This isn’t going to be a long post. These are my thoughts based on a conversation I had with a friend in another part of Southeastern PA, who isn’t being targeted by data centers, but happen to be at a meeting talking about other things where data centers came up.
So in Maine and Ohio with regard to data centers, officials are starting to ask companies to have like a security bond – not escrow – with the purpose to cover potential issues – pollution that affects humans and livestock – cover issues with energy/utilities, decommissioning buildings etc.
As of May 2026, both Maine and Ohio have moved to implement rigorous financial and environmental “guardrails” for large-scale data centers.
Legislators in these states are shifting away from simple escrow accounts toward security bonds and comprehensive accountability frameworks to address potential negative impacts on residents, livestock, local infrastructure, etc.
We’re talking about (in Maine) accountability councils/ committees, resource protection (which includes things about noise pollution, discharge of warm contaminated water into waterways which WILL affect livestock and humans and wildlife and potentially domestic pets, water shortages), utility safeguards (energy costs and straining energy grids).
In Ohio (maybe Wisconsin too?) also the things mentioned above about security and infrastructure bonds. These bonds cover all sorts of things like if a data center becomes decommissioned and land use things around these data centers. Also measures about pollution and the reason these things are coming out in these states is to protect residents from having to clean up after data center developers essentially.
Now this is why you’re seeing in some of these states that these developers are walking away because they’re realizing it’s going to be too expensive for them to do what they want isn’t it?
Also in pending (?) legislation in Kentucky (HB 593), Colorado (SB 26-102), and elsewhere aims to ensure that data centers pay for their own energy. As in all of their own energy it seems?
As of April 2026, in addition, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia are considering or have filed statewide moratoriums or strict regulations. Now realize in Pennsylvania that there has been similar legislation, but none of it has teeth does it? It’s all still aimed to cater to the data center industry isn’t it? And why is that? Two words: Josh Shapiro.
I think data centers will very well be Josh Shapiro‘s political Waterloo. He will undoubtedly get reelected as governor because Marg Simpson, err Stacey Garrity just isn’t going to beat him. but I have to wonder if this will keep our governor from his loftier political aspirations in the end? 
So why aren’t we doing it here now? I know it was bought up at one of the East Whiteland meetings by the Supervisors Chair Scott Lambert that he wanted some kind of financial measures in place to cover some of these things and the data center developers lawyers basically were like no are you crazy but was he crazy? Because this is what’s being proposed in other states isn’t it?
Some of my biggest concerns and some of these municipalities, including East Whiteland is elected officials don’t realize that they can say no, but do they have the courage to do so? You will get responses like along the lines of they have to do what counsel instructions them, but do they really? These elected officials were elected to represent the people. Therefore, all of these other people, lawyers and township staff included work for them and the residents, don’t they?
It’s finding the courage to say no.
Sorry, not sorry but my humble opinion (which I am allowed to have) is we don’t need these in our communities. Developers want them in our communities and all they are is the new apartment building, the new condo complex, the new kind of warehouse. It’s about their profit and nothing to do with us. F ‘em.
I saw this on social media and felt I should share it here
So a few days ago, a letter was discovered:
That got a very big WTF response out of me. I don’t know maybe they don’t see dead people in this township but they see dead plans don’t they? I was actually seriously disappointed to discover this letter existed. It’s kind of like it makes you wonder if everyone knows what’s going on in East Whiteland Township again and that’s horrible to feel. Makes me sad because they have come so far.
From the beginning, even though I really like two of the supervisors (not Peter Fixler) and the township manager and most of the staff, I felt everything involving this data center was somewhat odd and off.
And I will note in the arena of people I like at East Whiteland Township, people I wish that weren’t here that I do not know and do not care to know is the Assistant Township Manager Catherine Ricardo. Essentially my opinion is they made a mistake when they hired East Vincent’s former mistake of a manager…and yes, she was the manager when the zoning change went in at Pennhurst wasn’t she? As in where they are fighting a giant data center, so how can residents in East Whiteland even begin to trust her? Also isn’t it a bit strange that somebody would go for being a manager to an underling/assistant manager?
But I digress.
This letter that was discovered lends itself to everything that Ginny Kerslake has said.
It’s been an education dealing with data centers. It is even worse in a lot of ways than when people were fighting the pipelines a few years ago.
