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09/02/2002 Maurer v. NLREEP (Ed Goppelt)

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Fred Maurer and Mark Focht
2002/09/02

Tacony volunteer Fred Maurer has been outspoken and unrelenting in his criticism of NLREEP, firing off numerous letters to park and elected officials. Of his dealings with Maurer, NLREEP Program Administrator Mark Focht says simply: "Fred and I don't see eye to eye."

In preparing this piece, I had long conversations with both Maurer and Focht. They disagreed about everything. As far as I can tell there is only one thing these two very different men can agree on: they both love the parks and have dedicated their lives to them.

Focht projects an aura of crisp efficiency and professionalism that I suspect served him well during his years as a consultant. When I met with him, Focht was smartly turned out without being showy. At 41, he looks far younger than his years. He chooses his words with care.

At 67, Maurer could be Focht's father. He retired from the Phone Company in 1990 and says that he functions as the de facto caretaker of Tacony Park. Chuck Younger, the current President of Tacony Friends, does not dispute Maurer's commitment to the Park. "For years he was the only one who cared." Maurer learned his lessons about public policy, not at the University, but as a blue collar worker and later Union officer working for the Phone company. Maurer's mild demeanor and deliberate speech disguise a stubborn insistence that officials do what, in his opinion, is the right thing. In my opinion, though Maurer's heart is clearly in the right place, he is not always right.

Maurer had three major complaints which I looked into:

• He claimed that NLREEP removed a pedestrian footbridge, without telling the community and without completing the necessary paperwork. See The Bridge to Nowhere. I was ultimately convinced that NLREEP did not remove the bridge improperly.
• He said that a gully repair project at Fisher's Lane was done wrong, didn't work, and had not been properly supervised. Having spoken with Focht at some length about this, I think Maurer did not fully understand this project. I believe the project was done right.
• Maurer stated his opinion that NLREEP imposed its decisions on the community rather than working with it. In my view, the question of how committed NLREEP is to including the community in decisions is the most important raised by Maurer. It is also the hardest to answer.

But there are some things that give me pause. When I asked to look at a detailed budget, NLREEP refused. Focht told me the agreement between the City and the William Penn Foundation prohibit this. When I asked to look at the agreement, it turned out that this, too, was not something NLREEP could share with the public. Same for the monthly reports NLREEP makes to the Fairmount Park Commission. This kind of secrecy is not what I would expect to see from an organization that is committed to including the public as an equal partner in its decisions.

To be fair to NLREEP, this may be an unalterable condition of their William Penn grant. I attempted several times to contact NLREEP's grant administrator, Ms. Geraldine Wang, without success. Ultimately, I wrote this letter to Ms. Wang to which I received the following response.