Monthly Archives: June 2025

willistown is being ruined by the nutbag brigade.

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In Willistown, the nutbag brigade is ruining this township. Even if this was a place that had a lot of media coverage, they literally wouldn’t have enough reporters to cover the nutbag brigade in Willistown.

If they’re not trying to shut down flower farms, they are seeking out conspiracy theories in haystacks.

Now let me set the stage here.

People criticize me and say that I’m hiding because I’m called Chester County Ramblings, even though every post here is signed with my name. But the biggest problem is on Facebook because my blog’s Facebook page is “Chester County Ramblings”. Hello village idiot collective? That’s the name of my blog. Duh.

Some of the biggest complainers are the nutbag brigade from Willistown. They know exactly who I am, and then they literally run around and are among the people that will contact anyone possible to say what a horrible terrible person I am. This does make me laugh because every once in a while somebody will say to me (paraphrasing here) “You know people think you’re a bully and thought you would want to know.”

To them it’s a smile and the reply, thank you for telling me because I do appreciate that somebody cares enough to tell me that. But most don’t see the root of it. The root of it are these people that I don’t agree with or wish to interact with wherever they are, a lot of the time I choose just block them because I simply don’t feel like listening to them…which ironically and honestly they are in fact trying to bully me, malign me, defame me. But I can’t control their behavior. I can only control mine, remove myself from their crap, and look in the mirror every day. And back to the point of this post is the fact that some of the biggest offenders are from Willistown. Yes, beautiful, bucolic Willistown with the rotten underbelly of so many nasty residents. (Incidentally, I have many friends in Willistown who agree with me on this. )

These unpleasant people in Willistown literally live in one of the most beautiful municipalities in the entire county. But they can’t realize their good fortune, and they have to literally pick everything apart every day, 365 days a year. A lot of the people who do this are failed politicians, similar malcontents, or those who simply don’t have the balls to actually stand up and participate in their community. They view their “participation“ as this nonsense.

Lately their nonsense has formed into a bitch fest collective, and a new Facebook page. I find it amusing that their page is anonymous. I mean, it’s not really anonymous. You know who’s behind it and I have a pretty good idea who runs the profile that is not actually a page per se, and I don’t really care if they want to give themselves a cute little name like “Team Willistown.” It is of course their right to operate that way, but the hysterical irony is they’re doing worse than what they criticize me for doing.

So their latest target when they’re not submitting 10 million right to know requests (and do they do it now under “Team Willistown”?) is they are attacking Willistown and the way they have decided to get the public works building rebuilt or updated in a crazy economic environment. The whole process was transparent. It was discussed at multiple meetings and now they have decided it’s no bid and bad. Very, very bad.

So once again, they’re starting on one of their letter, writing campaigns and voluminous and constant Facebook posts, including polluting a community group which until them was pretty nice. Of course, if you disagree with them, then you are evil.

These people are consistently rude to township staff and supervisors. They have quite the elitist attitude towards all. and again the great irony here is, they don’t really know what living in a bad municipality is about. But then again they don’t get out much, they stay behind their keyboards most of the time. Oh, and let us not forget that the crap they pull constantly? This costs the taxpayers in the end. It doesn’t just cause serious turnover and turmoil of township staff.

If not some letter writing, lawn sign toting campaign, they drive up and down the roads of Willistown in their Teslas or similar complaining that some roads have the nerve to be old-fashioned unpaved roads. And some of the roads, paved or not, are in rough shape because there are stormwater issues. Some of the stormwater issues could perhaps be alleviated if some property owners were more cooperative with the township and why not do that?

And then I love when they start about sidewalks. And I’m not saying sidewalks aren’t important, but what I am still saying is not all roads will do well with sidewalks. Add the questions they can never ever answer when they rant on about sidewalks and it’s who will pay for what. Because everybody knows when sidewalks go in the property owner is responsible, even if the property owner didn’t want a sidewalk.

Let’s talk about some of the property owners that don’t want sidewalks. First and foremost, they know that some places are completely dangerous and it’s bad shit crazy to put sidewalks in those places.

Then there are the people who own and raise expensive horse flesh or cattle and so on, and that’s a HUGE liability for them. Are these big mouths who want sidewalks going to provide these land owners with the kind of coverage they would need and pay for it?

And then there are the people with properties that would need to be seriously graded in order to put in a sidewalk so how much land would be taken?