(State Rep Danielle Otten, I will take this opportunity to politely remind you that that’s why you were elected, remember? To fight for the people, not to capitulate to things like data centers? I won’t bother to remind State Rep Kristine Howard of anything because she does nothing. They apparently share office space and a data center disease or something?)
Anyway, next comes this letter from the special counsel solicitor dude:
What I have to say to that is, predictable. Communities upstate dealing with this guy as a special counsel weren’t enamored of him before East Whiteland rolled up and hired him. It’s like every time something happens to show this township why they are wrong and people tell them how they can correct it, they double down on the wrong part, don’t they? (Yes, I can have that opinion and it took me a long time to verbalize it because I just didn’t want to believe it was happening.)
Now the funny thing is what’s happening now is what I said would happen in East Whiteland when they started this process around 2018.
East Whiteland never should’ve approved this in any way shape or form. They should have sent the stock picker packing back to Willistown. Let him put a data center on his property, not in a neighboring township. (Green Fig’s Charlie Lyddane is from Willistown correct?)
East Whiteland is digging in their heels over their Waterloo. Maybe I should specify their latest Waterloo because things like Bishop Tube aretube are still alive in this township aren’t they how many years later?
I also have to wonder if there were five supervisors on this board if everyone would still be dealing with this? Under the Second Class Township code they can have up to five supervisors so why don’t they? I will note I suggested that yearsago and was told it wasn’t necessary. I don’t know the process, but it is possible to get this on a ballot as a referendum item and if the majority of the people vote in a main election like in the fall, they could get five supervisors.
Again, I said East Whiteland would face a people tsunami over data centers as an issue. And it’s lapping at their proverbial shores. And that is in spite of people feeling like they’re being intimidated at meetings by certain guests of the developers panel, etc. and isn’t that true?
I will note I am pretty much an observer here. I am not driving the people tsunami bus. But I knew it would come. This is too bad and big an issue and it’s a nationwide issue as well.
East Whiteland still can do the right thing and say no. They actually can but will they? Or does more of a tsunami have to lap at the shores?
Allow me to share something from the residents fighting:
Meanwhile, in places like Limerick, residents, planning friendraisers to fight their data center are finding local businesses like MaGerk’s in Royersford I guess it is canceling their events.
This data center flight is getting supremely ugly and I don’t know if places like East Whiteland just don’t get it, but people aren’t backing down.
I leave you with Andrew Schneider‘s presentation from the recent East Whiteland meeting once again. I hope the media keeps following this.
We don’t want data centers around here. And at its most basic that is not a NIMBY statement, it’s practical. We can’t afford it from an energy bill and basic supply perspective. We can’t afford it from a water perspective, and that is separate from the rest of the environmental impacts. Data centers are just about the profits of other people outside our communities. It’s not about residents. I mean, maybe East Whiteland Supervisor Peter Fixler would like a data center in his backyard since he thinks data centers are silent, but who am I but a mere mortal and female to ask that question?
But I have been thinking about this, and many years ago, they told all of us at the Save Ardmore Coalition that we would never stop eminent domain for private gain. As a matter of fact, I had a commissioner at the time (who was also a lawyer/lobbyist in Harrisburg once upon a time) wag a finger in my face for a couple of minutes literally spitting mad in front of a congressman saying they were getting the eminent domain through. That was after a public meeting on eminent domain held at a local college.
Eminent Domain didn’t happen and half of the board of commissioners was replaced as a result.
Tredyffrin Supervisors make one wish to bang one’s head on the table. Sometimes this collective band of bloviators should say less when they have a lack of knowledge on a topic.
Shall we start with the Bhaskar dude who when he is at the meetings seems to be ever so condescending towards people. He explained AI to people. And has he heard about the people in Georgia with a Meta data center?
Yeah soooo they spoke in Tredyffrin about water issues with data centers tonight and where they can’t buy their clue is public or well water is it not true how it sucks up water?
And Tredyffrin glosses over power usage and again they can’t buy a clue there either. It’s astounding to listen to them. Do they not even realize that our electric rates are already affected by data centers? Do they not realize that data centers are not self sufficient with their own power generation?
Tredyffrin’s board chair waxes poetically about how wunderbar the Chester County Planning Commission is on data centers but are they? I think not. Just look at the crappy Penn Futures sample ordinance that they are whacking off to.
Chester County has a Democrat majority who suck up to Shapiro who wants data centers, correct? (I will answer the rhetorical question for you- yes.)
