Joshua Scott Albert PhillyDeclaraction Interview

Today

12:08pm

Joshua Scott Albert

hey what's up man, i'm doing a story for the declaration about that point breeze situation, was hoping to talk to you about it

12:16pm

Christopher Sawyer

Declaration?

12:20pm

Joshua Scott Albert

phillydeclaration.org

12:35pm

Christopher Sawyer

What do you want to know

12:42pm

Joshua Scott Albert

couple questions: What are your thoughts on PBOC, and why? Also, what makes think that her selling her house discredits her anti gentrification efforts? It does look a little shady that she just bought the house and then sold it. Also, any other comments about the situation

12:45pm

Christopher Sawyer

Are you looking for quotes?

12:48pm

Christopher Sawyer

This is one issue and I'll be frank; I have no faith that each byte I send you could be edited in a way that it leaves the realm of documented factual information and opinion, and enters the realm of defamation. That's why my little blog has 2 local and 1 outside high-powered top-bill rate attorneys defending it, which sucks up a good chunk of my paycheck. If I give you anything quotable, you'd need to clearly separate your own opinions from whatever opinions I give you. Is that clear?

12:50pm

Christopher Sawyer

PBOC folks have been throwing around the "libel" word and in the past they've done legal shopping hoping someone will be their pro bono plaintiff's attorney. So what I post about them on my site sits within two realms: blovation/opinion, and documented fact. Both are immune to libel claims.

12:50pm

Joshua Scott Albert

oh absolutely, i think you can see that my editors are smart, and my work is as unbiased as possible

12:51pm

Christopher Sawyer

If you check PACER you'll see I'm already a defendant in a large Federal lawsuit, sitting in the defendant's box with 12 neighbors, the City and the Police

12:52pm

Joshua Scott Albert

I see, interesting.

but yes, i would be looking for quotes.

the whole situation is very nuanced

12:56pm

Christopher Sawyer

Ok... so what I think of PBOC: They're opportunists constantly in search of a cause, as you can see from their FB page they're jumping from one hashtag activism meme to the next. A lot of folks since Occupy have been in search of a torch to pick up. This particular bunch took up the cause CCPB (Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze) had with Ori Feibush and made it their own. Anything that touches, smells or tastes like OCF is the enemy. They're also quite erratic, they've put distributed some very interesting libelous flyers to residents, and they're very disrespectful if not combative with their own neighbors who don't espouse to their politik, thereby alienating them.

12:57pm

Joshua Scott Albert

how so? what types of materials?

Also, what makes you think it's occupy people? i'm just curious.

12:57pm

Christopher Sawyer

Door leafletting

12:58pm

Joshua Scott Albert

interesting.

And this lady selling your house?

12:59pm

Christopher Sawyer

No one is selling my house

12:59pm

Joshua Scott Albert

sorry sorry, i meant the lady who sold HER house

12:59pm

Christopher Sawyer

I don't know who she hooked up with to broker her property (didn't care).

Her listing was up on MLS for everyone to see, interior shots and all. Just like any other listing that eventually hits the public MLS browsers like Trulia, Zillow, etc.

The crazy flyers PBOC dispersed occurred during various zoning disputes in the past

I've posted images of some of them on PDQ

1:01pm

Joshua Scott Albert

but what makes you think it was hypocritical, other than her selling her turning a profit? I mean, people buy houses and people sell them

1:01pm

Christopher Sawyer

Things like scaring the residents about new people coming to the neighborhood... with pit bulls!

1:03pm

Joshua Scott Albert

her selling her house*

1:04pm

Christopher Sawyer

What PBOC doesn't understand is that house prices reflect the desires of everyone in the housing market, it's not centralized by some secret machine controlled by real estate agents. It's made by individual actors engaging in transactions. The public recordings establish what the trades are. Dina's house sale is actually material to all the two story houses near her in similar condition; she just signaled the market what the clearing price is for that kind of house. Eventually when the block is reassessed, they will discover this and it could impact residents in their taxes. This isn't a joke, it really happens. That's how assessments and house valuations work all across the country.

1:05pm

Christopher Sawyer

It's rather hypocritical to scream about it at the same time profit handsomely from it. It's like an anti-abortion activist protesting, but seeing a market opportunity and running a for-profit abortion clinic at the same time. It's clearly hypocrisy.

1:11pm

Christopher Sawyer

For me to make the same kind of percentage return Ms. Yarmus just made on her property, the average Kensington house price for a new 3-story home would need to climb up to a half-million dollars, to put things in perspective.

