hey tredyffrin township a digital billboard HERE? really? do you have anything to say yet?
Monthly Archives: December 2018
your health is NOT worth penn medicine radnor
Steve Smith can also be reached at Steven.Smith2@uphs.upenn.edu
When you complain about the parking and the unsafe parking lot this is the little strip of paper they hand you at Penn Medicine Radnor. (This is of course after the security guard shrugs their shoulders at you.)
Ever since I became an oncology patient 7 1/2 years ago I seem to have a lot of doctors appointments. Today I was supposed to see my oncologist and I almost turned around and went home the parking lot was that bad.
Today was the day I saw a man on a walker almost get hit by a car at a medical facility. And the driver of said vehicle as they sped by had the nerve to glare at the poor man on the walker.
I had two appointments this week at Penn Radnor. Thank the good Lord I don’t have to go back before the new year. I understand they are moving into a new facility, and I don’t want to jump on the anti-Penn in Radnor bandwagon but I’m sorely tempted at this point.
When I got there this morning if an ambulance had to come in and get someone they would not have been able to navigate through the parking lot because there was barely any space to get through. People were parked on shoulders, people were parked on the grass, people were parked in fire lanes, people were parked on curves. And this isn’t just passenger vehicles there were a couple of trucks too.
And I know it’s not any safer for the staff and medical professionals than it is for the patients. Penn Medicine has a lot of money. They need to throw some towards a parking solution. Telling patients who are upset when they walk in the door what does anyone expect them to do about it is not a solution. And I had not one but two security guards shrug their shoulders at me this week. This morning the security guard barely acknowledged me and handed me a little slip of paper with the name and phone number of the chief operating officer. He of course did not answer his phone.
Today was the day where I once again called Radnor Township about this parking lot. It’s private property, but when they block fire lanes and things like that it becomes a health safety and welfare issue in my opinion.
Now somewhat say how can they predict how many people are going to be in the parking lot each day. Simple all the people that have appointments represent a vehicle. So they can track that in their computer system. That of course does not take into consideration patients coming in on an urgent basis or possibly without an appointment.
When you enter their property in Radnor you are entering a state of chaos. Every single day. And if the parking wasn’t bad enough the people who can’t wait and have to go drive unsafely around people waiting for a parking space cause additional hazards.
I am beginning to think that my life is not worth Penn Medicine at Radnor because if it was Penn Medicine would do something about their parking lot.
history at risk: 5030 horseshoe pike. caln public hearing december 13th, 2018.
It starts with someone sending me a public notice. And once again, I am down the rabbit hole of Chester County history at risk.
This is a public hearing to be held in Caln Township on Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. at the Caln Township Municipal Building located at 253 Municipal Drive, Thorndale, Pennsylvania 19372. Now I aslo found this notice of this meeting on PA Public Notices , but I’ll be damned if I can find it on Caln Township’s actual website so either it’s just another bad municipal website that looks kind of sort of pretty but doesn’t function easily, or it’s not there. (But I digress)
This notice which looks like it is for some kind of extra special zoning overlay (you know those things municipalities do to appease developers and special interests? And hey you do not have to like my opinion, but it’s not my first rodeo with zoning overlays and I am entitled to how I feel) for 5030 Horseshoe Pike.
That is when I really went like Alice down the rabbit hole.
Super historic. Known as the “Lloyd Farm”, “Valley Brook Farm” has a fire I would call mysterious a few years ago. Seriously. Here is the screen capture from the Downingtown Area Historical Society May 2014:
Then I hit Google and oh the things I found including this amazing history compiled by someone named Edward G. Lendrat on the West Chester University Old Caln Historical Society Collection. Caln Township has this buried on their website.
Pretty crazy historic, and I understand there was a fire, but a zoning overlay like this is all Caln Township can think is right for this property??? I am told the developer who has bought the “Lloyd Farm” is proposing 5 story apartment buildings, and commercial where there is NO zoning for it? Hence the need for an extra special zoning overlay at Christmas? And this Public Hearing which takes place Dec. 13th. is it for discussion? Then the Commissioners will vote at their next meeting and NO CHANCE to change it will exist after that?
WTF Caln Township Commissioners? Have you no sense of place? No sense of history and what is appropriate? How many freaking apartment buildings and mish mosh retail and more does Chester County need popping up like crappy weeds? Is this how you celebrate 150 years of history in your municipality? WOW.