And then there is Hans the Mole, who is looking very much like Violet Beauregard this evening at this meeting. He had to opine about East Whiteland. Now I am less than thrilled about East Whiteland and the data center issue there, but Hans the Mole is factually inaccurate because when the data center issue came to East Whiteland initially is around 2018 (and it started even before that) and nobody knew about them. Even when things started to get busy in 2022 people didn’t know enough about them around the area.
So Hans likes his glass house apparently?
Anyway, if they think what the Chester County Planning Commission put out there is going to save them, they also should be looking to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
And if Tredyffrin thinks a data center can’t be shoved into a corner of their township, they had better pay attention to a lot of their dying corporate parks, leftover industrial etc. Actually they can look into Montgomery County at Upper Merion, which really doesn’t have much room yet residents are fighting five or is it eight data centers there?
But hey, Tredyffrin tonight was talking about how they could make the building better if there was one? Priorities and maybe get that arts committee on it because do they even do anything?
Tredyffrin has a pretty large list of what’s wrong in their township, and data centers just got plunked on said list. And they really should get rid of that ridiculously dumb woman who does the zoning.
The data center. At this point, people are saying “which data center” because every time you turn around another municipality in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and all across the state are being faced with data centers.
And with few exceptions like our wonderful State Senator Katie Muth, so many elected officials are walking lock step with Josh Shapiro ruining areas one day to center at a time, aren’t they?
This post is primarily focused on the East Whiteland data center. But it’s an insidious problem. I’m going to share a video I found on Instagram from Missouri’s JeffCoHousewife on Instagram- she proved my point about this is just a real estate deal/development meaning data centers.
It’s the new warehouse, it’s the new condo development, it’s the new apartment building. It’s nothing about the good of the community, etc. etc. She also poses an interesting thing about how there the data center operators or want to be developers are packaging their scheme to the Republican majority that is this county in Missouri. That’s exactly what’s being done across the state of Pennsylvania only it’s being packaged for the Democrats, primarily. These data centers are just being packaged to sell, period. You could belong to the purple people eater political party and they would tell you why it was so fabulous for your political party and your constituents.
Let’s get real: they’re bad. Data centers aren’t good for anyone except the developers making money and then the data center operators making money. They suck our resources dry, they pollute our water, our land, our air. And if you want to tell me that it won’t affect real estate values in a community, maybe they should offer the Brooklyn Bridge for sale while they’re at it.
Now I have tons of questions about the data center in East Whiteland, but my voice isn’t the most important one. It’s the thousands of other people.
I will mention, however, that when this first started, I couldn’t understand why people in Malvern Hunt didn’t seem more concerned? I think that’s a question that I would ask board members of the homeowners association at the initial time this surfaced a few years ago, wouldn’t you? Which board members were on the board at the time this was initially proposed? Did the developer at the time a.k.a. Green Fig before Sentinel go meet with them? What was said?
Now, I’ve said before that the Green Fig developer is a glad-hander. His personal career roots are in sales and retail brokerage, correct? He described himself as a stock picker. See here:
Some brokers almost cringe at the term “stock-picker.” It can conjure up visions of reps with frayed nerves and churned accounts.
Not Charlie Lyddane.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I pick stocks,” says Lyddane, a soloist at Legg Mason in West Chester, Pa. “It’s what a broker is supposed to do. My clients like that kind of help.”
Apparently so. Lyddane reports $1 million in production and $120 million under management. He’s been a broker for 19 years and has never been part of a team….With 400 clients and 1,000 accounts, Lyddane uses discretionary account management as a time-saving technique. “I can’t call everybody when I move stuff around. So I pick investments as I see fit.”
He also wants to tell you he’s a son of the environmentally, friendly, but is he really and remember when he ran for school board as an endorsed Republican?
Here’s an interesting quote from that Patch article years ago when he ran for school board:
Mr. Lyddane has lived in Great Valley School District for 15 years and has graduated two children from the District. A graduate of Union College in Schenectady, NY, Mr. Lyddane has a BA in History and also attended the Business School at Union. He started his career at Xerox. He was Vice President of Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason in West Chester for 23 years. As a real estate developer and investor in Chester County for the past 9 years, Mr. Lyddane has significant experience in budget development and implementation, as well as achieving strategic goals in a timely and cost efficient manner. He also has significant experience in Property Management….According to Mr. Lyddane, “When you are managing shareholder’s money, you must produce a product that is beneficial to those shareholders.
They are not us. They don’t get us and don’t care about us, do they?
