I have not seen a public notice or media report on this yet but sources in the courtroom are saying Kurt Schenk’s trial has ended in a mistrial I guess yesterday?
Former District Attorney Deb Ryan who is now Judge Ryan was the judge listed on the docket.
What I was told is trial DID end yesterday in a mistrial and supposedly 8 out of 10 jurors found the accused guilty. The victim’s family must be devastated but is it the end?
A mistrial is a non-ending isn’t it ? It is not innocence is it? The case can return to a pretrial state unless the prosecutor (DA) dismisses the charge, the court (judge) bars retrial, or the parties resolve it by plea right?
So again a mistrial does not mean innocence correct? I am sure the accused’s supporters will say that right? Ironically looking at the docket yesterday was the man’s birthday so he has a present for now? But does he?
What happens next? I don’t know, hopefully someone will report on this or some statement will come from the DA.
The victim, the young woman, is special needs. We all know how defense attorneys can treat victims because their job is to get the accused out of a situation right? God don’t like ugly and I believe in that.
What we CAN’T have here is street justice. We might not like the outcome but we have to abide by the law or we become as bad as those accused of crimes.
Hold this young woman and her family in your hearts and prayers.
And that church he is a minister of? New Beginnings Church of the Cross? Just don’t go to it.
Waiting like all of you for formal reports or media reports. As a woman I am seriously sad right now. I feel very strongly about crimes against women. It took TWO years for this to come to court. For that young woman and her family in my opinion that must have been two very long and possibly agonizing years.
The accused is someone who has been in the spotlight before when he was a politician in Coatesville. I did a newspaper search and for The Philadelphia Inquirer alone it showed that he was in 16 Coatesville related articles from the early 2000s in addition to the 2024 article. And then there was Daily Local, a paper in Coatesville etc. So my whole thing is every time this guy comes up in a media related thing like a newspaper article. It’s never very positive is it? (And yes that is my opinion you read newspaper archives, and tell me what you think.)
Like I have said many times before crimes against women is something that resonates with me. And in my opinion, this stuff probably happens more than we are informed about because so many women are afraid to come forward because of the way they are treated in court and isn’t that the truth?
My heart goes out for this young woman who is special needs, who is on the spectrum of something. She was very brave to come forward and I hope she finds closure in the event the court system is unable to attain it for her.
Sometimes Lady Justice doesn’t get the result people think she should and then I think sometimes she just weeps. And sometimes there is just karma and maybe this isn’t the end of the story for this young woman or any young woman in the future right?
What I keep thinking about is a hung jury and a mistrial isn’t an acquittal. It’s not innocence. It’s just its own thing in the legal system. But it doesn’t mean that the accused is innocent does it?
My final question is was 13 hours too short to deliberate?
Packed house in Westtown Township and I hear many are calling out Supervisor Tom Foster and it’s not Ollie Ollie Oxenfreed.
Oh and breaking news they fired the entire historic commission on bullsheit trumped up charges.
Jodi Nawrocki ran for office trying to convince people she loved historic preservation, and what’s her first big act as a supervisor and the baby chair of the supervisors who doesn’t know how to run a meeting? To axe a volunteer commission. I guess she still believes in the tooth fairy if she expects to believe that this has nothing to do with the Darlington Inn or politics. she is just one of three disgraces, but she’s the only Democrat on the board and she might as well just be Tom Foster’s Sarah Palin.
Oh and former non-profit name- dropping- former -stupidvisor Carol DeWolf? I love love love the ego in you that you can’t bother to introduce yourself to the audience. You’re not the queen freaking mother, but you are still obnoxious, and now that you’re just regular old Carol from Westrown I think you can just stand at the podium like a normal person.
There is no point in being subtle here. This is a complete shit show and a travesty. This is obviously political and if you’re on a board in Westtown, you should just resign now before they fire all of the rest of you.
And that manager, she needs to go to. She also doesn’t know what in the Sam hell she’s doing.
What a freaking joke. Except it isn’t is it? This is actually really bad for residents and I’m allowed to have that opinion too.
