This. Finally. People all over now understand what the residents of Mt. Pleasant have been dealing with for YEARS.
Anyway, my cup runneth over in gratitude for Philadelphia regional media digging in to what has been going on for far too long in this historic old neighborhood in Tredyffrin. It is gratifying to know that they care about people in the region enough to hang out and talk with these people for a while because basically no one else has.
Perhaps somewhere up above Miss Mazie Hall and her pal Margaret Collins are smiling? I mean developers could tear down Mazie’s house, but neither predatory developers nor animal house college students have a right to destroy this neighborhood. It isthat simple.
So Tredyffrin Township, it’s time to get off your collective asses and stop ignoring this neighborhood because everyone knows if this was an expensive McMansion district you’d be hopping to PDQ. Yes I am in fact saying that if this wasn’t a historically black neighborhood, this problem would have been dealt with years ago. And by the way, the McMansionette dwellers in the new big huge town houses are not happy with this issue either.
And Villanova University, walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.
Has a rainbow come to Mount Pleasant in Tredyffrin? Not sure exactly, but a mighty fine centerpiece article from The Philadelphia Inquirer has arrived.
I am so happy for the very beleaguered residents of this small historic neighborhood. I am honestly really happy that a bona fide reporter listened to what the residence had to say and wrote about it fairly.
See Tredyffrin? Told ya.
See Villanova University? Others do care about Mount Pleasant, even if your off-campus students and student rental slumlords there do not and just out of curiosity how many of those student rental landlords are alumni?
Yes there is a paywall but I actually know someone who subscribed today just so they could read this article. Tredyffrin’s inactive chickens are coming home to roost in Mt. Pleasant with this article. A reporter, the photographer to look into what has been even documented on social media.
This is a large article and I hope the message has been received that it is time to stop offering lip service, and deal with this.
As for Tredyffrin Supervisor Carlotta Johnson-Pugh who was quoted? She really shouldn’t dance. She should just say what the residents tell her: if this wasn’t a historically black neighborhood, people would care more. THAT is the truth and reality.
I don’t know where half of these Tredyffrin Supervisors were years ago when the original student housing ordinance was coming in to play, but I remember quite clearly how much it took them just to get around to doing an ordinance. It was somewhat disgraceful it took so long. And maybe the police department only has a certain number of calls on the books for the school year 2025 to 2026, but I have to ask were all of the calls investigated? Are the residents taken seriously?
📌 “When the parents aren’t getting on them, the college is not getting on them, the police are not getting on them, and then you got the neighbors, and all we can do is make a little fuss, but there’s not a lot we can do,”📌
This is a centerpiece article IMHO. The curtain has been lifted beyond a curtain raiser. Tredyffrin’s zoning officer is lazy at a minimum and could be doing more.
Allow one more (brief) quote from the Inquirer article today from Villanova University:
📌“Students are subject to the University’s Code of Student Conduct whether they are on- or off-campus, and the University follows up on all reports it receives from local municipalities,” the spokesperson said in a statement.📌
Ok good to know based upon this familiar email. I say familiar because I’ve been told people have received variations on the same theme:
Now to be fair, in the past I have found Villanova’s security folks helpful to residents to the best of their ability. But heavier lifting needs to come from Villanova University decision makers. I think they promised to be better during that meeting last year with residents once they acquired Cabrini?
A lot of schools in this country have directories on file for where all of their off-campus students are residing correct? Why can’t Villanova do this? I think I’ve been asking this for like over 20 years haven’t I? Why can’t they have a better grip on where these kids are living and how they are behaving vis à vis their policies they have in place for their students in general?
You know when you talk to these residents, they understand the college students want to have fun because a lot of them were college students once upon a time. However, these are literally animal houses that Mount Pleasant has been dealing with for far too long. And there needs to be palpable culpability on the part of the property owners who are renting these houses, perhaps?
I think this is a big stay tuned thing because I think this is a story that’s going to keep growing until the problems are solved in Tredyffrin like in Mount Pleasant.
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.