Why not simply admit who they are and what they are about except they kind of did that at the meeting last week didn’t they? They were like if you don’t comply, we will make you comply, and if you’re bad, we’ll build a Walmart wasn’t that kind of the gist of it?
Then again, one of these East Whiteland Supervisors also told us who he was last week didn’t he? ⬇️
Nothing about this since at first began has felt normal has it?
Why should we have to deal with this and can we deal with this on an EPA super fund site that was polluted with lithium and more? And what good will the EPA prove in this given the fact that they have been gutted by the Trump administration? And then there is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection our good old PA DEP? (Somebody explain to me what they do exactly that is substantive because as an adult I’m still wondering.)
I know, I know. The eternal conversation of what do you do with old super fund sites, but is a data center really it?
And neighbors have really worked hard to bring up valid points. And I’m going to turn it over to residents.
Listen to these people who I excerpted out of the whole meeting:
East Whiteland should say no to this giant expansion but will they? I think Peter Fixler the data center apologist will vote yes, I’m not sure about the other two votes just now, and it pains me to say that, but they have to decide whether they’re going to have the balls to say no to something or just capitulate?
And then there are the people that work at the township. My biggest area of concern lies with the assistant township manager. Her name is Catherine Ricardo. I haven’t interacted with her personally, but she always has concerned me. She came to East Whiteland from East Vincent Township where she was the township manager. I’ve always wondered why someone would leave a manager’s job for the underling’s job of assistant manager?
Note what I highlighted. Note her comment as a manager, saying once the zoning hearing board approved something they are locked in to that amount and nothing more. Yes, I’m paraphrasing, but you can read it yourself in the screenshot or the hyperlink by clicking on it. It makes you wonder why she could say that there yet they couldn’t say something similar in East Whiteland when Green Fig kept coming back to the pot for more porridge before even getting a shovel in the ground?
There’s also something about data centers being mentioned in 2022 if you read the same minutes.
There’s this old Parch article from way before then 2011 actually. About Pennhurst before it was sold I guess to the current owners? Read it and tell me if a familiar name shows up, or should I be more specific, a more familiar name sitting on the East Whiteland bench?
I will freely admit I think the Pennhurst site should be cleared of all of those buildings because it was literally a campus of horrors, but that’s not for me to say. What I don’t think should happen there is a giant data center. What I’m eternally curious about is if that land was supposed to be cleaned up because there are toxic issues there as well why hasn’t it been cleaned up and they’re talking about building a data center on top of it?
And whether we like it or not the whole data center issue in East Vincent is something East Whiteland needs to pay attention to in my opinion because East Vincent’s old manager became East Whiteland’s current assistant manager. Actually in the overall scheme of things it might be helpful if East Vincent data center fighters and East Whiteland data center fighters joined forces and then there’s Upper Merion and Limerick also facing giant data centers. And then we move upstate don’t we?
So everyone who says this is a NIMBY issue to people in each community facing this horror show needs to buy a clue. Data centers are being shoved into everyone’s backyard and isn’t that the truth? It’s not NIMBY. It’s everywhere and it doesn’t matter what political persuasion you are if you live in one of these affected areas, we’re all affected.
My final thoughts include still trying to figure out why it is that Green Fig got approved and never did anything except try to change everything after the initial approvals? I will also note that last meeting, Charlie Lyddane was uncharacteristically quiet and why was that?
Above is their proposed Valhalla, but that’s not the residents Valhalla is it? I mean it was former Supervisor Sue Drummond’s idea of Valhalla was it not? Did we ever send her a thank you note?
Aren’t we tired of these discussions of do the opinions of residents matter yet? When do our voices matter here? Do our voices matter?
I think because no one knows enough about data centers, they shouldn’t just be plugged into our communities. Why do we have to havethem? But who am I but a mere mortal and a female?
Along that vein, I will never understand as a plain old ordinary person a site that was a superfund site got approved for a nursing home or whatever that once proposed senior facility was could have the same zoning for a monster data center? Like many other things in involving this topic in East Whiteland, it does not compute.
Here are some links to recent media about the East Whiteland data center issue and other communities somewhat close by and a website that seems to be pure propaganda about data centers in East Whiteland:
Back to Villa Blue Tarp in Mt. Pleasant (Tredyffrin.)
When is enough enough out of off campus student party houses?
