids in Chester don't kick around soccer balls. That is precisely the problem. They also don't play baseball, football, hockey. They learn a life of crime from birth and then everyone wonders why the schools are bad.
There is no doubt that Kirkland meant whites and blacks in his comment. He does that B.S. to get his people fired up (and no I don't mean poor people) and he knows it's a touchy subject.
Right. Playing the tired Race Card is Kirkland's MO.
David knows this too but he is a dishonest apologist Liberal.
Kirkland wasn’t the only official needlessly stirring race into the mix on the pages of the DT today. On page 29 a Lansdowne Lib did a good (and despicable) job of employing the shrill charge of “Apartheid schooling in America” once again casting blame on whites for black failure while dishonestly equating white flight to Jim Crow.
And this is not just some kook letter writer but a William Penn School Board member/policy maker kook!
Gee, think she’ll let her apparent ugly racial attitudes influence her official actions?
Of course, Diano misses the point again.
That a private citizen can get rich by investing millions in building a new school in Chester just shows how far the traditional public schools in the city have sunk.
It shows how wasteful, inefficient and corrupt there are.
As for my abilities to judge a particular educational environment, the last person I would expect to take my word on anything would be David Diano.
Of course, he could go down to the Community Charter School himself. He could take a tour and judge for himself, just like the hundreds of Chester parents who CHOOSE to send their children to it.
Will he? Of course not. He's too busy surfing the net, looking for info and opinions that support the reactionary conclusions he came to years ago.
Doesn't Anthony Williams operate a charter school? Or is it OK for him to do that because he puts up a front for Delco Dems?
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Can we get back to the point here?
Just how is a soccer stadium good for Chester, or for anyone except MLS, for that matter? They get their $30 million franchise fee, and we get . . . what?
They'd have fifteen home games per year, which translates to maybe seventy-five hours a year that the stadium will be open for business.
How will that rejuvenate Chester?
And since the LA team can't fill a stadium with David Beckham, how would the Chester team do so?
I would just like an explanation of the benefits, not a diatribe on County government, or any other government for that matter.
Patricia --
Hard to say what the benefits will be except that any private development in the city is probably a good thing.
It will bring jobs to build it and people to see the games.
Additionally, the field should also be made available to Chester schools and community groups for events. That should be part of any the deal. And others will want to come and use it as well.
To simply claim, like Kirkland does, there are better ways to spend money isn't particularly helpful. There are always better ways to spend money.
The key is who has the money, where they can be convinced to spend it and on what.
If the MLS thinks it can make a go of it in Chester, good luck to 'em. If they fail. That's their problem.
Chester will still have a soccer stadium. They can't take it with them.
I believe Rep. Kirkland supported legislation recently funding the Pittsburgh hockey arena and previosuly voted for legislation to support the building of the stadiums in Philadelphia. Why the change of heart now?
The bottom line is that Chester needs all of the help it can get. And that the money used to fund the stadium would not merely come from Chester. In fact, the only people who should be opposed to the idea are tax payers from other parts of the state, who will see more of their tax dollars be spent outside of where they live.
The outside investment will bring at a minimum construction jobs and provide a profesional level athletic complex to both the city and the county.
Kirkland is just holding support in an attempt to gain an advantage out of the deal (if in fact it happens).
I think they should look into a track for stock car racing. We couldn't have a Nextel Cup-level track because there isn't room for all the RVs, but maybe we could swing a good "minor league" track that would draw race fans from all over the area, and there are zillions of them, many many more than soccer.
Plus, stock car racing has a long and honorable tradition of spending its own money and not asking for public financing. Check out Dover Downs and International Speedway Corporation; they are both publicly-traded companies that are consistently profitable. Maybe they'd be interested in the land?
P.S. I am not kidding.
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