So guess what? My husband‘s provisional ballot is one of the ones that apparently does not count.
I have covered up the number of his ballot for privacy sake for the screenshot above, but I can tell you I am still checking it and his vote is nowhere to be found.
NOWHERE. It’s like it didn’t exist, like he didn’t exist as an Independent on Election Day. It is like they ate his provisional ballot.
Am I surprised? Nope.
Of course, you also can’t get anybody on the phone in voter services let alone the esteemed director who has been invisible since the election day debacle. If it’s not a fluffy, self-aggrandizing media interview, she’s invisible and to date, unapologetic so whom is she in the process of blaming?
So this is kind of why litigation is being filed, isn’t it?
Here’s the link to the county’s bogus press release:
I personally don’t have faith in voter services at this point. And Karen Barsoum the department head and she needs to go.
She can’t hide behind the county commissioner she hides behind, which is Josh Maxwell. I think he’s trying to be kind and be fair because that’s totally the way he is, but Barsoum is doing Josh Maxwell a great disservice. IMHO she is damaging his political credibility.
I do not blame Josh Maxwell for this, but I so do blame Karen Barsoum.
Yeah….so Villanova held a meeting with neighbors over at Cabrini. I actually am glad they did it, except listen to a snippet of the presentation and I have to ask if this Villanova official has ever visited Villa Blue Tarp in Mount Pleasant?
This neighborhood is mostly Chester County/Tredyffrin, but a part of it is also Upper Merion/Montgomery County. The Tredyfrin part of it has some seriously ridiculous off campus party pits. Forget about are the houses safe for the students to live in, will the neighbors ever have peace? The lady speaking at Cabrini I’m sure has the best of intentions, but she has zero clue or doesn’t want to have a clue of what actually goes on in off campus party pits in Mount Pleasant, which is close Cabrini.
Neighbors also reported the following who were at the meeting:
FYI Traffic is going to be awful when Villanova opens the Cabrini campus next year!!!
Villanova says they have purchased six large buses. Shuttle service will leave Cabrini campus every 5-10 minutes 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM.
400 on campus student vehicles. 600 staff and commuter vehicles. Who knows how many Ubers and Doordash type vehicles, right?
That’s a lot, isn’t it?
They are permitted on campus at any time. The King of Prussia and Eagle Road entrances will close at 10:30 PM and reopen at 6:30 AM.
All traffic during this time will enter and exit on Upper Gulph.
I am very glad I don’t live near there. And with Villanova going to Cabrini and Valley Forge Military failing, and who knows what’s happening to that land, how will Radnor and Tredyffrin be protecting their residents through this?
I am glad that Cabrini is not going to be a giant parcel for residential McMansion development, but all the same, Villanova doesn’t have a good track record with their off-campus students, so what’s it going to be like over there?
Also to be considered is the practicality of the traffic implications on a lot of these roads, which are overtaxed and overburdened already.
Buckle up residents, you can hope this will all go smoothly, but I predict a lot of bumps in the road.
And speaking of Villanova, what are they doing with their main campus area property (or properties?) that back up to Aldwyn Lane? And doesn’t the university own properties on Aldwyn Lane? Is Radnor protecting their residents over there or ignoring them?
This is going to be interesting for sure, right? It’s their own version of Happy Valley without the great ice cream right?
This photo is from a Google search and it’s just a screenshot
Well, it’s no secret that election day was a total study in incompetence, gross incompetence, on the part of the Chester County Director of Voter Services Karen Barsoum. I am starting this post reminding the knee jerk reaction chorus in the rear of the attention span auditorium that I am not an election conspiracy theorist. I am not a voting conspiracy theorist I am not saying there was malicious intent, what I am saying is there was gross incompetence.
I am really, quite honestly tired of the people defending this woman. She’s been here long enough and worked in another voter services department in Berks County prior to this that she should not have screwed things up this election or the spring primary where she actually left an entire row office race off of the ballot.
This is something procedurally that it remains the same. There’s one procedure in the spring, there’s another procedure in the fall. Epic fail, pure and simple.