So how can they get rid of that entire board of stupidvisors and the manager? and in the meantime, I hope everyone on that historic commission knows that they are entitled to a televised hearing and bring lawyers.
I gave myself the day and binge read a book today.
The book is SO wonderful, a literal page turner.
The book is by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Chester County and Philadelphia’s own Lisa Scottoline.
To begin with, this book (This Changes Everything) is the novel which follows as a related but not necessarily a sequel (unless we have a set of new amazing characters for a series??) to The Unraveling of Julia.
Read The Unraveling of Juliafirst. Then gobble up This Changes Everything.
Both of these books are THAT good and it also features one of my favorite characters from Scottoline books, Bennie Rosato.
There is murder, intrigue, Tuscany, and upstate Pennsyltucky small towns that are full of secrets and corruption.
There are so many nods in this book to what is going on today that it is real, current, plausible, and fascinating. History is woven in and more, including recipes, if you pay attention . If you have ever felt a little fey and had yourself an inexplicable premonition or two, even a weird feeling that was a harbinger of something else, you will also enjoy this book.
I don’t pretend to know Lisa Scottoline , although I have met her in years past. Once upon a Time when the Barnes & Noble in Bryn Mawr first opened, and Lisa was first a novelist, my mother handled the events for the bookstore. She had Lisa there a few times that I remember.
I have been a somewhat devoted reader over the years. Since about 1995. I haven’t read all of her short works, but I think I’ve pretty much read all of her novels and I used to love her column for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 
I totally see the unraveling of Julia and this changes everything as being a two-part Netflix series or something on Apple or Prime Video. I could see Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company taking this on.
Anyway, I don’t belong to a book club or anything like that I just like to read, always have. And there is nothing I love better than a book that literally won’t let you put it down. It is fast paced and as twisty turny as a good Chester County back road.
This is a book that I won’t give away. Much like The Unraveling of Julia.
And before anyone gets any absurd ideas in their head, I wasn’t asked to write this post. I’m not compensated for writing this post. I bought my copy of the book on Amazon. It arrived Friday and I read it today.
Buy the book and read it or borrow it from a friend or the library. You’ll be glad you did.
So would somebody please tell this baby Trumpophile that I might not be enamored of Kristine Howard but why am I being quoted on his freaking flyers he’s handing out in Malvern Hunt about data centers?
I mean one minute with Chester County Republicans I am literally the devil incarnate and the next minute they are quoting ME?
FFS so we are crystal clear: I don’t know him and I’m certainly not endorsing him. Let him do his own damn work.
Literally, I have never met this person. He has not reached out and now he can stuff it.
He’s just using my words.
Literally I did not know this guy existed until this afternoon.
And I guess that’s what politicians do, correct? They use the words of others because they can’t find their own?
And if he’s running around town with the likes of Melissa what’s her name who seems to run for something every season and ran her teenage daughter once for school board? Yeah no desire to meet him for that reason either.
Sometimes it is better to ask for permission than to beg for forgiveness.
But I do have to kind of laugh at the idea of anyone quoting me to get elected public office. I guess I must only be an evil blogger on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Sign of the times taken by someone NOT trespassing.Not my photo, saw it on social media. Corporate welfare bought to you by Governor Josh Shapiro. Residents are always optional in his equations.
East Whiteland Township, Chester County is just a place where most honestly feel government pays lip service for every shitty thing that happens. Well not everyone. Some just ignore us altogether like State Representative Kristine Howard. She literally does nothing and says nothing. Never shows up for anything in her district. But she is BFFs now with neighboring State Representative Danielle Friel Otten whom people elected as a pipeline activist and that didn’t last long as she just wanted to sit at the popular kids table in Harrisburg and is a sell out.
Governor Josh Shapiro is everywhere as he is up for re-election. But he is busy having his literal neighbors dislike him and handing out corporate welfare as that sign in East Whiteland indicates. Yes I can have that opinion while I say I told you so. Shapiro has always been exactly who he is.
