Greg Pastore,
BVTW Board member and Zoning Committee Co-chair
Greg Pastore, a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area, has lived and worked in Bella Vista since 1991. He has renovated several Bella Vista investment properties, which he manages. From 2003 to 2006 he owned and operated Dessert, a nationally recognized dessert cafe on the border between Bella Vista and Queen Village. A former President of the Bella Vista Town Watch, he has served since 2000 as its Zoning Co-Chair, representing Bella Vista to the Zoning Board of Adjustment in more than 200 cases, encompassing dozens of row house expansions, the construction of more than 60 new attached homes, and numerous condo and commercial developments. He is currently a BVTW board member. In 2007, Greg was appointed by Councilman Frank DiCicco as 1st District representative to the Zoning Code Commission, a City-Charter Commission responsible for completely rewriting Philadelphia's decades-old zoning code. From 1998 to 2004, Greg sat on the SEPTA Citizen Advisory Committee, rising to Vice Chairman.

Lawrence A. Weintraub AIA,
BVTW Zoning Committee Co-chair
Larry Weintraub was born in Philadelphia, and has been a Bella Vista resident since 1995. He has served on the BVTW Zoning Committee since 2005. He has been a licensed architect since 1992 and an active member of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He specializes in traditional and urban residential design and historic preservation. Since 1992, he has been an active architectural walking tour guide of the Center City area for the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. He is also an active member of the local chapters of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Association for Preservation Technology. He has a great and ongoing interest in the preservation of the historic scale and architectural diversity of the Bella Vista neighborhood.

Joel Palmer,
BVTW President and Zoning Committee member
Joel Palmer has been a member of BVTW since 2004 when he moved to Philadelphia from California. In Los Angeles, he was president of a major San Fernando Valley homeowners association and a member of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Civic Associations. He has been a Bella Vista representative in the Philadelphia Neighborhood Alliance (PNA) to re-site casinos away from the Delaware River. Joel brings land-use political and development expertise to BVTW and is a homeowner at Ninth and Bainbridge.

John C. Smyth,
BVTW Founder and Board Member and Zoning Committee member
John Smyth is the owner of Real Property Solutions (RPS), a commercial real estate consulting business representing clients as their owner’s representative or project manager. Prior to founding RPS, John worked with Amerimar Enterprises, a national real estate development company, for over fifteen years. Earlier, John managed property for Fidelio/Buvermo in the Philadelphia area and the Unniversity of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. John is a founder of the Bella Vista Town Watch and has served as its president and is currently a board member. John is also board president of the the Friends of the Charles Santore, Bella Vista’s public library. Additionally, John is a member of the Palumbo Recreation Center Advisory Council. He also represents Bella Vista at the Philadelphia Neighborhood Alliance working to re-site Philadelphia’s casinos away from the Delaware River waterfront. John is a longtime Philadelphia resident currently residing in the Bella Vista section with his wife, Vickie Waitsman and his son Julian, a student at the Julia R. Masterman High School.

Lawrence (Larry) Lindsay,
BVTW Zoning Committee Member
Larry Lindsay is a longtime resident of Carpenter Street, where he and his wife, Carla Puppin, raised two children, both of whom attended public schools. He is a founding member of the Friends of Bardascino Park and the Bel Arbor Tree Farm (now Bel Arbor Community Garden. Lindsay is an attorney, with a bi-lingual (English/Spanish) practice in Camden, New Jersey, where he sits as a Trustee for the Camden Empowerment Zone. In 2005, he and his law partner (and their families) received the prestigious Preservation Alliance For Greater Philadelphia Grand Jury Award for the renovation of a historically certified building in downtown Camden for use as their office space. His law practice concentrates on land use, small business/real estate matters, and civil rights law.

Scott Alan George,
BVTW Zoning Committee Member
Scott George has made his home in Bella Vista, down on the 800 block of League Street, for nearly a decade, and with his wife is raising two children here. He has practiced law for over a decade in the city, with an emphasis on class action, complex litigation, and personal injury law.