These people want to run everything, but at the end of the day do they really want to do anything besides bitch to Willistown about Willistown? You don’t see them moving though do you? It’s a horrible terrible place to live and why don’t they go where they’re happy?

Now look, do I think Willistown could see improvement? Let’s be honest, what municipality wouldn’t benefit from a little improvement? But it’s what these people are about that is the issue with me. They’re just offensive. And whatever good ideas they might have on occasion is lost in their unending barrage of brain farting verbal diarrhea.

Team Willistown is an individual profile on Facebook- it’s one person. But it’s the same old people attached to this person. Plus a couple of new additions who do not know about the Willistown dog who carries the bone and insecure enough to always spill the tea. So eventually everyone will figure it out. It’s literally the sewer rats with a couple of others, isn’t it?

Politics make strange bedfellows, and they come from both sides of the aisle in Willistown…and elsewhere. They are pretty much using the Republican candidate running. He’s young, a Trumper, and perhaps a patsy. And then she of peek-a-boo blouses and photo posing with John Fetterman? Rumor mill has it she’s going to perhaps try to run for supervisor again in a couple of years?

And it’s pretty obvious that they have as their next objective to get rid of Supervisor Bill Shoemaker. Now I will say the guy running as a Democrat this coming November is actually a good guy.

But the sewer rats by any other name? Are they motivated by anything other than revenge?

You don’t have to like my opinions, but I am entitled to them. And the reality is in cases like this if they didn’t put so much BS out there, there would be nothing for anyone to opine upon.

And the funny thing is, I’d actually rather listen to a rooster than listen to any of these people. I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that did you?

Rant over.

new discovery related to duffy’s cut

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This week I had the pleasure and privilege of going to Immaculata to listen to the Watson brothers and their team announce another mass grave discovery to the west of the original mass grave. The precise location is not divulged, it’s somewhere near Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown.

Duffy’s Cut and the continuation of the history of what happened with these Irish rail workers is important.

When I was growing up, my late maternal grandfather was Irish. Irish American, not Irish born, but he told me about Duffy’s Cut. he also told me about being a little boy at the turn of the 20th century in Philadelphia and seeing signs in the windows that said “No Irish Need Apply.” I remember being like 11 or 12 and asking a history teacher about it and the teacher said yes there were the signs in the windows but graves of murdered railroad workers never existed and Duffy’s Cut wasn’t real.

And here we are today. Those men, and that one woman we knew of, existed. They mattered. The history mattered.

If you are curious about the history, there is a museum within Immaculata library devoted to this. But please, whatever you do don’t go running around ghost hunting. These discoveries have occurred on private property and it is a privilege not a right that that the archaeological team under the direction of the Watson Brothers are doing this important work.

Please visit https://duffyscut.immaculata.edu/ for more information and also if you would like to make a donation.

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-mass-grave-downingtown

Mass grave discovery in US may hold remains of Irish railroad workers
Mass grave of Irish railroad workers likely discovered in Downingtown

cherry picking in chester county

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Screenshots from a public post on Facebook. Quarry Road in Chester County – Downingtown.

This is our world today? ICE is following landscaper trucks around now?

I wonder was there an underlying traffic reason for stop?

So what happens if these are people who have legitimate green cards/work permits etc? How long before they stop being terrified and are released? If they can prove legitimacy to be here, how soon before they are believed?

When the development dwellers complain to HOA about their grass? Look no further….

No, I did not these photos. These are publicly posted screenshots.

meandering thoughts and what do people see as the future of journalism?

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Recent events that affect me personally have made me ponder the question of life and what do people see as the future of journalism?

First let’s back up a minute and add a disclaimer: no one and nothing will be harmed by my opinions afforded to me by the First Amendment.

Getting my daily and weekly newspapers used to be a joy, especially when it was in good old fashioned paper form. Today, the dailies and weeklies paper anywhere feels like the circular for a supermarket.

The papers used to have substance. There was the smell of the ink and the paper crinkled and oh how it felt in your hands… and the ink smudges on your fingers.

The other thing about these papers, whether daily or weekly is the reporters used to be your neighbors and friends. Then newspapers and media in general started to change.

Even printing plants changed, and in some cases disappeared all together.

Newspapers at first, especially the weeklies, started to merge. It was too expensive for them to be on their own then the dailies started to be sold. It was too expensive for them to be maintained under whatever ownership it was at the time.