If anyone had been paying attention except for some of us, they would have seen it back when he was former Congressman Joe Hoeffel’s Chief of Staff (1999-2003). We certainly saw it when we were starting to fight eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore, PA. It was literally his job to help and/or at least listen to Hoeffel’s constituents. He didn’t and I can distinctly remember him avoiding residents in Ardmore at a town hall meeting in early eminent domain days. The meeting was at a senior center in Ardmore.
Now we don’t really have a viable choice on the other side of the aisle, just Marge Simpson, err Stacy Garrity. That woman was pro-data center until a lightbulb went off and she thought she could maybe get two extra votes and she flip flopped to being sort of against them.
There is one person whom we know cares 100%: State Senator Katie Muth. She is a fierce mama bear for all of us. She cares. She shows up.
I guess I just don’t understand how anyone thinks this data center or any data centers are OK. I also don’t understand one of the East Whiteland Supervisors after finding this video:
Now he is only one of three supervisors. But like with many other municipalities, you have at least one who thinks data centers are wonderful and the hypocrite tree hugger in that video from NBC 10 above that’s on YouTube is the one in East Whiteland. According to this media report and subsequent research, he apparently works for Morris Arboretum owned by the University of Pennsylvania so does that mean Morris Arboretum and Penn are pro data centers?
But the rest of the East Whiteland board? It’s like they are doing fear based governance. They are so afraid of what might happen to them that they’re not thinking about what will happen to the all of us and aren’t I allowed to have that opinion? Shouldn’t the courage of your convictions mean something when you’re an elected official? I mean, if you can’t stand up for the people who elected you why are you in office? What are you getting out of it?
Today, as I was standing outside in my garden, looking into my woods, I was pondering all of this. I will share my thoughts next in a little video, and then I will share some video snippets from the most recent East Whiteland meeting and some other stuff.
I’m sad. I am sad that we don’t matter. I’m sad that our local environment doesn’t matter. And I am fearful we will run out of water and not be able to afford our power. No one has been able to allay these fears and I don’t think they really can and I’m allowed to have that opinion too.
According to media reports, over 1600 workers are on strike against PECO. Also according to these same reports, this is the first time in the company’s 145 year old history.
This is NOT an anti-union post. Quite the contrary. These are the men and women who actually keep our power on and help us when storms cause crisis in our communities. The fat corporate cats who charge us out the ying yang, even profiting from data centers at our expense, are at fault. As a matter of fact a comment from one of my readers gave me pause:
PECO’s CEO makes millions. Record profits….and peanuts to those who actually do the work?
We are in the middle of a record breaking heatwave and these workers had no other option except strike. The recent rate increase has nothing to do with workers, just corporate America.
We the consumers are caught in this mess because of a greedy corporate entity and their executives. The fault lies with the executive suite.
The workers only want the basics and also don’t want jobs outsourced that are customer service related, and I am all for that. I am so tired of calling a US company and getting scripted offshore call centers or AI bots.
I am a fan of the linemen and folks that keep the power on. That started back in the 90s- specifically the summer of 1999 when we had a horribly long stretch of weather. I was living in my single girl home. We kept having brown outs and outages.
We also had a problem with a pole that serviced a lot of our neighborhoods. It had “legs” underground that kept burning. You could literally see scorched earth and feel the heat.
PECO corporate wouldn’t listen. We had so many outages that the site workers and linemen looked after us, one even gave us a really powerful flashlight. Eventually it took our state senator’s office to help us, and they helped us in part because of the workers who gave us information we needed to get the right repairs.
Then there was the ice storm of 2014. We were what? Ten days without power in a particularly icy cold February. We cheered when the linemen came.
Last night’s storm was swift and dangerous. We have a pole near us that services multiple municipalities. Every time there is a bad storm we are out. Last night was a more lengthy than average outage. I think that is because of the strike.
So PECO? I am sure your executives love their cushy packages and benefits. But for what we pay as consumers I would like to know that your workers are getting their fair share. That’s all. Other than you need update the problem poles that really have not been fixed AND your outage map is still not working. And Aspludth still sucks.
And for those of you who don’t share my opinion on this, please note purported violence against strikers is terrible. There is enough violence in this world.
I was in the Hamptons for a few days. The Hamptons is actually a place I do go to every now and again.
