The LuLac Edition #1092, Feb. 10th, 2010

PHOTO INDEX: TORN OFF MIRROR ON MY CAR PARKED IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE THE NIGHT OF FEB. 5th THROUGH FEB. 6th, TWO BIG RECYCLING CONTAINERS OF BOOZE FROM KING'S COLLEGE STUDENT HOUSE, AND SAID RECYCLING CONTAINER DUMPED OUT ONTO THE STREET.

NEWS ITEM: Citizen’s Voice: Feb. 7th, 2010
Someone damaged the side mirrors on a 1994 Honda owned by Kate Bossert, a 2003 Chevrolet owned by Stephanie Weling, and a Chrysler Sebring owned by David Yonki on North Main Street on Saturday afternoon.

GRADUATING TO VANDALISM

Friday night Father O’Hara’s drunks from King’s College were having one of their weekend blow outs on North Main Street. (Their weekends are like an old Polish wedding reception, they start on Thursday night and end on Sunday afternoon). It was the usual crap with loud cursing, screaming obscenities and unruly behavior after midnight. The noise was coming from the student housing in my neighborhood. Now I know people need to let off steam but when it starts to interfere the right of others, then I complain. So please bear with me in this edition. Apparently Father O’Hara’s drunks have now graduated to vandalism. Saturday I’m usually up and out by 8AM but the past week was pretty intense for me on a professional level. I had a test scheduled for Monday night and did not even look at the sections so I spent the whole day trying to figure out the relationship of a medical code to a covered entity. At 4:30PM I went to help Mrs. LuLac unload the groceries when I saw my passenger side door mirror ripped off and lying on the ground. Sometimes when you lose a mirror it is on the driver’s side when a car swerves and hits it. I called 911 and filed a police report. They are going to label it under criminal mischief. A few things:
I do not know who did this and I cannot prove that it was the partying drunks of Father O’Hara. But I can’t prove that it wasn’t either. The facts are the car was in its parking place from 6:30PM Friday night. From 11PM Friday to 2AM there were party hoppers running up and down North Main Street in full gallop fueled by massive quantities of alcohol. (See photo index). I can only surmise that one of the party house’s guests did this either by intention or by accident. But this incident happened because of college alcohol abuse. No damage was ever done by people shuffling up and down the street when King’s was not in session. And my car is not the first vandalism to happen in North End. Earlier in the fall handicapped parking signs were stolen from their posts in the neighborhood. Why they were taken, no one knows but they caused concern and also the taxpayers money because they have to be replaced. But the greater cost is the emotional toll it takes on the neighborhood. I have an elderly neighbor who lives in the back of my house on Madison Street. His house is next to a building populated by King’s women. One day he told my wife that he was astounded at the behavior of the young ladies next to him. “If their mothers only knew how they behave, cursing, screaming, acting like tramps, they’d be surprised”. Neighbors don’t mind the students when they are sober and on their way to classes, they do mind when they are on drunken tears and bellowing in the middle of the night. I can’t accuse any King’s student of vandalizing my car or those of the others listed above but I can make the connection that off campus alcohol abuse and rowdy behavior increases the chances of property damage as well as other safety issues. The police officer, like all Wilkes Barre city cops was professional, empathetic and promised more patrols in the North End to control the drunks. But as another neighbor said, “If a King’s student urinates (that was not the term she used either) on the Baby Jesus, what chance do we have”. Indeed.

THE NEXT NIGHT.....

It was about 3AM and I was awakened by the sound of broken glass. Getting up from my bed, I tried to navigate down the stairs. I heard three male voices one of which was screaming, “I don’t give a ****, I don’t give a ****”. More breaking glass. Then there was quiet, because the rats retreated back into their respective holes paid for by mommy and daddy in New Jersey. The next morning there was a recycling can dumped over into the street. The photo is above. Now what happened here is pretty interesting. In the 70s there was a sociological report on “Black on black” crime. Statistics said that most crime committed against blacks were by other blacks. The breaking of glass and dumping of the recycling container was a crime by students against students. (After their party the students dutifully filled up the recycling containers like good citizens.) However a few bad citizens chose to knock it down and commit even more vandalism. Now you might not think knocking over a can of bottles is a big thing but it blights a neighborhood. It gives people the impression that there is disorder and that “anything goes”. And it is likely a fellow King’s student that did this against their own classmates. One of the other cars damaged, was that of a King’s student who attained the Dean’s list in 2008. I’m sure if the people who did this knew she was a fellow classmate, they might have spared her car. But alcohol abuse and the ensuing vandalism knows no reason or judgement.
For the safety of everyone in the neighborhood and everyone’s possessions I am going to take the following steps.
1.CRIME WATCH: I will contact the Wilkes Barre Crime Watch to see if activities on party night can be monitored.
2.VIDEO: I am getting bids from companies to see if videos could be taken from the street of unruly behavior and pass that information on to the police and college authorities. Going to college and living in the host city neighborhoods should be a privilege and not a right.
3.ALUMNI: While this is only a modest little blog, many King’s College Alumni read this site. I am encouraging all of them to withhold their donations to the College and contribute to one of their own local community colleges. This is not the King’s College we attended.
4.I have sent a letter to U.S. News and World Report outlining the outrageous behavior of the King’s students and will ask them to keep this in mind when they are ranking their top colleges in America. Rewarding an institution for bad behavior is just plain wrong even at the expense of the image of the city. These steps are just the start if any more vehicles are damaged or any other incidents occur. A few weeks back at a social event I was asked what school I attended for college. It was just days after completing my Medical Coding semester at LCCC and I instinctively said, “Luzerne County Community College”. I was then going to amend my answer but then the conversation trended elsewhere. The fact is the King’s College I knew and participated in as a student is in the side view mirror. Broken and cracked (just like my mirror) by a new generation of unthinking slobs, drunks and dare I say budding criminals.