(I will note TWO Commissioners are up in 2019 – Jennifer Breton and George Chambers. Residents should replace them if as President and Vice President of the Board this is what they think is fab. Just my opinion of course, but sometimes to change goverment you have to change the faces of who governs you.)
And oh the history….
So if I read the history of the property correctly, it dates back to the late 1600s and a Penn Land Grant? And by 1996 it was owned by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia? (Now I make no secret of my disdain of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and their pedophile priest problems of recent past. Sorry, I digress again…)
Ironically something I wasn’t looking for with regard to this property but seemed to have stumbled upon is a 2015 pipeline easement between the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Columbia Gas. So umm, high density development being proposed and a pipeline? NICE.
Yowza and here is the deed of transfer I guess? Dated April, 2018? The Archdiocese of Philadelphia made over $4.5 cool million on this? NICE. That will settle a bunch of pedophile priest lawsuits, right?
So who is Wild Meadows LLC out of Delaware? (You can search for Delaware entities HERE.)
But back to this very cool history. It is intriguing enough I found it on Twitter:
Here is what it looked like on LoopNet:
Also discovered this place on imgur with these two images from 2015:
It also appears archivally on reddit. Some comments were fascinating.
“Have you been here? I went to Lloyd dog park and found this when I walked up through the field. I really wonder what the story is on this place. Someone at the dog park thought the property is currently owned by a church.”
and…
“This was known as the Lloyd House. It has since been torn down.”
Now I have never been on this property. I have no idea what is stll standing on the property or not. If you have photos, please feel free to send them in a message via this blog’s Facebook page.
Do I have the answers as to what to do with this property? Sadly, no. Don’t know that area well enough. But if there is a pipeline easement, maybe the developer should go light on the development?
Again, how many cram plan developments does one county need? Who is driving this?
Historians and residents might wish to go to this meeting. Remember residents, zoning can affect more than one spot, correct?
Chester County, we can’t just keep sitting idly by as chuck after chunk of land gets carved up. Once open space is gone, it’s gone. Once history is gone, it’s gone.
Here’s hoping the residents of Caln and their municipal neighbors have some Christmas Chutzpah (I know is that like a mixed metaphor or what?) and slow this freight train down.
So much to learn here and I will close with I am marveling at how Caln Township knows the history of this property and they think this is a good idea.
It’s stupid. But I can only express my views as a resident of Chester County. It’s up to the residents of Caln to turn it up and turn out on December 13th.
Tick tock, there is not much time.
I would say if you have historical questions to seek out the Downingtown Area Historical Society and the Old Caln Historical Society.
Thanks for meandering with me.
off whitford road….again
a grinch from lancaster leaves a comment and more pipeline follies
So the other day I wrote a post about pipeline liens being filed against beleagured residents in Pennsylvania who have had pipelines shoved down their throats and land taken by eminent domain for private gain.
And I say eminent domain by private gain versus eminent domain for public purpose because the natural gas companies filing for PUC utility status in Pennsylvania is BOGUS. So BOGUS.
Why?
Because what they rape from the ground and ship across multiple counties doesn’t stay here does it? It is EXPORT, isn’t it? Like for plastics in Scotland? So where is the public benefit?
And let’s talk about the pipeline WORKERS. They are IMPORTS, right? Texas, Maryland, Oklahoma, etc as you can see from their license plates, correct? So these pipline companies are EXPORTING the gas and “other hydrocarbons” and IMPORTING workers from other places so any way you care to look at it, how can they say PUBLIC PURPOSE? It’s not. When they say that it is just P.R. swill, isn’t it?
People in Chester County not too far from me have had their land seized and properties devalued (because who in the hell wants to buy a house in a neighborhood after the pipelines have visited and sinkholes have opened up, wells have been polluted?)
In Berks and other counties homeowners have been subjected to the SAME heinous actions and now to add insult to injury, are being threatened with Mechanics Liens by subcontractors who were employed by the pipeline companies. That was why I wrote the post about it HERE.
Don’t believe me? An actual letter was shared with LancasterOnline and was published today. I screen shot it and blocked off the homeowner name and address:
As published in Lancaster Online 12/6/2018
So how about that? Crazy, right? Not only have these people had land siezed, the pipelines aren’t paying their subcontractors and they are being targeted instead of the pipeline companies who actually employed them? Merry freaking Christmas.
Lancaster Online: Homeowners along gas pipelines in Lebanon, Berks counties shocked to find threats of liens in mail
AD CRABLE | Staff Writer 2 hrs ago
Despicable.
Heinous.