(Yes, I’m now waiting for the people to start with the elite comments and whatever and yawn. Disney cruises aren’t my jam.)
But it gave me a little time to reflect.
One of the things is say what you want about the Hamptons in New York, but they care about historic preservation. They care about the way their communities look. I like that. But I think one of my favorite things that they do, which is great because the traffic is insane, is they actually enforce their pedestrian crosswalks.
But honestly, one of the things I truly liked the best is I didn’t see any political signs anywhere. As a matter of fact at a historic structure, that is now an adaptive reuse that I believe was in Bridgehampton, I saw a sign that said “no political signs allowed.”
Also important to note is the shopping areas along their main drags and even off of the beaten path are in size and scale with the rest of their communities out there. And I didn’t see giant gargantuan big box apartment buildings everywhere which was quite delightful. Architecture, even very modern design had thought and human scale and process and actual design.
It was of course absolutely fabulous people watching.
The food was pretty much wonderful everywhere we went, but I have to say the highlight was the most perfect lobster roll from a place called Shippies in Southampton. It was nice to get away from the over abundance of chain steakhouses, the mediocre, and pub food.
This is an area that has a lot of farming around it, so everything is very much farm to table, which makes a difference. And the produce stands! Amazing. Not a single fauxmer to be found anywhere, and the prices I saw on produce was actually a little better than in this area
And it’s a very long ride back-and-forth, and for people who know my eternal curiosity of things I also like watching what’s on the side of the road. It’s a great way to see where bad infill development has totally made a mess out of places from Long Island through the NYC boroughs. We should have learned from these mistakes already.
It’s also a place where you see somebody with a little tiny house on the side of the highway who is still growing a garden.
And again, as I mentioned, it’s the place of absolutely insane traffic and bad accidents.
I must mention again I adored a few days where I didn’t hear one person anywhere even discussing politics. I did however see a disgusting lit billboard on the highway leaving the Hamptons. This one seemed to be on Shinnecock Nation Land on the highway.
I was also around so many gorgeous gardens filled with hydrangeas and imaginative plantings.
I garden so that is something that I always love to see. This was the place where I truly fell in love with hydrangeas.
However, I also saw the effects of climate change and disease on what once was a stretch of road en route to Montauk that was filled with different kinds of pine and other things that just look completely dead.
It is somewhat of an out of body experience being in a place that caters so specifically to the super rich. And I’m not saying that for any other reason other than it’s true. Maybe that’s why things just get taken care of. I don’t know.
But I will admit I loved coming home to Chester County.
It’s nice to visit other places, but home is where your heart is and my heart is very much in Chester County.
Resident photo, East Whiteland Data Center Site NOT TRESPASSING!
The Sword of Damocles. I think that’s a good and applicable metaphor for those of us in any community throughout Pennsylvania dealing with the issue of data centers. We live in a state of eventual peril, and our elected officials don’t really seem to get it and or really care. Or if they care at all, do they care enough?
East Whiteland in particular I’m beginning to find especially frustrating. With everything it’s no we couldn’t possibly, it’s never maybe we can investigate that as a solution.
Every time you turn around yet another community is being faced with a potential data center, or inadequate bad pablum smeared data center ordinance language developed by people who are really in it to get data centers in communities. And yes, I can have that opinion because it’s the truth in my opinion.
The developers are your typical developers and this could be a warehouse or an apartment building or condominium complex or bad stick frame townhouse development. They don’t really care, they’re just in it to make money. and like typical developers they will build their build and move on to the next community whose lives they are going to impact negatively.
There seems to be a couple of court cases pending, so there’s no actual data center building going on at the moment in East Whiteland, but it never should’ve gotten this far. This township had the ability when this first started to say no, but they lost their balls along the way.
This started in 2018. I know because I was following it and so was Ginny Kerslake. It was around the same time that the developer tried unsuccessfully to get a hydrogen hub in West Whiteland next to where he wanted the data center in East Whiteland.
When I asked about this then and asked them if they had ever heard of Loudon County Virginia or how bad this could be the response was along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing), “It couldn’t be that bad.”