I have mentioned before the crazy amount of turnover in that office. That’s because people don’t want work with her, in my opinion. People need jobs, so if they aren’t taking jobs in that department or constantly leaving, there’s a reason.
Basically, we have heard from everyone, except Karen Barsoum. Her socials are suddenly quite quiet and seem scrubbed as well.
She should’ve been front and center at the county commissioners meeting yesterday, even if just to make a brief statement and leave the room. Everyone has been apologizing for this situation except her. And to be honest given how much she loves the sound bite going back to Berks County, I find that odd.
Obviously to stand up and own is not as fun as being on 60 Minutes or quoted in USA Today or whatever, but you have to have a accountability for the good and the bad and she doesn’t ever seem to have accountability and it’s time for her to be accountable. Then it’s time for her to go.
I am so angry as an Independent Voter in Chester County right now. According to Chester County Voters services, we don’t count. Yes, for real, for real. Chester County has now acknowledged somewhat insufficiently they ALL poll books at all precincts THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRETY OF CHESTER COUNTY currently do not include the names of “third-party voters”!
First of all we matter. We are not insignificant, and quite frankly the numbers of Chester County Independents is sizable.
This is bullshit and yes I am cursing.
Karen Barsoum has one job: to protect the voters of Chester County. She’s not doing it. She has incredibly high staff turnover for one. Why is that? Well watch this video:
Karen Barsoum has ONE job as head of voter services , to keep voters and their votes safe. To maintain integrity of our elections. This is an inexcusable mistake. It is wreaking havoc county wide.
She needs to GO. Whether she resigns or is let go, it needs to happen.
I mean why in the actual hell are there so many overlords in Chester County Government if they can’t seem to keep tabs on this woman? She isn’t doing her job. Elections and voting are bad enough, we don’t need Karen Barsoum continually making it worse. Period. Full stop.
I have no details, it happened I think at the end of last week. He was in his late 60s. 67 or 68 would be a guess. He came to work for The Daily Local in West Chester, PA in 1982, and he would have just celebrated 43 years with the paper.
Let that sink in: 43 years.
How many print reporters can say that today?
He and I were definitely not friends, more like oil and water. He did not care for me, probably because there will always be old school print reporters who just don’t like those who have only been bloggers. Or it could simply be I am outspoken and an acquired taste.
While some might find it odd for me to write anything, I am saying something out of respect for his craft. He could write. And old school newspaper guys? They are a dying breed as hedge funds etc. continue to gobble up our papers. Newspaper reporting is an art form. I know my dearly departed friend of some years, Tom Murray, whose last job was editor at The Daily Local for a while, respected Rellahan’s abilities. He told me and I remember.
Rellahan brought the stories of Chester County, in particular the courts, to life for us for decades. Court reporting is not fun, I know and have known a few court reporters for print and broadcast and it’s hard work. It’s multiple personalities and egos commingled with hard, horrible, and heartbreaking aspects every single day.
I did really like and dug into quite a few of his stories over the years. He told what a long ago English teacher would have called “word stories.” You could definitely tell when a topic interested him in the courts.
A reporter can’t color crime and justice. A reporter is not a blogger, who may like myself write, but hey opinion is part of the blogging equation. It’s just not necessarily something that old school newspaper guys will appreciate.
I found out he was gone a couple of hours ago when all of sudden a few people messaged me. I was told it was verified by folks in West Chester? I was also told nothing nefarious, just sadly his time.
Rellahan was literally a veteran reporter, one of the very few voices we had left at our local paper The Daily Local. His last article by my count was October 22nd.
I know nothing about his life other than the stories he wrote, but from his own Facebook profile, he was originally from the Cincinnati, OH area and went to Earlham College in Indiana. That was a Quaker oriented institution as per his old blogger profile. He came to this area (he wrote) three years after graduating college. So that would have made him graduating college around 1979 and high school around 1975 I guess right?
Anyway, that’s all I have got. I am honestly sorry he’s gone as I know he leaves friends and family behind who will miss him and cared for and loved him. If somewhere they post funeral information or a formal obituary, I will of course share it.