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:
Tredyffrin Township seems to be riding the crazy train. This happened this evening. I don’t know if anything still going on my last reports from that municipality from residents who happened upon this is the cars we’re leaving and headed towards King of Prussia…. except I’m told if you can here Route 202 from where you live it sounds like they’re racing on it and not necessarily in King of Prussia.
So this is like some kind of drag racing thing I guess?
Whatever it is I am thankful that the officer who responded recognize that but what I want to know is why are all these things happening that are weird in this township lately? Is it just their turn?
I know for a fact from friends of mine who have teenagers who like to hang around this McDonald’s (and I think I forgot to mention this was at the McDonald’s in Tredyffrin.)
So if you can, I would keep your teens away from this place at night because right now it seems to be a trouble spot and you don’t want them getting caught in it, especially if they are young drivers.
There may be a chance they actually got the license plate, etc., of whoever the organizer was.
Developer Eli Kahn at 12/1/25 Tredyffrin Supervisors Meeting
So this is an interesting one at the end of the supervisors’ meeting last evening, Tredyffrin Township’s bumbling and inefficient zoning officer (I am entitled to my opinion and I’m being understated because I don’t understand why she has a job, but I digress) pops up rather nervously to announce to the supervisors that are developer was there with essentially a problem.
What was the problem? Something to do with the sewer and how his workforce housing project was essentially being potentially charged too much if it goes forward the way it is for sewer capacity they’re not going to use, right?
Here is the recording of that portion of the meeting:
I don’t understand how it was just sort of popped on the agenda like this do you? I’m not saying he shouldn’t be heard because he should be heard, and this is a developer whose projects I am not generally speaking fond of, but when you listen to this meeting snippet, do you really think he’s wrong? I actually don’t. (Shocker, right?)
This project was introduced at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025:
So this is a trend we’ve seen being proposed in other municipalities and not just by this developer. It’s all about redeveloping these old commercial properties and these office buildings that have become obsolete whales and making them into living units, and in some cases, schools?
So I have to ask are we potentially replacing one problem with another problem? To be clear l, I’m not saying I’m against workforce housing if it actually happens. But I also look at these plans for this housing and so many of the units are these little itty-bitty things so what about workforce housing for families?
But I’m not going off on that tangent today that’s just something I think about. We definitely need affordable housing for all stages of life, but do we really need more apartments? I keep asking that question.
So the reason Eli Kahn went to Tredyffrin has to do with sewer. And sewer capacity and what he is paying for. It’s an interesting conversation. Listen to the video. So he’s telling the supervisors that they have problems in their sewer fee structures I guess? Basically he’s saying it’s not a one-size-fits-all?
I find it interesting, just like I find it. Interesting how it all kind of got plopped at the end of this meeting.
What is it with sewer fees and sewer capacity and municipalities out here so you have the thing that West Goshen Sunshine uncovered that’s on her Facebook page about fees paying health insurance bills of supervisors?
And then, of course, we have West Whiteland Township, trying to do the right thing for residents being sued by the Exton Mall developer and why? If there isn’t really sewer capacity, how should they be able to build as much? I don’t understand. it’s not like that’s the only problem on that site is there? Not enough parking correct? Too many houses for the area because of the density already existing correct?
I have to admit it was very nice to hear a supervisor (Carlotta Johnston-Pugh) speak up for Mount Pleasant tonight. But Tredyffrin needs to buy a clue and it needs to actually help Mount Pleasant.
The time for lip service is done.
This has been going on for years. It took forever to get this Township to enact a student housing ordinance. It still takes forever to even get anyone to deal with the problematic student houses. Blue Tarp Villa is a favorite example.
For how many years has Blue Tarp Villa been a problem? for how many years has Tredyffrin blown smoke up the asses of the residents of Mount Pleasant?
Why isn’t zoning code and general code enforcement of the student houses back there done more proactively? How many complaints do these houses need to have before whoever that person is who does the zoning and code enforcement gets out from behind her chair and does something?
Year after year, it is the same old song. And these supervisors and their predecessors know it’s a problem back there. They have known it’s a problem back there for how many years now?