I warned officials in this township then that a human tsunami would arrive when they least expected it about this data center. And the human tsunami is here and the residents are not backing down, which is something this township is not used to because there isn’t a lot of staying power on certain issues. But with this the issue of data centers, residents are united.
And it’s not just the residents of East Whiteland. It’s the surrounding communities who would be affected by this data center or who are going to be affected by another data center. This issue is non-partisan. People just don’t want them, and if you study the fine print in our electric bills, we’re already paying for data centers. We’re paying for what we didn’t ask to have dumped on us. That’s just classic isn’t it?
Resident photo no trespassing involved
A truthfully, we shouldn’t have to have it. There’s an opportunity right now in Harrisburg thanks to State Senator Katie Muth to pass a bill that would allow for a moratorium on data centers. It wouldn’t be forever, but it would give people breathing room, but of course the lobbyists and the politicians, who have swallowed the Emperor’s new clothes as being spun by Governor Josh Shapiro, just don’t get it, and their ignorance (or deliberate obdurance) could cost us our communities, our health, our environment, our home values, and more.
State Senator Katie Muth is the only elected official who seems to give a damn most days.
Who is going to take care of us when our wells run dry? Who is going to take care of us when we don’t have enough energy for our use because it’s being hogged by a data center? Who is going to keep us from literally losing our minds from the noise of a data center which will also affect our children, our pets, our wildlife?
Resident photo no trespassing involved
I’m tired of being Sister Mary Sunshine on this issue. It’s wrong and when did our government become people who didn’t protect the people who elected them in the first place? Do any of them have courage? That remains to be seen.
Now there’s this narrative being spun in East Whiteland that Foote Mineral really isn’t a super fund/EPA site any longer. Don’t know what they’re smoking, but it really must be good, huh?
Yes. It. Is.
That Foote Mineral site is a bad site and this is a greed driven bad plan. Data centers are not good for any community. And yes I can have that opinion.
And a brief segue to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and Salem Township. Does anyone really believe that the data center land owners give a crap about the cats living on one particular parcel I mean, where are they going with them? Are they just making them disappear? Doesn’t the potential for animal cruelty matter either?
My greatest fear with these data centers is the reality that our local governments and our state government is creating a Logan‘s Run scenario for the future. And that’s not as crazy as it sounds if you look at what’s happening with the negative effects of data centers in other states already.
I remember the first time I saw Saint Peter’s Village as I guess a teenager. My father wanted to see it, so one day we went. I thought I had stepped into a magical place. It has felt like that every time I have been there since. It is in Warwick Township and has a cool history.
is a preserved 19th-century industrial company town located in a narrow gorge along French Creek. A company town. Much like the Village of Gladwyne, hence the reference. In the 1840s, iron ore was discovered there.
Cradled in the hills surrounding French Creek State Park was a run-down, sad-looking town called St. Peter’s Village. It’s cheerless, empty shops and crumbling walks hid this little Victorian hamlet’s history and charm.Originally founded and built as a ‘company town’ by Davis Knauer to house and provide services to workers of his Black Granite Quarry at French Creek, this picturesque Victorian community began to take shape in 1880.
For many decades families flocked to the village to ‘jump’ the rocks and picnic by the stream.
Winter sleigh rides and festivals were a constant as was, in later years, the sound of old Aunt Lena playing the saw. The village’s fascinating history and the memories of thousands who visited could not preserve it from the descent that followed the closing of the quarry and the subsequent selling of the village by the Knavery family in the late 1970’s.
For over 20 years this charming Victorian town sat neglected with its magnificent Inn deteriorating into a shabby shadow of its former grandeur. But all that has now changed.
Tom Drauschak of Earth Companies, the builder of the nearby Stone Wall Golf Course, and his partner, Vince Piazza, the father of future baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, purchased the Inn as well as several other buildings in the village two years ago and already life has come back to the town. Paver sidewalks were installed, the quarry had what can only be called a ‘face-lift’ and working with the Chester County Historical Society, existing structures have been restored to their 1880s Victorian charm and are now occupied. The historic Inn at St. Peters Village (http://theinnatsaintpetersvillage.com/), which first opened in 1881, has been radiantly restored…The best part, however, are the careful measures that are being taken to maintain the historical integrity of St. Peters. Mr. Drauschak is working with the historical society to ensure that the new construction will be representative of the architecture of the era, thereby making this lovely neighborhood fit seamlessly into the charming village and its setting. Home site reservations at pre-construction pricing are now being accepted. So, what happened to St. Peter’s Village? It’s Renewed, Revitalized and Open for Business!