Oh and as this article was first being read by folks, I realized I had a nasty and somewhat menacing comment left on my other post:
This Grinch hails from Lancaster County. It took about two minutes to find out exactly where he lived and what other nasty bits of business he has posted on the Internet. Also discovered the proximity of local police to them.
So FYI to the Grinch,  I retain all threatening comments. And law enforcement reads this blog on occasion. And not that it is any of his Grinch-y business BUT I actually don’t drive a big gas guzzling SUV.
And all the things that “modern free enterprise” give us does not start with the pipelines because none of it stays here. It’s EXPORT. They don’t even employ local for the most part, they INPORT from elsewhere.
The other thing is if the pipeline subs are owed money why aren’t they going to the gas companies for their money versus attacking the homeowners who have had their land stolen and properties devalued BY THE PIPELINE COMPANIES?
So Grinch, you want to be ignorant and threaten and not so subtly suggest I am a communist who should go to Cuba? Rock on with your bigoted self. Like I said, I have zero problem with letting law enforcement know about people who menace.
Now while we are dishing pipelines, let us pause for Adelphia Gateway. They are a comin’. There are in front of federal regulators and will be in Chester County municipalities like Westtown, East Goshen, West Goshen and East Whiteland and more.
Here is what Vinny Vella from The Philadelphia Inquirer had to say yesterday:
PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com Upper Bucks residents lob pipeline complaints at DEP hearing
by Vinny Vella, Posted: December 5, 2018
People before pipelines. It’s long past due. There are not any real safety plans in place and how well what is around would work as we saw in a Boston suburb within the past few months because when they blow (the situation in Boston was described by residents as “looking like Armageddon”) , they decimate everything in the explosion’s path. They are shoving these things through school properties, libraries, churches, farmers’ fields, and so on and so forth.
So do not tell any of us expressing valid concerns about these rape and pillage corporate greed projects is being anti-American. It doesn’t get anymore American than wishing to #DefendWhatYouLove
Thanks for stopping by. #NotOurPipelines
Photo taken by Chester County Resident and posted to Uwchlan Safety Coalition. Notice the child’s play area in someone’s backyard that the pipeline pipes are literally on top of.
ho,ho, ho the liars of lasership
Imagine if Santa worked for LaserShip and said “Well…I actually work for LaserShip, so I really don’t have to deliver packages…maybe I will just dump the sack here and mark the packages “lost in transit” or “delivered””
Yesterday I wrote a post titled ’tis the season for undelivered packages with lasership.
Apparently my pet food from Chewy as of this afternoon was marked magically delivered as of December 2nd, 2018…when I was home all day…and LaserShip said it WOULD NOT be delivered that day.
Here is a screen shot I saved and was on my previous post yesterday (In red is my notation):
Here is a screen shot from the LaserShip website late this afternoon (In red is my notation):
So I have to ask: where exactly did they leave this package? It wasn’t at MY front door. It also wasn’t left at any neighbors’ front doors. And this is a package that has had a different story told about it every time I have called over the past few days.
First there was the old weather exception. Kind of like Septa’s slippery rail season announcements, only sketchier. We have had no blizzards, hurricanes, monsoons, or weather acts of God between Montgomerville, PA and Chester County PA.
Then there was the excuse of the “guy left it on the truck” but never bothered to deliver.
Then there was the excuse of they were SO busy but it will be delivered FIRST THING Monday morning. It wasn’t.
Then there was the LaserShip comment of it was “somewhere in the warehouse” and would be delivered today. It wasn’t.
But when I got REALLY pissed off is when they LIED to Chewy.com today and said “oh we delivered that Sunday” And it was the SAME woman at LaserShip in Montgomerville, PA that I spoke to who had a different story as to my package location at least three times within one conversation. And then there was the whole backdating their system to say the package was delivered two days after it wasn’t delivered.
Oh their CEO? His name is Blake Averill.
I left him a voicemail message today down in old Virginnie at LaserShip HQ. The business is NOT Better Business Bureau accredited, incidentally. ( I called (703) 761-9030)
I left him a voicemail message. I also left him a LinkedIn message. Here is what I said (essentially):
LaserShip should be OUT of business. (yes you should read this).
I have had several LaserShip tall tales. I have had employees say my package was left on a truck and never delivered, it is in the warehouse, Donald Trump has it, and so on. A litany of lies to myself and Chewy.com which started with “weather exceptions” (there are none and have been none since I ordered from Chewy on 11/27/18) and today like magic your corporate jerks updated my tracking (by back dating) to say you delivered to my front door on Sunday December 2. NO THEY DID NOT. I home ALL day Sunday. I am sick of the lies. You should not be in business and I am having a LOT of fun saying that on social media. I am pissed.