1:12pm

Joshua Scott Albert

wow, okay, fascinating. How is your site funded? Is that your sole project?

1:13pm

Christopher Sawyer

I pay for it by working at my day job.

and swiping credit cards

The server that hosts it runs in my basement.

1:13pm

Joshua Scott Albert

Ha, i know what that's like.

1:13pm

Christopher Sawyer

WHOIS the hostname to verify.

PBOC loves to accuse me of being an agent of OCF. It's comical.

Ori can't pay me an engineer's salary.

1:16pm

Christopher Sawyer

And I've never taken compensation from him. I do support him wholehartedly, because before Ori... the City, and most folk outside of Point Breeze thought that neighborhood was a dump and would be locked in recalcitrant hopelessness forever. Decades of public spend into that neighborhood caused precisely ZERO uplift. Enter Ori, then later competitors, and suddenly it's the hottest neighborhood. In the middle of the Great Recession, no less while suburbs all across the USA were collapsing into foreclosure dust.

1:16pm

Joshua Scott Albert

Several months ago you tweeted about how sex workers should be outted, just curious to know why? PBOC seems to think you're a racist and sexist

1:17pm

Christopher Sawyer

Hah, nice question from Dustin

I'm not going to spend hours on that.

1:17pm

Joshua Scott Albert

? dustin didn't ask me to ask that

1:17pm

Christopher Sawyer

Short answer: Trying to remove the sex worker activity on an area of Kensington Avenue that popped up after SEPTA cracked down on Somerset and Kensington Ave.

1:18pm

Joshua Scott Albert

i used to live around there, i know it's bad. But how would outing them help that?

1:18pm

Christopher Sawyer

Drug dealers recamped with them, because sex workers in this particular area are heavy drug users and also the most reliable customers who have cash. The shifting crime pattern after SEPTA started its takeover of McPhereseon square directly increased the amount of violent crime in the northern end of 19125

1:19pm

Christopher Sawyer

i was directly tweeting them to the SEPTA Chief of Police to grab his attention. The 26th District hardly ever visits

After my little stunt the regular cops got wind of it and patrols have increased.

Dustin saw it and went bananas... I'm "doxing" women and I blocked him on Twitter when he tried to flame up a social justice war. Shame, since I followed Dustin since Occupy.

Back to the dealers, there's 4 particular blocks that are intense with activity since the prosties relocated to Huntingdon station, and we've had one drug related homicide so far--trying to keep that from increasing.

1:21pm

Joshua Scott Albert

but nestle deleted his retweets and apologized for that.

Why not take pictures of the Johns?

1:23pm

Christopher Sawyer

I actually took an entire video of the whole transaction including the john and the girl, and the john was stopped and his car boxed in by cops by the time I left Thang Long

1:24pm

Joshua Scott Albert

oh wow

1:24pm

Christopher Sawyer

How to take HD video of shit that goes on the hood, up close, without attracting attention to yourself: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1061973&gclid=CjwKEAjw-JqgBRCAyqjoic27nlQSJABBTpFEGMEve6TPW937BvxovU_H6gNixrIzFuvpzY5g-Zi8YhoCqFrw_wcB&is=REG&Q=&A=details

1:25pm

Christopher Sawyer

You want to dox cops, go buy a pair of these.

1:25pm

Joshua Scott Albert

that's what you use? that's awesome

1:26pm

Christopher Sawyer

That's how I got the vid in the first place. Getting a second pair to lend to complaining residents who want to d0x dealing and other nefarious bullshit. To get a drug house closed takes the corrupt narco team

forever to d0x the property. Residents living in fear can do it themselves, if they didn't have the fear component. The burden is on the silent resident, so that's why everything is shit.

1:28pm

Christopher Sawyer

I've pushed over a half dozen drug houses through standard sheriff's sale (back muni taxes) in the last 3 years and eliminated 2 others that had squatters, and the rest were vacants. Most of them have been redeveloped.

Because what else is there to fix these problems in a City where everything is fucked? Just bitch about it?

1:30pm

Joshua Scott Albert

true.

I don't think i have anymore questions, i'm going to try and have a story out by like friday, talking to everyone involved. Do you have anything else to add?

1:32pm

Christopher Sawyer

Not much else but I'd like a chance to read and add follow up which I assume you'll extend to everyone

1:32pm

Joshua Scott Albert

For sure.