As these contractions and mergers and sales started to happen, it affected every aspect of the newspaper. Reporters were retired or laid off, and the same with other kinds of people who worked for the papers.

A lot of this started happening as the digital age emerged, and more people were online. Newspapers eventually all had websites.

Soon your newspaper people, most of them old school newspaper folks, had to learn websites and everything websites entailed. And they all complied to the best of their ability.

These changes were hard on people who just read the papers as well as those who put them out and put them to bed and created them.

I remember the first time somebody said to me soon there will be no print paper it will just be online. I didn’t believe them. Look at all the things that no longer exist?

Then somebody said to me eventually a lot of the papers will cease to exist because all people care about is what they can make out of them whether it’s selling them off bit by bit as a hedge fund owner or just eviscerating them with bad practices. And I said no, how can newspapers cease to exist? They’re part of our life blood.

During all this time, I’ve always tried to support local and regional journalism. At one point in time I had a regional subscription, local subscriptions, and two national subscriptions, but the costs kept going up so now I have fewer subscriptions.

Many people can’t afford a newspaper subscription any longer. Many people choose not to afford a newspaper subscription because they don’t think they’re worth it sometimes even when I didn’t think it was worth it I kept the subscription because I knew people who worked for these papers.

Someone said to me not so long ago that People just don’t want to support local journalism. And, newspapers are not very good at being relevant. Plus, they make a ton of mistakes in what to cover, where and when.

They continued that they felt like there is a general selfish attitude in this country right now. They recounted a story where they had a conversation with someone about a service that people use. They commented on how the person they were having a conversation with about this organization and service was quite dismissive and she felt it was the with journalism as in how they functioned and public perception of what used to be kind of a national treasure and a hallmark of what our country was founded on.

But then you have to legitimately wonder if news organizations can’t be local enough to matter anymore? And that’s not just for print media it’s for television media as well.

All of these corporate structures of these media organizations are in a rat race. Against each other, and you have to wonder if also against the people who actually pay attention to them the regular people they don’t employ?

All of these organizations are trying to tick various boxes to be politically correct, even down to their choice of employees, which don’t you think is a horrible way to use other human beings?

I used to love the way journalism, covered our stories and our issues. No matter what the story was big or small, so many of them got airtime or print inches, but bit by bit as the industry changed, the economy changed, and the Internet grew… that all changed.

What is everyone’s biggest complaint today? Is it that the issues in their area don’t matter and there’s no one to talk to?

Because of journalism, issues got voices and faces and often solutions were found. If solutions weren’t found the issues were at least exposed. What do we have today? A mélange meets mishigas or just confusa?

What does being politically correct mean vis-à-vis journalism?

What does being politically correct mean vis-à-vis politics?

And it’s not like journalism is dead everywhere. I also take a peek at international papers and international news programs. How else are you supposed to find out what happens in the rest of the world?

There’s a phrase you always hear if it bleeds it leads. That’s the way it still is today, only fewer stories. Because television journalism has been going through issues as well.

TV stations have multiple changes in leadership and finances, etc. they change the style of their reporters, the faces of their reporters, and restrict what they can cover. Much like their print journalism counterparts, they used to rely a lot on their connections within the community for their stories. Only that’s not good enough anymore.

And God forbid you get older. I really feel that there isn’t a more ageist area of employment than journalism. And all of these news organizations no matter what, know they can employ new people half the age of their current staff at less than half the price, right? And I’m not saying that because I have something against younger journalists now that I’m 61 and reading what they write and seeing them on TV, it’s just every time you see a new face or a new voice you wonder whom have they replaced? And why?

So what happens to these people we all used to love and respect, even if we didn’t know them personally we just watched their stories or read their stories? What happens as their voices are compromised or are they not being compromised? What is the truth?

As journalism changed, and the Internet grew, these people known as bloggers emerged. They called them citizen journalists. I am a blogger. I started blogging because many years ago in my community, it was the only way to get our issues heard.

In the early days, there was no push button anything. I had to learn some basic HTML code. There was Phillyfuture. org, which was an awesome thing .

No, I have never quite been comfortable with the term citizen journalist because blogging is opinion based in part. But we filled a void.

Soon a lot of bloggers developed shall we say symbiotic relationship relationships with traditional journalists. It was really cool to have these writers that you read every day, just talk to you. They were our local and regional news heroes, and I’m not sounding geeky on purpose saying that it’s what they were, we as bloggers respected them.