I have been keeping tabs on Villanova off campus student housing for probably 20 years or better in Mount Pleasant. I discovered the issues years ago completely by accident when I was in Mount Pleasant photographing the history of the place because it is a very historic black area in Chester County. It was the home of Miss Mazie Hall, for example. (As a related aside, I watch them tear down her house for predatory development years ago.)
This area for those not from Chester County or familiar with the history is in what is known as the “panhandle of Tredyffrin.” In recent years, it has been truly plagued by off-campus student rentals and wanton development from both the Upper Merion side of this area and the Tredyffrin side. It’s just far enough away from campus and the Tredyffrin township building etc. that they think no one ever pays attention, so if they have not been paying attention, maybe they all should be?
Not all off-campus student rentals are bad. And that can be said of any student rental in any location, but you never hear about the nice kids, it’s these others who stand out.
When I lived in Lower Merion Township for a bunch of years I lived next to one of these animal houses until it burnt to the ground two days before Thanksgiving one year. That was the early 2000s. November 22, 2000 to be precise, and the fire was covered in The Philadelphia Inquirer and Main Line Life (now Main Line Media News) at the time.
This house on Booth Lane was gorgeous at one time. I was in it when friends of mine and I snuck into a party when it was the rugby house around 1981. I actually didn’t stay very long because it literally was like animal house inside (I was like 16 or 17 and had never quite ever at that point seen a party like that so it was more than a little intimidating), but I will never forget what the inside of that house looked like even with a bunch of college students destroying it more and more every day.
10:04 PM 4/12/26
At that point, it was still a single-family home. It had this magnificent staircase with a carved dark wood newel post. the fireplaces were still intact although I think long since boarded up, but the surrounds were this amazing tile and there were stained glass windows and pocket doors. There were also a couple of really old chandeliers and lights that survived in the ceilings somehow and sconces on the walls.
This house had been the home of a banker or financier type of person named Henry B. Reinhart until he died in 1948. He had a son who died in World War II, who was remembered in local papers as being one of the victims of World War II, who died with the fifth army in Italy on Anzio Beach. When it went up for sale in 1954 you could have bought it for $19,500. And eventually it became this off-campus party house.
I knew from a very elderly neighbor when I first moved to the neighborhood that at one point in time, it had wonderful gardens, a beautiful lawn, which was planted with crocuses that still came up every spring, even when I was there. At one point in time, there was actually a small orchard behind it. The crocuses in the lawn, actually survived the fire and when it became an empty lot, we used to dig some of them up for our own gardens.
After that fire it was an empty lot for gosh, easily almost 15 years after that fire. I always wondered if they built on the old foundation because the foundation wasn’t dug up when they demolished the house after the fire it was just covered over. We didn’t mind it as an empty lot. It gave us some open space for a while.
The house made quite an impression because it had been a party house since I had been of high school age. It had been this huge yellow Victorian and up until the time of the fire had these great stained glass windows still intact in parts of the house, and this amazing wraparound porch.
This house, which was once located at 20 Booth Lane in Lower Merion, was just one of the wonderful houses that used to exist in a row from Old Lancaster Road to Lancaster Avenue.
At that time of the fire (November 22, 2000 and reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer as being started by a roofer’s torch doing repairs), the house had been split into two duplexes (previously, I believe it had served I think as the rugby house when I was of high school and college age and was not split in to more than one unit until 1985.)
Until the fire which made us all fear for our own roof lines because it was a windy day as the firefighters were trying to fight the fire in a small neighborhood, we had been held hostage by this house.
It didn’t matter how many times we called the police or the township, or Villanova. No one was interested atall in the plight of the neighbors trying to coexist with off campus students who were horrible. And for years, the neighbors did try to ask the students who were renting to just please keep it to a dull roar but no, every weekend it was party central complete with more cars than you want to know parked on their lawn and some of ours sometimes, kids vomiting in the street, peeing on neighbors properties, and so on. I remember at the time neighbors who complained about the house woke up one morning to find their cars keyed. I remember they were just a young married couple or maybe they weren’t even married yet but we’re saving for their wedding and the car repairs were expensive to fix the paint.
At that time, I believed the university official we were dealing with was a Father John Stack. As a matter of fact, it was his office we phoned as the fire was happening then so the university could find these kids places to live, etc. These off campus students (girls at this point) never did the right thing by any of us but we knew they were losing all of their college memories and school work, and also practically speaking needed a safe place to land after a day like that fire created. We also knew how scary that fire was for us watching it and those students were living it watching everything they owned from college burn.