You run a sketchy ship of liars at best.
Yes I know, not my most mature offering but I am done. They are worse than Amazon Logistics and I did not think that was possible. They should not be in business. They have so many complaints they are right up there with bogus Breast Cancer charities.
Chewy.com has been staying in contact and they are sending me another pet food order on them. It should be on LaserShip. What I do not understand is why businesses keep using LaserShip? When does the cost of doing business because of them get to be too much?
They have QUITE the Wikipedia page. My favorite is this:
 In March 2017, a customer caught a delivery man tossing a package containing a router on tape, damaging the contents, and reported the incident to Lasership. After the complaint, the delivery man then returned to the customer’s residence four times, prompting the customer to call the police.[15] The customer, identified as Robert Blake, spoke with the Vice President of LaserShip, who noted that the employee had been with the company for 10 years.[16] Reacting to this incident, New Haven-based attorney Tara Knight stated: “That really raises eyebrows. There could be an innocent explanation, but it’s kind of creepy and there could be a nefarious explanation as well.”
I also like the whole RICO case in 2014 involving LaserShip vs. The City of New York. Yes for real. Click on the hyperlink for the press release from the City of New York. A real case you can read about HERE.
Here are but TWO complaints on the Better Business Bureau website about them (there are hundreds of complaints there as well):
Again I ask: HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE STILL IN BUSINESS? They are it seems, BIG FAT LIARS. If they just owned up to whatever the mishap is that caused my package to evaporate and never get delivered, I might be more understanding. But they are compounding lies upon lies and continuing to get caught so they are less than zero on the respect scale.
I still do not have my pet food. Who steals pet food?
I will have to reevaluate doing business with businesses that do business with LaserShip going forward and so should everyone else out there.
Dearest Santa, please send LaserShip reindeer poop for Christmas.
#LaserShipSucks pass it on.
sky in paoli this afternoon
’tis the season for undelivered packages with lasership
From LaserShip’s Twitter Page. Oh the irony.
I did not think it was possible for there to be worse delivery services than Amazon Logistics ( I wrote about finding an entire big bag of dumped Amazon packages in September.) but there is worse. They are called LaserShip or affectionately known as LazyShip and LaserSh*t.
Before I get any further, enjoy this video someone did on LaserShip who delivers for all sorts of people including Sephora, Chewy, and Amazon:
Here is what New York Magazine said about them in 2017:
SEPT. 27, 2017
LaserShip, Amazon’s New Shipping Partner, Might Be the Most Hated Company on the Internet
By Dan Nosowitz New York Magazine
There are certain industries that inspire outsize amounts of rage when they screw up. Airlines are one. TV providers are another. But angry comment for angry comment, there may be no more rage-inducing business than package delivery. If you want to garner widespread customer fury, just deliver a package late or damaged and wait for the storm to roll in. LaserShip — an Uber-like service that delivers packages for Amazon, Walmart, and Sephora, among others — might just be the most hated company on the internet. Some comments, helpfully gathered by the criticism website LaserShit.com…LaserShip — and the ocean of dissatisfied customers it leaves in its wake — is an inevitable result of stratospheric growth. Reliable shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and the USPS aren’t able to deliver all of the same-day, next-day, and two-day packages ….That’s led to parasitic companies popping up to take advantage of Amazon’s need for cheap, fast package delivery. The poster child might just be LaserShip.
Twitter and many message boards, including posts on Amazon’s own forums, are full of complaints about LaserShip. Packages aren’t delivered. Packages are delivered late ….Packages are marked as delivered and not delivered. Packages are delivered to the wrong address. Packages are often just completely lost. (The message for that one is, “LaserShip is unable to confirm control of your package at this time.”) Sometimes, an error will show up on the tracking page: “Parcel damaged and will be discarded.” Customers who attempt to contact LaserShip report being totally unable to solve their problems; they are better off contacting ….whichever company they originally purchased their item from.
My experience started innocently enough. I needed pet food. So I placed a Chewy.com order. On November 27. Two day free delivery or free rush delivery (however they phrase it) and here we are on December 3rd…still waiting. (The website “pissed consumer” has over 1000 complaints about LaserShip.)