Some of these journalists became friends with some of us bloggers. There wasn’t an organization or a blogger/journalist union. We were just people. It was mutual respect and understanding.

Because of some of these journalists, I learned I actually could write and my truth mattered. I ended up getting writing mentors. And I was told that I should always write what I know. And the know part extended to things I could research and back up.

But as a blogger now for what is it, two decades give or take, what have I never forgotten that I find so sad? I find it really sad when people affiliated with the media find a blogger to be like the threat to journalism as they know it and why is that? Am I pretending that I went to journalism school? Never.

Over the course of time I have had some traditional bylines, some compensated. But my blogging? Never compensated and I even pay for this site to have no advertising to annoy my readers.

Also, as blogging has evolved types of bloggers have evolved. Some like to call them mommy bloggers. They wrote about only mom things or Disney cruises. That’s fine if that’s their jam, but most of them didn’t like me because they didn’t understand why I had to talk about things that were happening? To them I always thought it’s kind of like I don’t understand why they do blogging of products they don’t even like just because they’ll be given something?

But to each their own. They did their thing, I did mine.

Then, as the tone of everyday voices in this country began to change, once again, attitude towards bloggers and independent thinkers changed. And today it’s kind of downright dangerous to state your opinion, and what kind of screwed up thing is that considering what our forefathers fought, bled, and died for?

Today in all aspects of the world, you’re supposed to assimilate become Stepford. Over and over we are either outright told or it’s insinuated by actions that being an individual is bad.

We weren’t created to be identical, anymore as Americans were we created to live in a dictatorship or monarchy or oligarchy.

So circling back to the future of journalism, where does that lead? What is the future of journalism? What do people think the future of journalism should be? What do people miss about journalism?

As always, I don’t have those answers. I do my best to be truthful and to be a good person, no matter what my critics feel and when I have written first and foremost, it’s not for an audience. It’s for me and writing has always been my catharsis, and now it’s being threatened again.

At the end of the day is being a blogger and being threatened because you did something so terribly wrong or just because you’re different than what some people know and expect?

Is the message here being different is bad? Is the message here that women are supposed to be literally barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen? Or if you are beyond that stage in life, you’re supposed to just sit on your rocking chair and sip chamomile tea with a shawl around your back?

I don’t have the answers to those questions, either.

Anyway, that’s all my rambling for today.

skullduggery surrounding shuttered brandywine hospital campus

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Well dammmmmnnnn, this is interesting….the case is apparently in US District Court. This Banyan company (addiction treatment) alleges that a company from Wayne called Actus, falsely represented authority to lease building. This particular building the article states is owned by Coatesville MP RK6, a business associated with Remedy Medical Properties, a company based in Chicago, IL.

If you have been following the local news of it all you will remember most of this hospital campus was sold to the Lloyd Farm Folks AKA Regal Builders in March. This one lone building has another owner. According to this Philadelphia Business Journal article, the Banyan company had also been renovating the building when the real owners Coatesville MP RK6 (an LLC I presume of Remedy Medical Properties?) rolled up and said no dice kids, that’s OUR building.

And it’s funny I remember someone talking about this building being renovated in the course of a conversation about what would happen to that campus and the fact the hospital buildings were outdated. And I do remember someone else saying that this building in the article was under separate ownership.

Fascinating.

How do you represent a building you don’t actually have permission to represent? Like how did he even get inside or get keys? And I went to the Actus website and it is listed as a COMPLETED project! (Oh and under current projects on their website? Nada. Nothing.)

Guess this is shady is as shady does?

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/pennsylvania/paedce/2:2025cv02702/638180

https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/58256339/BANYAN_COATESVILLE,_LLC_et_al_v_ACTUS_MANAGEMENT,_LLC_et_al

Treatment center operator claims it was tricked into fake Brandywine Hospital lease

By John George – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal

Jun 9, 2025

Banyan is suing a Wayne company for allegedly tricking the addiction treatment center operator into signing a fraudulent lease for space on the former Brandywine Hospital campus in Chester County.

The lawsuit, filed by Banyan Coatesville on May 28 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, lists Actus Management and the affiliated Actus Holdings and Actus Healthcare Properties as defendants…..The lawsuit alleges Sean McDougall, a managing member at Actus who is also named as a defendant, falsely represented that he was acting as an authorized agent and landlord for the owner of the building

need we say more? valerie shultz is on the ballot in november in honey brook township!