I started following this issue in the early 2000s, so unless these officials(paid/appointed/elected) all live under a rock, why is it nothing ever really gets done? Like the Murph guy? Hasn’t he basically been a supervisor since the dawn of time?
Just because this isn’t a million dollar neighborhood per se, although it has some ridiculously overpriced close to million dollar infield development townhouses that are butt ugly, it doesn’t mean that this area should continually be ignored, right?
Yes, sorry, holy run-on sentence, Batman. Sometimes it just can’t be helped, and other times I just don’t care… but I digress.
At this point, it is just downright discriminatory and people need to say that out loud. It is downright discriminatory that Tredyffrin for decades has been looking the other way with regard to Mount Pleasant.
And yes, I can have that opinion.
I can’t even count the number of meetings I have watched over the years where people from Mount Pleasant have gotten up and begged for help.
Enough with the lip service Tredyffrin. The zoning people and manager need to start to earn their keep, don’t they?
I mean, gosh, Tredyffrin will it take something like a civil rights action before you help these residents?
Mount Pleasant matters. Start acting like it, Tredyffrin.
No it’s not Sullivan Hall on Villanova’s campus. It’s Mt. Pleasant in Tredyffrin. The neighbors as in the full time year round residents are in hell. Party season for off campus housing is back.
And the song remains the same as in the same year after year. Tonight there was a call regarding Mount Pleasant. The residents don’t call unless it’s really bad and what happened? As always not much.
Mount Pleasant deserves better. Tredyffrin Township needs to get it together. There are plenty of student rentals in the region where it’s not like animal house every single year.
But in Tredyffrin its animal house every single year. One would think with all the overpriced infill development going in around Mount Pleasant that Tredyfrrin would be a little more on top of the student houses.
Come on Tredyffrin, how many years? Why isn’t this township embarrassed?
Howellville, one of Tredyffrin’s earliest villages, grew in an area convenient to the farms of the Great Valley. A tavern was often the start of a town, and the first one here was built about 1712. By the early 1700s, sawmills and gristmills had appeared. Nearest to the center of town was the sawmill on Crabby Creek. Several of the early farms had their own limestone kilns. The first school opened about 1720. A factory of some kind belonging to the Workizer family is listed on the 1798 Direct Tax. [Note 1] By the late 18th century, a shoemaker and a wheelwright had set up shop.
More industry developed in the 19th century, including a woolen mill owned by Samuel Wood. There was at least one blacksmith. By the middle of the century there was a store and the Chester Valley Railroad, and by the late 1800s Howellville was a thriving industrial town. The limestone quarries became big business and Italian immigrants arrived to work at them. Other nationalities followed, but were never as numerous or as prosperous as the Italians.
By the early part of the 20th century, Howellville had become a close-knit community-a bit naughty, with lots of drinking and gambling. Then came the Depression which dealt rather harshly with the village. Having lost their jobs, and with no place to go, the quarry workers lived hand-to-mouth. In 1934 Frances Ligget, later a member of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club, marshalled the help of the Valley Forge Farm and Garden Club to clean up the town and help the unemployed workers and their families. Free seeds were given for gardens. The state provided medical assistance as well as sewing, knitting, and cooking classes, and a nursery school. Weaving was taught by Lettie Esherick, wife of the artist Wharton Esherick.
In 1681 land in the center of Tredyffrin Township that would eventually become most of Howellville belonged to William Mordaunt and John Hort Each owned 500 acres. They were Welsh Tract brokers-they bought the land from William Penn but never lived on it. In 1711 Mordaunt’s sons sold their 500 acres to John Evans, who had previously been Governor of Pennsylvania. Just to the east lay 1340 acres that David Meredith sold to William Powell in 1706. They were also Welsh Tract brokers.
Llewellyn David, a Welshman and one of the early settlers, bought 300 acres in 1708. The name David (later changed to Davis) was the biggest name in Howellville for the next two centuries.