This is what my order looks like:
When the order did not arrive by Friday, November 30, I started contacting Chewy. First LaserShip told them there was a weather exception between Montgomeryville, PA and Chester County, PA. I debunked that myth for the lie that it was.
Then of course there is LaserShip on Twitter telling me to just email them. Ummm yeah, been doing THAT for a few days and NOT ONCE have I even received an acknowledgement that I contacted them. I even checked my spam folder.
Then I was supposed to get the delivery yesterday. After a phone call to LaserShip’s corporate offices in Vienna, Virginia (703 761-9030) and they subsequently transferred me to Montgomeryville, PA they changed their story yet again. Supposedly my package was on a truck yesterday and the guy just never bothered to deliver. And then the package wasn’t on the truck today and they did not know where it was and by the end of the conversation the story changed yet again. My package was “somewhere” in the warehouse and would get delivered tomorrow, December 4th.
I do not believe them. I had to go out and buy other pet food. I also let the pet food manufacturer know what was going on. You see, I only went back to Chewy to support them.
LaserShip doesn’t give a damn about me or my package and I know that. I called them because sometimes you just have to. (You can also call LaserShip on 800-527-3764 or 804 -414-2590).
As consumers we are being increasingly driven to online shopping every day, and what we lose is good customer service and companies that actually take pride in what they do. And these predatory shipping companies are also not paying employees well enough so they do not want to take pride in their work. I have been told that by several sources when it comes to the drivers of Amazon Logistics out of the King of Prussia PA hub which services us around here, and well LaserShip is the same subcontracting business model, correct?
Problems with LaserShip are all over social media. It’s kind of crazy. They are really THAT bad.
Anyway, I just wish the companies we patronized didn’t use these cut rate shipping “solutions”. They just create more problems.
christmas in the heart
The W.T. Ellis quote in my photo above is one of my favorite Christmas quotes. I love Christmas. Everyone who knows me knows I love Christmas.
Decorating the house for the holidays and having friends and family in throughout the season is just one of the nicer things you can do I think. It doesn’t have to be fancy, everyone doesn’t have to be dressed up all the time, it’s the act of being together.
This past Friday evening I hosted a ladies’ open house and a friend brought her trunk show to town from New England. A lot of friends old and new, and a couple of friend surprises including a friend I had not seen in a few years. We live enough distance apart and the past few years have been busy enough that time just went by. It was so amazing to see her and made it really feel like the Christmas season was beginning.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the country radio stations are removing beloved Christmas songs from radio playlists. Yes seriously. Star 102 in Cleveland has removed “Baby it’s Cold Outside” because of the #metoo movement.
Yes, for real. This song was written in 1944 by Frank Loesser for his wife for the two of them to sing together. As a duet. It is NOT the Sugar Plum Fairy date rape anthem. The song was also in the 1949 film “Neptune’s Daughter, which made it even more popular.
It’s ridiculous that this song is being targeted. It’s like everything old is new again and we are back to book burnings, except now they are Christmas song burnings. In 2015 there was an article in The National Review about potentially offensive Christmas song lyrics.
Come on people! It’s bad enough sometimes you don’t feel like you can say Merry Christmas that you must say Happy Holidays even if Christmas is the holiday you celebrate. And no, I am not getting into the whole “putting the Christ back in Christmas” argument because to me that’s like making someone accept your religious beliefs at the expense of their own.
What I’m saying is can’t we just enjoy the Christmas season without some sort of controversy every single year?
Christmas is a magical time of year, but I accept it’s hard for a lot of people. But maybe the season would be less hard if we just took a step back and enjoyed it?
Here’s wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas and holiday season.
santa will be bringing pipeline liens in pa this holiday season? sounds pretty grinch-y.
Letter threatens mechanic’s lien against pipeline property owners
Lebanon County PA: The Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline is now operating through the Susquehanna Valley.
But some landowners along the route in Lebanon County received an alarming legal notice in the mail this week.
The pipeline runs through northern Lebanon county, where crews only left a few weeks ago.
But this week, resident Deb Wolfe got a letter in the mail, claiming she was going to have a mechanic’s lien placed against her property because of a contractor that was not paid for their pipeline work.
The letter explains Dykon Blasting is requesting money from Williams Transco and Welding Construction for work done on the Atlantic Sunrise through Lebanon County.
The Wolfes aren’t the only property owners facing this potential headache.
I only just learned about this but this is certainly food for thought with regard to Adelphia, Sunoco/Mariner East/Sunoco Logistics/Energy Transfer Partners, right?
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