Because of this experience in my past, I completely understand how the residents of Mount Pleasant in Tredyffrin feel today and have felt for years as my (then) neighborhood lived it until the house burned to the ground . As a blogger, I have written about this topic over the years in Mount Pleasant because it is thatbad. This is why Villanova had so many people from this area of Tredyffrin Township and even folks from bordering Radnor Township show up at their community meeting after they acquired Cabrini. These people fear that it will only get worse.
For some reason this year, the students seem more aggressive than before, which I didn’t think was possible. They think they are invincible and untouchable, and the lack of consistent attention to this on the part of Tredyffrin and Villanova University officials does make you wonder if this is the case, doesn’t it? I mean, if even the rental housing inspector/zoning officer did her job half of the time in that township would there be so many people all of the time in that house or other student rentals back there? I remember it came up not that long ago that another student rental has occurred and by Tredyffrin’s student rental housing ordinance should that even be allowed?
And I have to ask in the video I’m sharing from this weekend, are they referring to me because I’ve written about this problem house before or are they referring to a supervisor of Tredyffrin Township whose first name is Carlotta?
That’s not the name of any resident in Mount Pleasant that I know of, but I think you will agree that constitutes harassment of the neighbors and others and is that the message that Villanova University wants to send to the public at large out here?
Why should any full time resident be subjected to this behavior constantly in Mount Pleasant? Why does Villanova and Tredyffrin turn a blind eye?
This is wrong, and they all know it’s wrong. And again, I don’t live in that area, but if that’s my name in their mouth because I write occasionally on this topic, that is also harassing me personally. I will note I have been harassed before. A couple of years ago give or take, I was able to track messages back to I believe a computer at Bartley Hall.
These kids are young and dumb, but life is not without consequences, and they just need to behave better. Their behavior is something I doubt would be allowed at home in their parents’ houses and where they grew up and where they live when they’re not at school, correct?
Again, students living off campus in other areas don’t all act this way. But I don’t know what it is about this house year in and year out that it attracts the sametype of off campus student. And in my mind, they are not representative of the university community as an entirety.
This problem is not unique to this university. As we’ve heard the spring, there are also problems currently in West Chester Borough with students there.
These people who are full-time residents of this neighborhood, deserve respect, and a good night’s sleep once in a while. They accept that kids are going to be kids, but do they have to be so awful and does this have to be the continuing pattern of behavior?
Properties with same P.O. Box and business entities:
Hey there, sadly as happens, the East Whiteland anti-data center group on What’s App has interlopers except maybe they are spies sent to disrupt or divide the community? If you recognize the names or numbers, please drop a comment.
‼️ If you are in the group just block and report the people in the screenshots below. They are there for their tea and if you block them, they don’t get any. ‼️
This is why making groups as private as possible sometimes even if you have a public facing page is a good idea. The big meeting in East Whiteland is next week on the 14th, so this isn’t a shock.
These people always have the same objective they want to infiltrate, they want to get a rise out of people, they want to spy, and above all else disrupt.
These are our communities, not theirs. If you are only seeing part of a screenshot because this is a gallery below, just click on the individual screenshot.
I will note this has nothing to do with the township, it has to do with the data center advocates and who knows all who is involved in the company that wants to put them in East Whiteland, right?
All I know is this is predictable and obvious. People like this look for pressure points to divide a community. These people appeared interestingly enough after concerned residents spoke up at a Chester County Planning Commission meeting.
My last word on this is because they are doing this. Somebody somewhere is very nervous about the community involvement now. Keep up the good work.
For more information involving the East Whiteland Data Center you can also look here:
And we thought school districts around here were crazy?
In a nutshell, a Montgomery County school board director seems to have had a massive fit of Fibbar McGees after an Inquirer reporter researched an article they must’ve not liked?
Souderton Area School District? Souderton School Board Member Kim Wheeler apparently said an Inquirer reporter was under investigation? And police responded yeah no it’s reporting and it’s protected by the first amendment?
So yep, I thought that’s crazy and then there’s a video so is she crazy? I mean to make up something about a reporter or to repeat something made up? I mean, what’s wrong with this woman and what’s wrong with the school board that if you look at her political past as a member of that school board and as a politician, why is she still on the board?
Now what this is about is spending, including lavish trips by Montgomery County Intermediate Unit? And apparently this school Bird person said she got her information from I guess the person who runs the intermediate unit Regina Speaker? I have to ask how was the African safari?
