Pennsylvania Counseling Services, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation company brand new to Harrisburg, rapidly and unexpectedly bull dozed down the LAST playground in South Allison Hill, an inner city neighborhood with one of the highest densities of children from single parent homes in the entire nation! Hundreds of high risk children played at that park every day. The adjacent building to this playground was a shuttered school and it and the park together were zoned institutional. In order to receive the zoning variance for a drug and alcohol counseling service in a residential community, this company had to prove that they had community support. They initially garnered support by offering a vision of restoring the playground and having a postive impact on the immediate community. Instead, without any warning to the people that his plans had changed, the new owner decided to “go another way,” which was his way of saying he was forcing the children out into the streets to play. He did this in order to put in a parking lot of almost 100 parking spaces. The children will be fenced off from the blacktop where they rode their bikes, played organized sports, and nightly organized old fashioned group games and ran happily. To add to the the atrocity, they began their demolition of all the playground equipment and basketball courts by cutting down down a thriving 60 foot maple that grew in the middle of the asphalt. The children loved that tree. It was the only tree they interacted with and because of its location, it was always 'home base'. It bloomed flowers in the spring and had stunning crimson leaves in the autumn. Generations of children sat in its shade and climbed up to read in its branches. They butchered it down in a couple hours and the children watched in shock, feeling marginalized, helpless, and victimized by the adults in this city. In addition, this created a tremendously negative community impact. Directly across the street from the park sits a free library, where there is a safe house and free books and food and snacks and playground equipment that the teachers who live there provide year round. The retired couple who have run the library for years had utilized the park to reach out to the children almost no one else can reach, working for free where no one else wants to go. That decades old heart of the city that tunneled children toward their safe house was taken in 36 hours, before anyone, anywhere had time to react and now they have to be seriously concerned with all that traffic coming into the easement sitting just about 20 feet from the free library steps where, for years, there has occurred heavy child pedestrian traffic. There wasn't so much as a construction courtesy notice. These children and good adults lost this park to a developer that made decisions about profit over people. He used insurance costs as an excuse but he was entirely aware of the playground and library and the condition of the community before he began gathering signatures for zoning variance. He should never have continued with his efforts to acquire the property once he realized he might have to eliminate the playground. He began to discuss that concern in the first of the zoning meetings but we cannot find where it was ever officially stated, in the many months of process and permit applications, that he had decided his company couldn't afford the insurance and was intending to tear down the only playground these children had. He never reached out to the community to partner to save the park, though meetings for collaboration were requested by local activists on more than one occasion. As a Dr. of Psychology he must certainly have realized the negative impact this would have on the morale of the community, on the effectiveness of the Stone Soup Library, and on the already traumatized and under served children of this neighborhood. The honest businesses and good people are working hard in this city, giving all they have to pick these kids off the street one hard case at a time, and this man instantly put hundreds of our youngest and most at risk kids on the streets. He had no right to make this unilateral and anti-transparent decision for this city. He never gave a single meeting or community gathering to make the decision WITH the residents, he never warned any of us. The city cannot allow this kind of abusive landlord behavior to continue, to be welcome in Harrisburg. We need to show our ethical businesses and our good people, that we won't let bad business and bad people continue to ruin our city and give us all a bad name. Please sign this petition to request the revocation of Pennsylvania Counseling Service's business privilege license. It is called that because it is a privilege to do business in our city and our investors should treat it as such. It should be wrong to make money at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens. Let's send a message that we won't settle for bad business here. Thank you.

We humans are mistreating each other and wrecking the planet—creation, the environment, our life support system. Our leaders need motivation and encouragement to stand up and join Pope Francis' clarion call for humanity to FIX the critical problems created by our misbehavior. Our leaders must actually LEAD us to SOLVE these problems, and not deny they exist or site excuses.

Healthcare is a right, not a luxury. This is putting some of our more vulnerable citizens in a bad situation.

The Jewish community needs to know we respect what happened during World War II we need to remove the Nazi Flag from all Public Display. Also the veterans of the great war and their families need to know we care about their sacrifice and their friends didn't die in vein.

I suffer from medical conditions that cause me great physical pain and have only narcotic medications available as a source of treatment. I would like the opportunity to have alternates available, such as medical marijuana, that could possibly reduce the amount of these medications I have to take to get relief.

I'm simply sick of endless preventable deaths in America.

Mental illness is a recurring cause in the news about injuries and deaths. We are told that the jails are now functioning as the storage places for the mentally ill where more than half the population is mentally ill. If you do not think caring for the ill is the proper function of society, then you should consider the comparative costs of providing mental health care as opposed to the cost of crime, trial and incarceration of the actions of the mentally ill. I believe that part of being human is working with others to provide a safe, healthy living environment for everyone. The government's job is to provide the services needed to protect and aid all citizens (living, breathing people with all their foibles).

Home Depot announced last year that it would require a label on plants grown with a family of pesticides that are worsening the bee die-off. Yet despite scientific concerns, here is how their label describes the effects: "This plant is protected from problematic aphids, white flies, beetles, mealy bugs, and other unwanted pests by Neonicotinoids." No mention whatsoever of the harmful impact on honeybees, butterflies, or other pollinators! Somehow Home Depot has figured out a way to make more money off this poisonous pesticide. And they are doing so while other national retailers are taking steps to drop suspected bee-killing chemicals from their shelves. Sign the petition now urging Home Depot executives to be forthcoming in their labeling of bee-killing products.

Every American has been affected by this act of domestic terrorism. The state of South Carolina should lower all flags to half mast in honor and solidarity for all its citizens.

Summary: Property owner/developer seeks amendment to Orange County Florida Comprehensive Plan to change Greenbelt and Wetland Conservation designations to Estate Home District permitting up to 140 homes on land currently approved for 12 single-family homes. As one of the last remaining undisturbed natural areas in western Orange County, Florida, this land is a key segment of a regional wildlife corridor and provides critical diverse habitat for native and migrating wildlife including species of conservation concern, threatened and endangered status including Florida Black Bear and American Bald Eagles. The best use of this land is as a permanent conservation preserve for the benefit of future generations and preservation of our unique natural Florida environment.

This issue is vitally important to this Marine veteran because I need medical marijuana. Have some compassion by signing this petition.

As a home owner in Westfield this matter concerns me because we should be able to source our own food whenever possible. I have four children and it's important to me that they understand where their food comes from, and the humane difference in how our chickens are raised, honestly they are quite spoiled. They all have names, personalities, and are loved much like the family pet dog. Having chickens gives my children a sense of responsibility and they take great pride in their profit of eggs in which they share with teachers and neighbors at every opportunity. Chickens are also wonderful composting creatures that turn our kitchen scraps into fantastic fertilizer for our garden beds and eliminate the need for petrochemical fertilizers. They are such a beneficial animal to have and I hope to get your vote for the city of Westfield to look into changing the laws to own backyard chickens. We've been personally affected by the current laws and may have to re-home our small flock so we need your vote to help our family in this cause.