Rellahan was an old school newspaper guy. There aren’t enough of those left. Again, he wasn’t someone I knew personally, but I will miss his articles. On Muck Rack they list 8900 articles. That is a body of work one has to respect.
So someone posted in a Malvern Facebook group about “is Malvern the Main Line?”
Eyes rolling, not this again.
No people it’s Chester County and always will be and that is totally fine and accurate to the history.
Saying Malvern is the Main Line is merely realtor/developer marketing by those who don’t know any better and/or don’t care.
The “Main Line” got the nickname from the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad mid-19th century. In the early 20th century it was attached more kind of socially and socioeconomically to the area beginning at the city line of Overbrook and ending in Paoli for social and historical reasons .
Malvern is part of the train line headed west but no more a part of the Main Line than Thorndale or Lancaster and Harrisburg are, which are also part of the same line that headed west.
It is like saying Downingtown and the edge of Coatesville is Chester Springs, which is also part of current day developer and realtor spin. And like Malvern should just be proud to be “Chester County”
Another example? People from Northeast Philadelphia don’t say that they live in Chestnut Hill do they? Or confuse Society Hill with West Philadelphia? Or say South Philadelphia is Rittenhouse Square? All of these places, including the Main Line and Chester County have their own unique history.
Those who didn’t grow up here also like to misstate the history, especially where the Main Line is concerned.
I grew up on the Main Line and lived there as an adult until I moved to Chester County to be with my husband, so I actually know the history and FWIW would rather be in Chester County because the Main Line isn’t what it used to be.
Of course for my efforts in attempting to explain this some turdsticker in that group called me a Karen. That is not a pejorative term that can be applied to me except by someone who is pig ignorant, but it helps him get through his day as an angry mansplainer.
I am glad Malvern and Chester County have their own identities and towns in Chester County can and should have their own individual and unique identities and don’t need to be plunked into inaccurate Stepford real estate marketing.
How come we have to keep discussing this?
People. Learn your railroad history. It is how these towns were built.
The Philadelphia Main Line, known simply as the Main Line, is an informally delineated historical and socially pretentious and ridiculous region of suburban Philadelphia, as freaking created by old railroad lines. These towns became more cohesive along the Pennsylvania Railroad’s once prestigious “Main Line”, which ran northwest from Center City Philadelphia parallel to Route 30 (Lancaster Ave to some Lancaster Pike to some Lincoln Highway to others.)
The railroad first connected Philadelphia to the Main Line towns in the 19th century.
They became home to sprawling country estates and hotels belonging to Philadelphia’s wealthiest families, and over the decades became a bastion of “old money”. People built their summer homes out here at that point. In the 18th century wealthy Philadelphians summered in places like Fairmount Park. In the 19th century the railroads moved them further west.
The Main Line has this fabled history. I lived there until coming to Chester County. My parents moved us there when I was about 12. So yeah, I know the history. In some regards I think I lived there in the sunset of it’s greatness. The Main Line as it exists today I find distasteful and gauche sometimes because well, the nouveau Main Line neither gets nor appreciates nor really cares about the actual history.
Until the railroads, the Main Line was a lot of country. Farms, quarries, mills, even factories. It became genteel versus rural/copuntry living by it’s very history. The Pennsylvania Railroad and 19th century real estate developers and speculators truthfully get the credit here.
Like Wayne, PA which was essentially a developer planned community of it’s day. Don’t believe me? Visit the Radnor Historical Society Website.
When this topic of what the Main Line actually is and what the actual historical boundaries are crops up on social media, someone always leaves a conversation feeling offended.
Sorry not sorry but Malvern isn’t and never will be the Main Line. As I have said before, it’s Chester County and everyone in the Malvern area should be ok with it as Malvern already has a wonderful identity and history.
One of my dear friend’s grandfathers was an executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad. He moved his family from the city to Haverford near Merion Cricket Club. The road they settled on had several homes built as a direct result of the railroad. Like many of the homes in Wayne, it was desirable because one could walk to the train station.