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so the philadelphia inquirer hates bloggers or just this blogger in particular?

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I had not been in email for a couple of days, nor checked my spam folder. This was in my spam folder. I called the woman, but the phone just rang and rang.

Here is the content of the e-mail in case the screenshot is not clear:

Jun 6, 2025, 2:57 PM (2 days ago)

Carla,

Good afternoon. I am counsel to The Philadelphia Inquirer. I am reaching out because it has come to my attention that you are using The Inquirer’s trademark and copyrighted material on CherterCountyRamblings.com and on facebook.

Those uses infringe on The Inquirer’s intellectual property rights, including its trademark and copyrights. They also imply that ChesterCounty Ramblings.com is somehow affiliated with The Inquirer. This email is a demand by The Inquirer that you cease those uses and take down all infringing Inquirer material from ChesterCountyRamblings.com and your facebook page immediately.

I am sending you this e-mail in the hope that your uses are a mistake or misunderstanding on your part, given your past relationship with The Inquirer.

If that material is not taken down by Monday, June 9th at noon, however, I will send a cease and desist and takedown notice to you and your domain administrator. 

Upon receipt of this email, please respond or call me. I can be reached directly at: xxxxxxxxx. Until this matter is resolved, The Inquirer reserves and preserves all rights and remedies.

Sincerely,

Suzanne Parillo

Now I am certain my enemies and frenemies and Internet haters will find this absolutely delightful, and I believe how this occurred is I sent an e-mail as a PAYING subscriber about how I feel about the Lower Merion tab they have online is somewhat pandering and elitist while the rest of the area essentially has to do lap dances at times to get coverage. That is known as OPINION. I also provided a correction to a name that a rather youngish reporter had misstated. The name was corrected, I never received a reply to my email. That was June 5th, 2025 at 4:18 PM.

Instead the following day, only it went to spam, the Philadelphia Inquirer sent me a legal letter.

Ladies and gentleman, this proves how bleak the future of journalism is indeed. I am hardly the only person who has ever shared their stuff, does everyone get legal letters?

Out of curiosity, do the people in C Suite actually know how many stories they have gotten from me as a source? Great stories and articles that have provided them with much web traffic and perhaps subscriptions?

Does the C Suite actually realize that once upon a time they used MY photos for THEIR articles?

Does the C Suite actually realize that once upon a time until they killed the neighbors section online, I wrote articles they published and paid me for?

Machs nicht, this is the brave new world of journalism. What I did before doesn’t matter, who I know doesn’t matter and if the late Sam McKeel was alive he would shake his head, because he actually knew me and he was an amazing newspaperman.

And what else doesn’t matter? All of the stories they got from me, because of me, or their reporters saw something I posted.

So maybe they will take my blog down. Maybe they will take my blog’s Facebook page down.

Maybe Goliath will chase David for a pound of flesh. All the people who call me fat will say that is good for my diet plan.

The funny thing is over all of the years I have been a subscriber (and by the way their subscriptions allow people to share complete articles), I have NEVER ever had anyone from The Philadelphia Inquirer complain that I was sharing anything. As a matter of fact I have had reporters thank me because they know how expensive subscriptions are, etc. And essentially, that is WHY I have shared things over the years: because of the people who can’t afford a subscription.

C’est la vie, C’est la guerre, C’est une pomme de terre.

Perhaps this is the universe telling me caring about where I live and issues is not worth it.

Perhaps the universe is pointing out why people don’t actually trust their local and regional papers.

All I know is apparently Goliath has taken out a hit on David.

good night, and good luck is not vintage, it’s timely…and some other thoughts.

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Edward R. Murrow was a pioneering television broadcaster who died way too young. He died of lung cancer in 1965 at age 57. Good Night, and Good Luck was a movie about a period in his life that came out in 2005. He is really the guy that shaped the television news. He worked for CBS. he started out in radio and covered things about World War II from London. He was head of the network’s then “European bureau.”

Eventually, his career took him to television news, then in its early days. He was a force for free and uncensored media ergo free speech in the era where he really changed our television news during the nationwide hysteria of the communist hunting McCarthy era the early 1950s. He literally took on the establishment and won.

The movie centers around Edward R. Murrow and essentially the pissing match between him and whom he referred to as the junior senator from Wisconsin, or Joseph McCarthy.

