Friday, May 6, 2011

National Park Service and Independence Visitor Center Corporation Obfuscated Issues and Misled Congress

Overview
In December 2006, Senator Arlen Specter reached out to Dennis Reidenbach, Superintendent, Independence National Historical Park ("INHP"), and suggested a proposal to have INHP offer walking tour companies comparable accessibility and visibility to riding tour companies for visitors at the taxpayer funded Independence Visitor Center ("IVC"). Just days after Mr. Reidenbach received Senator Specter's proposal, Mr. Reidenbach appears to have summarily dismissed the proposal, even though he represented to Senator Specter that he "carefully reviewed" his proposal. Further, the Independence Visitor Center Corporation ("IVCC") adamantly lobbied the NPS in support of Mr. Reidenbach's rejection: "If we move an inch on this issue chaos will be the result" and we must "not offer or open the door an inch." In his rejection of Senator Specter's proposal which obfuscated the issues, Mr. Reidenbach said that he was "committed to working equally with all commercial tour operators", but that he was "not willing to open more space in the IVC to solicitation and ticket sales." That statement was untrue.  Just six months after Mr. Reidenbach outrightly rejected Senator Specter's proposal to not open up any more space for ticket sales inside of the Independence Visitor Center, Philadelphia Trolley Works and Big Bus Company debuted a brand new ticket sales concessions booth inside the Independence Visitor Center. However, The Constitutional Walking Tour was not offered the same commercial opportunities and concessions contracts made available by the NPS and IVCC to The Constitutional's competitors.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

National Park Service ("NPS") and the Independence Visitor Center Corp. ("IVCC") Enforced Censorship At Independence Park - The IVCC and NPS Retaliated Against The Constitutional Walking Tour & Damaged Relationship with "Where Philadelphia" Magazine

Overview
Through policies that changed so frequently, randomly and arbitrarily as to preclude the existence of any true standard policy, the National Park Service ("NPS") and Independence Visitor Center Corporation ("IVCC") enforced censorship at Independence National Historical Park ("INHP"), a unit of the NPS in Philadelphia. Furthermore, the IVCC, with the complicit oversight of NPS, retaliated against The Constitutional Walking Tour ("The Constitutional") for challenging these random and arbitrary acts of censorship. Such retaliation by the IVCC, with the approval of NPS, irreparably damaged a critical business relationship between The Constitutional and Where Magazine.

Censorship at America's Birthplace
On May 25, 2007, Bill Moore, former President and CEO of the IVCC, gave his staff instructions at the Independence Visitor Center's ("IVC") Main Information & Sales Desk to inform The Constitutional that it would no longer be allowed to distribute its new 2007 marketing brochure, The Independent, inside of the Federally owned Independence Visitor Center, despite the fact that the same content had previously been deemed acceptable in The Constitutional’s prior brochures and in turn distributed at the IVC. Copies of The Independent at the Independence Visitor Center were confiscated and removed by the IVCC's management from all display racks at the Independence Visitor Center, including at the IVC's Main Information & Sales Desk.

On information and belief, Mr. Moore did not like The Independent since he viewed it as competitive with the "Historic Philadelphia Gazette" (also just referred to as "The Gazette"), another news pamphlet/brochure distributed by the Independence Visitor Center. NPS and Historic Philadelphia, Inc. ("HPI"), have officially collaborated for many years on publishing The Gazette which is taxpayer funded and which serves as the official news pamphlet/brochure of INHP; "the Gazette is a joint venture of HPI and the National Park Service."  Additionally, according to Mr. Moore, the IVCC has “regular discussions with the staff that publishes the Historic Philadelphia Gazette regarding content and information.”