Growing up, we never thought the Main Line was one centimeter past Paoli…because we knew the history. Today it’s like saying you are from Greenwich, Connecticut or similarly affluent and storied suburbs… when you are not. Or even what defines Manhattan, versus living in the other boroughs of New York City but saying you live in Manhattan.
When we were growing up there was this little thing we did to remember the order of the train stations. Old Maids Never Wed And Have Babies. Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr. You can find this mentioned here on this blog which I find amusing because they say they think the ditty ends with Bryn Mawr Station because it was thought of possibly by a Bryn Mawr College girl. This blog is called Philadelphia Reflections and I love it because they write about the most interesting stuff!
Growing up, we never thought the Main Line was one centimeter past Paoli…because we knew the history. Today it’s like saying you are from Greenwich, Connecticut or similarly affluent and storied suburbs. Or even what defines Manhattan, versus living in the other boroughs of New York City but saying you live in Manhattan.
And just so we are clear, I am not some old Main Line trust fund baby. We lived there because my parents decided to move us there as we got older for access to better schools and a way of life that included being able to play outside whenever we wanted. However, where I grew up was close to where one of my great-grandmothers was in service. Rebecca Nesbitt Gallen. She was a summer housekeeper for the Cassatt family(think Merion Cricket Club) at their Cheswold Estate. Of course Alexander Cassatt was also famous for his Chesterbrook Farm in Berwyn. We of course know Chesterbrook today as the giant development that popped the cherry of suburban density development. It’s hard to believe that Chesterbrook today was once a glorious 600+ acre farm, right?
And yes, Chesterbrook Farm was in Berwyn…yet Chesterbrook the development today has a Wayne post office zip code. Yup even Chesterbrook wasn’t o.k. where it really was, was it? Again, real estate/developer marketing.
Yeah, I know this has been quite the ramble. But I just don’t think Chester County needs to be completely annexed to the freaking Main Line. It’s preposterous. Stick to the history. It tells you the boundaries. And yes, there are several towns (and townships) that have parts of themselves which are part of the Main Line historically, although not in their entirety. Like parts of Chester County. Chester County has a rich history that is far more interesting than the mere history of the Main Line which was created by the railroads.
Thanks for stopping by….writing today as always from beautiful Chester County, PA. (NOT the Main Line.)
Yes, Virginia, there may indeed be a Santa Claus, but Malvern will always just be Chester County and not the Main Line. This is another example why actual history matters, not what revisionists wish to reimagine it as.
The case of Kevin Krebs continues to evolve. As of a couple of days ago he is now in Federal custody. Deanna Durante from NBC10 broke the story initially, or at least that’s where I heard it first.
WEST CHESTER — Kevin Krebs, the Chester County man who carried a loaded firearm to a “No Kings” protest last spring and whose home was later found with explosive devices and other dangerous material, made a brief court appearance here Tuesday, four months after his case made national headlines…..Krebs, 31, of East Whiteland, was dressed in a blue hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants. Flanked by defense attorneys Christian Hoey of Tredyffrin and Thomas Bellwoar of West Chester, Krebs did not say anything to the court during the 10-minute-long proceeding….Although Hoey told Vito that he was uncertain where the case would ultimately wind up — “Who knows where we are going next,” the veteran defense attorney told her after the hearing concluded — he indicated that at least the gun case would be kept at the Common Pleas trial level.
“We are going to aggressively address his defense in state court,” Hoey told the sole reporter attending the hearing in Vito’s court at the Chester County Historic Courthouse. “State court is where this case will be prosecuted, and we intend to defend him vigorously.”
Then the news the other day…. and now Kevin Krebs is in federal custody.
Media reports indicate what most of wondered all along, and that was he someone who had challenges and perhaps dealt with mental illness or was on the spectrum of a couple of things and so on? Lots of people, myself included wondered that given how he was on the no kings social media video and the way his expression was in the West Chester PD mugshot. A TV reporter who had been in court relays that he had been adopted from another country, and was on the spectrum. The Inquirer reporters (Vinny Vella and Robert Moran) wrote about that in their article which you can Google and find.