This movie has been translated into a stage play with a limited run on Broadway and tonight, CNN and Max broadcast it live from a Broadway theater called the Winter Garden Theater in New York City.

George Clooney has the starring role of Edward R Murrow, and from the movie to the current stage version this has been his baby and what I saw tonight was nothing short of freaking fabulous.

You’re watching a play set in the 1950s about what happened then, yet it’s a version what we’re experiencing today as in right now in this country. It’s almost eerie.

Also important, this is the first time a Broadway play has been broadcast live on television. I really think CNN was sending this country a message by doing this. George Clooney certainly is and I applaud him for the courage of his convictions.

Clooney showed us the new McCarthyism loud and clear. Will it be a catalyst of popular culture to enact positive change? I don’t have the answer for that question.

What I do know is the show has shown us the importance of free and fair journalism and the First Amendment. This show showed us the importance of why we can’t just allow this country to evolve into a fake monarchy or an unpleasant oligarchy meets a political circus, more accurately.

Now I’ll get to what this post was originally about, so read on.

I saw a gentleman on Lancaster Avenue or Route 30 in Malvern/Frazer on Friday. This is not the scene you expect to see out here. You don’t expect to see an unhoused man with his life in a grocery cart out here. A friend of mine told me they saw him in Thorndale Thursday, so that’s quite a journey on foot if he was passing through Malvern/Frazer Friday.

This kind of visual is something you expect from a more urban setting. Although you don’t expect such a sight out here I am told there are plenty of homeless that you don’t see and a lot of them are probably hiding in plain sight.

What is being done for these people now I’ve heard of tent cities or settlements in Pottstown (Chester County and Montgomery County) and further west along the river.

There was a bigger tent city in Norristown (Montgomery County) that was broken up by their borough council and I don’t know where those people ever went.

We don’t seem to have anything that can help these homeless, many of whom have serious mental issues. We have lousy mental health system in this country. There are too few solidly good practitioners, and there are sorts of levels of other kinds people who call themselves mental health professionals, only they’re not.

We have a healthcare system that is so frustrating that there are no words for most people some days if they even have health insurance. And then there’s just the general economy. It’s supposed to be so fabulous now, so where’s the fabulous? Has fabulous been subjected to a tariff, by chance?

There are people out out of work and there are people can’t afford to have safe and decent places to live. There are people can’t afford groceries or medicine. There are many who are white collar slaves at work.

And most of us are just trying to get through each day, each hour of each day, and each week with our heads down and pray for something better. Do prayers work come? Sometimes I wonder.

To see that man Friday in front of Planet Fitness pushing a shopping cart with his life in it really gave me pause. The simple truth is that could be any of us, you just don’t know. There are people I know who struggle, yeah, most of us ourselves are just getting by. It’s like when you see somebody going through cancer or who has lost a loved one, that also could be any one of us on any given day.

We have elected officials of every level of government who have forgotten why they are in office, or they never really cared in the first place, and we were deceived.

Then we have the good eggs, kind of like the proverbial white hats who bang their head on the wall just trying to do their best to help their constituencies.

And while the fat cats seem to get fatter, our media coverage seems to decrease day by day. Local papers have become eviscerated by soulless, nameless, faceless, hedge fund owners.

Regional newspapers, suffer similar issues and every week another voice who represented us retires or leaves or moves on. Some of the young and new reporters that you find don’t really have the institutional knowledge to get some of what they’re covering, and some of them I wonder if they actually have the intellectual curiosity. And I’m not trying to be unfair, because there are also some who are new and tremendously talented and very good. Only you don’t hear their voice often enough.

And then you go to television news. First of all, I want to know who is instructing half of the women what to wear on air, especially when there broadcasting from the studio. And the men aren’t much better and maybe I’m just showing my age, but it really bothers me when I see male newscasters on air wearing sneakers or similarly walk the dog or go to the farmers market type shoes. Can we also talk about how they don’t know how to correctly pronounce the names of the people they’re interviewing or discussing or the streets or the towns?

Next onto what’s covered. And it’s like a game of bingo to try to get a local issue covered. It’s just as hard as it is to connect with your local TV station as it is to get a live person when your Internet goes down and you can’t and you want to talk to somebody from Verizon or Comcast.

And then you wonder when a local story does get placed that affects so many no matter where they live, do people actually care?

These are all my meandering thoughts for the day. You can like them or not like them, it’s entirely up to you. And if you don’t like what I or any other blogger writes about, you are free to start your own blog and see if you can do it better.