Of course the best thing is this isn’t the first time the school board member has been shall we say controversial and that’s being kind?
Do you want to start with the reports of fake Facebook pages? Or the whole ACLU of it all?
I want to say thank you to the community group Right to Know Souderton for having all the information at my fingertips. And NO they didn’t ask me to write anything I found all this on my own because once I read the Inquirer article I was like what the Sam Hell is going on in Montgomery County?
And the best of all there is a connection to Chester county, because the woman who is head of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit used to be the Superintendent of the Great Valley School District. Yep….her. And remember before she was at Great Valley she was at Phoenixville School District . 
The craziness in Bucks County School Districts is bucolic by comparison.
I hope The Philadelphia Inquirer publishes MORE articles about Souderton. Also note one of my readers referred to Souderton as the Alabama of Montgomery County and I don’t think they meant it to be flattering do you? 
Approximately location where I saw all of the police cars
I obviously couldn’t stop and take a picture where they wouldn’t have been thrilled with but earlier today there were about six West Whiteland police cars on Burke Road on the side of the road where it’s like a little trail and stuff?
I had just turned off of S. Whitford Rd. onto Burke and I saw lights. I slowed down because I thought oh boy another tree had fallen because there are big trees that go smoosh across the road there from time to time.
But there were literally a bunch of police cars. I don’t know if all of them were West Whiteland or if some were other agencies?
I don’t think whatever happened was good and it wasn’t a car accident. It was something in the woods.
And I remember one or two of the officers looked up at me as I was driving by and their faces were quite somber.
I was told by some people that a couple was walking on a trail and came upon a person who had ended their own life. I don’t know who or why or the age, somebody said they thought they were on the young side, which is so sad.
It just shows you once again what a mental health crisis exists in this country. And in this area, if you could get an appointment, there are therapists, but there’s not really the inpatient availability that used to exist even on a temporary basis.
Someone else came through there after I had gone through and there was a coroner’s vehicle added to the assortment of law-enforcement.
Say a prayer for whoever that was and their family.
And I will tell you another little story that I remembered with astounding clarity after so many years yesterday.
This memory, I believe was triggered by the faces of a couple of the members of law-enforcement looking up as I went by, and it was one of those weird slow motion things where you caught the look on their faces which again was totally somber. It wasn’t the normal look. I don’t know how to explain it.
I couldn’t get the look out of my head so that is what made me look for information which was out there publicly.
Driving by made me think of my freshman year in college. I had a nightmare roommate first semester freshman year, but there was no room in our suite for me to go into another bedroom so the RA’s found a single room that had opened up in an upper class person suite on the first floor of the same dorm. Obviously I took it because that was like dorm gold: a single room in a more quiet suite.
Flash forward to right before parents’ weekend and I don’t remember when I went to sleep. It wasn’t particularly late because it was kind of a chill night since so many people‘s parents were showing up that Saturday.
And then I was woken up at some point in the middle of the night by lights coming through the blinds in my room, and I looked outside and it was somebody I knew, actually one of the first people I met freshman year because I had arrived early for field hockey. He had jumped out of his girlfriend’s window in a suite above. It was only a four story building. What I don’t remember now is if it was the third or fourth floor.
He was still alive when he fell because it really wasn’t (I guess) that high or something, so I have that whole visual forever burned in my brain of paramedics and fire and police putting this guy on a stretcher and taking him to the hospital where he was on life-support a brief time and then gone.
It’s been how many decades and I can still see it in my minds eye? Of course, the other terrible thing about that event is I found out later on at an high school class reunion that he was some kind of a cousin to one of my classmates.
And the thing about somebody thinking of killing themselves is they really aren’t thinking about the people whom they are leaving behind and how it will affect them. In a sense it’s a rather selfish act. Perhaps you think I’m harsh for saying that, but that’s how I feel.
Another thing I know I will never forget about the after shocks of this was the student run memorial service afterwards in the quad. There was that bad PA system that was somewhat portable and it was warm and I watched a lot of the people around me who never knew the kid. That was sort of a surreal experience remembered in more of a slow motion than it was because I was wondering at the time how they were mourning someone they never knew? And then I remember another weird thing they had like a portable stereo outside in the quad and somebody played Genesis “follow you, follow me.”