The area sat at the bottom of a natural bowl where three hilly roads met to form a triangle. Swedesford Road, forming the north side of the triangle, came into existence about 1720, very early in the settlement of the Great Chester Valley. It led from the vicinity of Randall Malin’s house in East Whiteland to the Swede’s Ford at the Schuylkill River, near present day Norristown, and gave settlers in the interior access to Philadelphia.
Bear Hill Road, which formed the southeast side of the triangle, connected the Valley with the Black Bear Tavern at the top of the South Valley Hill near the Lancaster Road and today’s village of Paoli.
The southwest side of the triangle was Howellville Road, until a traffic light was installed at the corner about 1960. Then it became part of Swedesford Road and the north side of the triangle was made one-way. It was this way until most of Howellville’s buildings were torn down and Route 202 was completed and dedicated in 1971.
The triangle at the bottom of these roads was a convenient place for horses and wagons to stop and rest, and in 1745 a license was granted to establish the first tavern. When David Howell settled in the area and became the second innkeeper of the tavern, about 1765, it was called Howell’s Tavern. The village that grew up around it became Howellville. When the old inn was razed in 1921, the only house in the triangle was the little house described by Henry Darling later in this article.
The triangle disappeared in 1967 when Route 252 was widened and Route 202 was built.
The history of Howellville is fascinating and rich. Most people just think of Howellville Road today…not that it was a historically important crossroads village. It is an integral part of the history of Tredyffrin and was discussed in Tredyffrin’s 2009 Historic Preservation Plan.
Last time I was on Howellville Road was in the fall when I was noodling around and found myself on that road. It has long fascinated me and I lament the loss of one crossroads village after the other as time progresses.
You may recall the abandoned Jimmy Duffy property on Lancaster Avenue in Berwyn and the subsequent construction of Daylesford Crossing, an assisted living facility on the site. The approval for Daylesford Crossing was a long, drawn out redevelopment process in 2012 that required a text amendment to permit senior living facilities as a by-right use in C-1 (commercial) zoning.
Some argued at the time that the zoning change to permit senior living in C-1 was ‘spot-zoning’ to accommodate this specific project and others questioned what this would mean for future C-1 development in Tredyffrin Township. In 2015, the township expanded the C-1 District zoning to also include townhouses as a by-right use.
During the last few years, developers have flocked to the township with their assisted living and townhouse, apartment and condominium plans. Assisted living projects currently under construction or in the review process include Erickson Living at Atwater Crossing in Malvern (250 beds) and Brightview Senior Living on E. Conestoga in Devon (196 beds).
On the townhouse-apartment side in the township, there are many projects in the planning stages or under construction….Areas that were once farmland continue to be developed. Top ranking school district, T/E brings an influx of people to the area which means an influx of students, and the growing problem of finding a place to put them….. a new proposed land development plan in the works that is extremely troubling – townhouses on Howellville Road. The proposal is to wedge a cluster of 20 townhouses, in four buildings, between the village of Howellville and the shadow of the Refuge Pentecostal Church.
….The proposed land development plan on Howellville Road is not compatible with the character and appearance of the area. Beyond the impact of traffic on Howellville Road, the proposed development plan creates serious safety concerns. The steep narrow winding nature of Howellville Road makes entry and exit from the proposed dense townhouse project a dangerous situation.
Benson Company’s proposed townhouse project on Howellville Road will change the look and character of this community as well as place a greater burden on the narrow, winding road – and again more students for the school district!
John Benson of Benson Company has enthusiastically offered that his proposed Howellville Road townhouses will look like his Grey’s Lane townhouses on Lancaster Ave. A couple of things – (1) Grey’s Lane is on Rt. 30, a commercial 4-lane road vs. Howellville Road, a rural country road and (2) he squeezed 12 townhouses in at Grey’s Lane in 3 buildings where as this proposal is for 4 buildings with 20 townhouses….Areas that were once farmland continue to be developed. Between the assisted living communities and the townhouses and apartments, should the objective in Tredyffrin Township be to approve any and all land development projects regardless of the impact?