Ciao for now.

that moment when the chair of the willistown planning commission is a salty “b” to easttown residents in an article about pickleball

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After fed-up neighbors file suit, Upper Main Line YMCA pauses pickleball, ‘explores options’

JUNE 5, 2025 / BY CAROLINE O’HALLORAN

The outdoor courts are padlocked but the racket over pickleball at the Upper Main Line Y (UMLY) is far from over.

After two years of back-and-forth with UMLY and Easttown officials that cut the hours of play but failed to quell the din to their satisfaction, neighbors decided to play hardball – they sued.

Standing firmly in their corner: local land-use attorney Phil Rosenzweig, who’s made a career out of crusades for the little guy.

Among his local skirmishes, Rosenzweig championed neighbors’ fights over stadium lights at Lower Merion High School, bulldozers at historic Oakwell in Villanova, and the development of Willistown’s Rockhill Farm. When he was a Lower Merion Commissioner, he wrote the resolution that banished the threat of eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore.

These days, he’s a field general in the pickleball wars. The UMLY lawsuit is his 12thpickleball action.

“I’m really charged up about this because it’s just not right,” Rosenzweig tells SAVVY. “Just because pickle is a hot sport, it doesn’t mean that should take precedence over the quality of life for residential neighbors. Businesses and governments are rushing to find spots to put this stuff. This is literally about whether people have the ability to live peacefully in their homes. Why should any taxpaying citizen be subject to conditions that make it impossible to live there? It’s just offensive.”….

On May 16, three weeks after papers were served, the Y closed its outdoor courts until further notice, sending players scrambling just as the season was heating up.

Among other charges, the suit alleges the Y’s 2022 conversion of clay tennis courts to 12 hard-surfaced pickleball courts was not “simply trading one racquet sport for another” but was a “substantive, massive change” that violated township zoning code and noise ordinances.

The suit claims homeowners’ have suffered “irreparable harm” – with their physical and mental health threatened, their daily lives disrupted, and their right to enjoy peace and quiet in their own homes and yards denied.

Also alleged: the township turned a blind eye to ongoing infractions and conspired with the Y to protect pickleball, “synching narratives” and encouraging the Y to have pickleball players speak at supervisors meetings.

…. “We had a wonderful caring community of pickleball players at the Y that the neighbors blew up with their mean-spirited lawsuit,” player Cathy Rubenstone tells SAVVY. “We are devastated that the Y closed the courts forcing us all to different venues to play.”

Goodness gracious. One would think the chair of another municipality’s planning commission would not be such a salty bitch to residents in a neighboring municipality. She certainly puts the pickle in pickle-puss. Isn’t she the one that used to say there would be no roosters in residential neighborhoods in Willistown?

Anyway read the whole article. It’s fabulous. Caroline O’Halloran did a great job and the pickle of it all is still very much happening in Easttown, complete with a full complement of pickle-pusses.

goodness me another transit oriented development fairy tale puffy quasi pitch piece

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Goodness, some days articles just set my teeth on edge. And for those playing catch up, it’s a turn of phrase, it doesn’t actually happen.

MUST is Mixed Use Special Transit or as we knew it in Ardmore, More Unfair Special Treatment.

TOD is Transit Oriented Development, or another version of the Emperor’s new clothes.

First an excerpt:

The Main Line has bet on walkable, transit-oriented development. What happens if the train stops running?
Potential cuts to SEPTA would mean the elimination of the Paoli/Thorndale Line and all four bus routes that service Lower Merion and Narberth.

by Denali Sagner
Published June 5, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

I wrote the rather young reporter. She was too busy to reply but she did correct the spelling of Carrie Kohs name. This morning when the article hit my in box she had another person entirely, Carrie Kohns. I have never been fan of Kohs who owns pucciManuli (very over priced and she’s definitely never been user friendly IMHO), but come on, if you are going to interview people and get paid for it, spell the name correctly.