Apparently his dad and brother were in court with him as well? I have to ask, now that his challenges have been confirmed, now what? Is he receiving mental health help while incarcerated?
My other questions are if he does have issues, serious issues, how did his parents ever let him start owning firearms? And no this is not an anti-right to bear arms conversation, it’s a legitimate question. It also once again points out the validity of mental health evaluations and awareness when it comes to owning firearms. Krebs is 31 years old. So did his parents have any freaking idea of all he owned? And what of his brother? Did he know living under the same roof? I mean how could they not know? Will they have some sort of culpability here?
So what happens now? A deal or a trial? Time will tell. To follow please find some stuff found relating to Federal case. This guy needs serious help, but will he ever be safe to live outside of a structured safely behind walls existence of some sort? You really have to wonder about that, and if I’m honest and being selfish, I hope he doesn’t come back to this area. I have to wonder if the feds took this over because he’s going to be institutionalized somewhere for the rest of or majority of his days?
People also want to label him as a political terrorist, and I have never thought that to be the case. Do I think perhaps that was an impetus for his actions in as far as a reaction to the political climate in this country? Yes, but to label a man with obviously this many mental issues per media reports now as a political terrorist I feel is inaccurate and unfair. And I’m not saying that as some sort of bleeding heart, I am saying it because I believe it to be true, and Democrats around here need to remember this guy was one of them at that point as far as political registration, and what nobody seems to be talking about is this once again points to the glaring holes in our healthcare and mental healthcare systems in this country.
This is scary and sad all at the same time. We owe all of the law enforcement agencies from West Chester PD to East Whiteland PD to all of the other federal, county, and other folks in law enforcement a debt of gratitude. I am thankful how on top of this they were. They did their jobs so impressively from No Kings to his bomb and weapon filled house in East Whiteland; they kept us all safe. This could have been a disaster.
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech so he is certainly allowed to do whatever he wants but the pledge isn’t the place for his opinion. Just my 2 cents.
This all comes courtesy of West Vincent Supervisor Bernie Couris.
Now Bernie is an interesting cat. He was the most devoted of Republicans when he was all those years on West Conshohocken Borough Council then he moves to West Vincent and becomes Nouveau Bernie the Born Again Democrat.
I am a traditionalist when it comes to certain things and I don’t think you should mess with the Pledge of Allegiance do you?
If you think Bernie should apologize to the residents and anyone else who might hear this, please email him at:
Oh and let us not forget the mysterious evaporation of whomever the forager woman was whom they initially tapped to replace Sara Shick who passed away in August? I can’t remember the woman’s name but she literally lasted like four or five meetings and disappeared. She was done.
Why that is interesting because of the sheer lunacy of whom they replaced the disappearing woman with. This is none other than Jim Wendelgass. Yes, isn’t that a fantabulosa thing? First he’s a manager then he comes back as an interim manager and now he’s a politician.
Why is this important?
Wendelgassbag was the manager that a bunch of years ago they chose not to renew his contract so he kind of went bye-bye and then went over to West Pikeland as manager because that place is very Pennsyltucky and problematic as far as government (we’ve heard about them in recent months because they keep trying to get rid of their police department and because they don’t record meetings a lot of stuff doesn’t get out.)
Wendelgassbag was at West Pikeland until he retired I guess a couple of years ago now? Then he was brought back to life like Lazarus rising from the dead in West Vincent, as like some kind of interim manager. (See the link to the old post on this blog discussing that at the very bottom of this post. )
West Vincent is one of those places that you don’t pay attention to for a while and then you go back and look and then you shake your head because every time you think things can’t get more sketchy there, they do.
And other things that I always find curious when it comes to West Vincent are little things like this open records appeal from 2024 I think it was:
Interestingly enough they’re no longer seems to be a Township Secretary at West Vincent Township and why is that? What did they do to the last one?
You know it can get shady in certain municipalities in Chester County and West Vincent, well, it is definitely a place in need of sunshine and good government.
Don’t mess with the Pledge of Allegiance that’s like burning the flag IMHO.