How awful this sounds and allow me to share two screen shots – one is Pattye’s photo of where the proposed townhouses will be stuffed in and perched like Jabba The Hut and all his children, and a rendering of the “Greys Lane” townhomes…another cram plan, and cheap looking to boot.
And from an aesthetic point of view, every time I see a staged interior of a “fabulous” Benson new construction piece of new construction dreck I am struck with the fact that every interior looks the same. If you want Barbie’s dream house, you are pretty much there. No character, predictable, mass produced, plastic.
Residents of Tredyffrin are soooo right!! How much of this does any one township want or need? And much like neighboring East Whiteland it seems like people are hell bent on developing every square inch of the township! Who needs King of Prussia? Soon Tredyffrin and East Whiteland will definitely resemble King of Prussia meets Bensalem.
Oh yes, one more thing? Tredyffrin residents need to get to the Planning Commission TOMORROW February 16th when this next great godforsaken plan makes it’s debut along with “Westlakes Hotel” and “Chestnut Road Apartments”.
Again I ask where the hell the Chester County Planning Commission and Brian O’Leary are? Lord above, Chester County is drowning, yes drowning in development plans.
In his capacity as Director of Public Works, Mr. Cannon engaged in conduct, himself, and directed vendors and subordinates to engage in such conduct, involving two instances of the improper disposal of materials on Township property in a manner prohibited by Pennsylvania’s environmental laws. Since the areas affected are not easily accessible to the public and, as addressed in more detail below, since no immediate danger was identified by DEP, we cannot disclose the locations until that agency’s investigation is complete.
Well apparently Mr. Cannon was arrested and is facing criminal charges on chemical dumping (MDJReport Tredyffrin Cannon ).
Former Public Works Director, Scott Cannon turned himself over to the Tredyffrin Township Police Department for processing on Friday, November 20, 2015.
The charges brought by the State Attorney General’s office arise from facts that were disclosed publicly in February 2014 during a meeting of the Board of Supervisors following the Township’s own internal investigation. The Township is unaware of any allegations of violations other than those disclosed in February 2014.
In response to a CBS 3 inquiry, Cannon’s attorney, A.J.Chotkowski, emailed a statement that reads in part:
“Mr. Cannon was surprised and disappointed to learn that charges were filed against him today… the charges occurred less than a year after Mr. Cannon initiated a civil action against Tredyffrin Township stemming from his termination as the Director of Public Works… Mr. Cannon denies that he, or any other employee under his supervision, violated any law or caused any environmental harm. The substance alleged to have been released is magnesium chloride, which is merely a common salt product used to treat roads.”
Ok but according to the state, aren’t chemicals like this supposed to be disposed of properly? As in not just dumped on Tredyffrin Township owned property and allowed to spill into the Valley Creek?
Scott Canon, 56, of Glen Mills, is facing four counts of unlawful conduct and a count of prohibition against other pollutions for opening a large tank containing magnesium chloride, and releasing 1,000 gallons of the chemical into the township’s public works facility, according to the Office of the Attorney General.
Political chess anyone? Mimi Gleason (so much for that pretty quote of “a job is not a life”, eh?) went to West Whiteland and Bill Martin came out of the polluted Bashore era in Radnor Township via problematic Bridgeport, correct? Is there culpability when it comes to Tredyffrin’s former Public Works guy and the current and former Township Managers of Tredyffrin when it comes to this case? Has anyone contacted Mimi Gleason in West Whiteland for her thoughts? Did she hire this Scott Cannon?
I can’t help but wonder what else will surface in the always politically charged muck and mire of Tredyffrin Township. Because can it said nothing there is ever simple?
But at the end of the day what disturbs me the most are Tredyffrin’s pollution problems. It’s bad enough when it’s a specific company in a certain municipality and all of this has been well, municipally caused has it not? First raw sewage, now this?
And how have these issues affected Tredyffrin residents as well as their municipal neighbors?
What the heck, Tredyffrin Township? Well only time will tell where this case will go , especially given all the problems in the attorney general’s office in Pennsylvania.
Sign me glad not to live in Tredyffrin but I sure wish they would clean up their act (and pollution problems).