And here I am utterly middle-aged and when I drove past that scene yesterday I remembered it all again. And all I kept thinking was the people on that trail who found this person. Because this is something when you come upon something like this, you will never forget. Just like whoever this is, they left a family behind who will never forget.
I had some guy judging because I wrote about this and I didn’t disclose any non-public information. I have no idea who it was or how old they were, just that it happened and what made me look to find out what happened was the almost visceral reaction I had driving past the scene.
So again say prayers for the friends and family this person left behind, and think good thoughts about the people who stumbled upon this through no fault of their own, and the law-enforcement and first responders , who had to deal with it.
And to our elected officials out there, not only do we need another hospital in Chester County, but the region needs actual mental health services as well that everyone can access in times of need.
As means of a postscript, I received a note from this young man’s mother and I would like to share what she said in her comment which is public on this post and my response to her that explains why I wrote about this and what exactly what I saw and why it made me feel compelled to write.
My verbatim email:
Dear Terry,
I rarely respond to comments personally but I do believe that you deserve that. First of all I am sorry about your son.
The scene I saw contained NO body. It was just law enforcement. It was the poses and the body language of the law enforcement on the scene – no coroner’s wagon etc. just regular law enforcement. THAT is what I would have taken a photo of had I driven by as a passenger, and not as a driver.
You have to understand at that point, I had no idea what had happened. There are a lot of accidents around there and honestly when it is really windy around there I don’t even drive Burke Road because of all the trees that come down.
The body language especially their facial expressions is something I will never forget. I am not trying to upset you, I am trying to tell you WHY it struck me and I went digging through the 911 recordings and the accident as it showed up on Pulse Point.
It was a weird slow motion kind of thing that was just a blink of a moment so to speak- like when they run a slow motion scene in a movie. It’s only a few seconds, but feels longer.
When I realized later what had happened, I also realized why it struck a chord. I had seen facial expressions like that before, only the scene was more than what I saw last week. That time, it was 1982 and a 19 year old boy I knew freshman year in college. It wasn’t a person I had dated, just someone I knew from around campus, one of the literally first people I met when I first stepped foot on campus. No one knew why.
That is why I wrote about this. It is the whole not knowing if you knew the person. Young men keep it tucked away inside. Your son made me remember something I should never have forgotten. There are not enough resources for mental health and definitely not enough for young men. Heck we still live in a society where boys aren’t supposed to cry.
I don’t know if you care about my thoughts, but I wanted you to understand clearly what I saw and why I wrote.
I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel. No mother should ever go through what you are going through and I am truly sorry.
Embrace new opportunities? Personal growth? Continuing developing as a leader? As an individual?
Forgedddaboutit, Karen.
“The decision to leave is mine, and I thank the Commissioners for working with me on an appropriate timetable.”
Girl, come on now, really?? And yes, I get that no one can talk about something like that, but essentially isn’t everybody wondering why this took so long to come to this resolution?
“Before my departure, I will be assisting with one more election to ensure a smooth transition.”
Yeah sorry not sorry but smooth is definitely not the word I would use to describe your tenure….
“I leave knowing we have all done our best, but for me, it is time to move on.”
Ahhh the we word. Please, by all means, don’t let the door hit you in the posterior. But please define done yourbest? Again, how many people as in what was the body count as in who worked in voter services and left under your tenure? Was that a good thing? How about those poll books for the November 2025 election? Was that something to be proud of? Or the most recent things with the letter from “Chester” or the whole name reversal mailing?
You end your twisted love letter to a skeletal department by using the “team” word? Oh honey, I could go on…but I won’t since it seems that “team” has taken enough for you haven’t they?
I’m going go back to hoping that the next person who has your job actually responds to the residents of this county when they contact them. I’m going to hope that the person who next has your job gets over their own ego and pettiness when dealing with candidates and doing witch hunts over signs, ok? Or is it not OK in your book for anyone who lives in this county to have such thoughts?
At the end of the day, Karen Barsoum never apologized to the residents of Chester county for what she put us through on Election Day 2025. And mistakes can indeed happen but it is all about how you own your mistakes and she never owned a thing. So never ever even issuing a basic apology? That still speaks volumes.
Photo courtesy of Honey Brook Township Supervisor Valerie Shultz
May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May God be with you and bless you; May you see your children’s children. May you be poor in misfortune, Rich in blessings, May you know nothing but happiness From this day forward.
May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home And may the hand of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on, May blue be the skies above you, May pure be the joys that surround you, May true be the hearts that love you.