Transit Oriented Development is and always has been mostly a myth to get more infill development, do try to keep up. In order for something to be destroyed it actually has to work. Since they included the photo of Narberth in the article, why isn’t the Inquirer covering important issues like Narberth residents trying to save Sabine Park from development? Wouldn’t that fit with the “Inquirer Lower Merion” of it all I guess? If they had done their homework here already they would know there is legal precedence that matters. See Downingtown, Kardon Park, Friends of Kardon Park. The Inquirer I believe is one of the papers which covered it years ago. https://www.sabinecoalition.com/

Also , Carrie Kohs and Chris Leswing whom they interviewed for a lil’ Lower Merion Township rah rah have it wrong. Bad plans for Transit Oriented Development and Mixed Use have almost killed Ardmore over and over. What you have now is a more transient community and still no parking. How do I know? Used to live there in that township and once was part of original Save Ardmore Coalition and helped fight for Ardmore against eminent domain for private gain ( heck it got national and international press – Economist etc.)

Look at the things NO longer in Ardmore – Clover Market and First Friday Main Line (also worked on First Friday for years) – one would hope that the regional paper’s “Lower Merion” section would be a little deeper than township propaganda (or Borough propaganda in the case of Narberth), but that would mean really getting out in these communities and asking people what they want, what they need, and what they think.

Oh and the photo of the man jogging past the historic Ardmore sign and showing the corner of the mural in the article? Residents and Save Ardmore Coalition did that mural. Not the township, not the Ardmore Initiative. ( See attached photo next.)

Mostly now people wonder what the Ardmore Initiative does and what people are paying for? Check out the crumbling broken sidewalks and overflowing township trash cans….and again no place to park.

I get that there are not enough folks left at the Inquirer with any institutional knowledge of the suburbs and Chester County, but you have archives.

Septa has been mismanaged and a mess for decades. For a while it was better, when Jeff Knueppel led them. He was their former lead engineer at one point, and he really cared. Then they handed it all over to Leslie Richards (Tom Wolf girl former Montgomery County Commissioner along with Josh Shapiro) after she made a mess of PennDOT. then all of a sudden Septa was flailing and she “retired.” My goodness what a trail of political breadcrumbs you are missing between Septa and the Emperor’s New Clothes fairy tail of MUST and TOD.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a paper ever wrote something helpful like how the Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of PA is woefully outdated (since 1969 or so) and needs a comprehensive overhaul? That weighty tome drives ALL of the zoning in PA and is why we can’t achieve any sense of balance or more productive development. And HB Act 502? All bundled in with other stuff by Shapiro? NO ONE has covered that much and they have zero clue the damage THAT could do to municipalities which is why maybe speaking to someone like Ginny Kerslake might help them. Part of what Ginny has said about this bill:

HB502 is a fast-tracking scheme for power generating or storage facilities for private or public consumption. It creates a seven member, heavily industry-biased board with immense power to issue a “certificate of reliable energy supply” – a golden ticket of sorts- to a developer/corporation, exempting their project from local zoning, land development and other ordinances:

Section 805

(d) Effect of certificate.–

(1) A county or municipal or other local government or authority by ordinance, regulation or other action may not require any land use approval, consent, permit, certificate or condition that materially impedes the purposes of this chapter or will delay or prevent the construction, operation or maintenance of a reliable energy generating facility or storage facility that has been issued a certificate of reliable energy supply.

HB502 usurps local authority over zoning and land use. It’s not surprising that the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) opposes this bill.

This new Lower Merion tab for the Inquirer is merely an elitist suck up version of the old Neighbors section. The Neighbors section was great while it lasted. I was actually a freelancer for them when the Neighbors section went online only. I wrote about Chester County and Main Line things. It was really fun.

Look I support journalism, especially print media. But they need to cover what matters, not just what panders well. And these papers need to keep some of those with institutional knowledge of areas around as well as educating the next wave of young journalists how to comb through their own archives. Heck if I can do it, I am sure they can as well.

Besides, I have maintained all along that SEPTA is fear mongering shutting down lines to get what they want. Maybe SEPTA does need to partially shut down and start over. It is one of the worst transit systems in the country. I think it’s a political ploy and another article in the Inquirer which I agree with says so. I will share an excerpt as I sign off.

Development fairy tales are generally speaking, just that. TOD and MUST and stupid zoning overlays are creating more issues than the problems they were advertised to solve. That is my opinion and I am sticking to it. Maybe just maybe, lots of things in Pennsylvania are simply mismanaged?

Philadelphia Inquirer: Transportation

Close the Paoli/Thorndale line? Many say SEPTA is using the threat as leverage.
Debunking a persistent rumor about why certain Regional Rail lines are on the chopping block.

by Thomas Fitzgerald

(Tom said what we are all thinking: it’s a BS political ploy)