Wellllllll….I had not really paid attention to the whole thing that this little village always had overlords err owners and then the news broke:
St. Peter’s Village, a 19th-century industrial town along French Creek in northern Chester County that’s protected under the National Register of Historic Places, is being put up for auction by its owners.
The sale includes the Inn at St. Peter’s Village and accompanying restaurant, 121 residential and 13 commercial properties and subterranean mineral rights to the land, according to Philly-based Traiman Auction Company. The village will be sold Sept. 30 at the Desmond Hotel in Malvern.
June 29 is ironically the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul.
AUCTION???? yeah this gets an oh fuuuuuuuuck for sure. The auction house has tried to be coy about ownership but Philadelphia Business Journal burst that cherry:
An entire 83-acre village in Chester County with a hotel, shops and over 100 developable home sites is being put up for auction by Piazza Management Co.
The historic St. Peter’s Village will be auctioned off Sept. 30 with no reserve price at the Desmond Hotel Malvern. At that time, the village will be sold to the highest bidder, no matter the price, and with no set starting bid.
~By Ryan Mulligan – Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Philadelphia Business Journal also pointed out that this is the SAME Piazza tearing up Ardmore in Lower Merion Township for a mixed use development that will supersize and citify.
Radnor Property Group is set to begin construction on a mixed-use development in Ardmore that will add hundreds of apartments to an area drawing attention from multifamily developers looking to build near transit hubs.
The $187 million, 270-unit development at 100 W. Lancaster Ave. is planned to have about 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 480 garage parking spaces, including 108 for public use by retail customers. The project is named The Piazza at Ardmore after property owners Daniel Piazza and his family.
Radnor Property Group CEO David Yeager said he and Daniel Piazza view the project as an opportunity to “create a gateway” into downtown Ardmore.
Those are my photos from when I was in Ardmore recently and I was horrified. Another fun fact? Former East Whiteland Supervisor Rich Orlow works for Piazza, who also has a seemingly stalled project in East Whiteland – a car dealership.
Engineer’s plans, plot plans, and other property details will be available at the property.
Description
Owner has directed an Absolute Auction for their portion of its property located in historic St Peters Village, Warwick Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Step into a one-of-a-kind opportunity in the heart of St. Peter’s Village, a nationally recognized historic destination in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This mixed-use development invites major builders, venture capitalists, and historic preservationists. Located in a growth corridor, this intriguing property sells at absolute auction to the highest bidder. The offering includes 121 Home Sites, consisting of 33 single-family homes, 33 twins, 34 town homes, and 21 expansive 2-acre home sites; also a wastewater treatment plant that services the existing structures, which must be improved by the buyer to accommodate the full build out. Thirteen historic and commercial village buildings—totaling approximately 43,500+/- square feet—create exceptional potential for retail, hospitality, or adaptive reuse. The property also conveys valuable subterranean mineral rights, including documented iron ore deposits, adding a rare investment dimension.
Also includes liquor license, utility systems, personal property, and goodwill
It’s all being sold “as is, where is”.
Now someone has to ask the question is Saint Peter’s Village being auctioned off to pay for Ardmore?
Well?
Last year part of the road was closed by PennDOT, does that have anything to do with this? After all it is no great secret in Chester County that PennDOT road closures can help kill businesses, right?
The small sewage treatment plant nestled into the hill behind St. Peter’s Inn discharges directly into French Creek, an “exceptional value stream” that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is charged with protecting.
The sewage treatment plant has had serious problems over the years with aging pipes that allowed stormwater to infiltrate. Every time it rained, the plant would not be able to handle the flow, and thousands of gallons of raw sewage were discharged into French Creek.
Anyway….GLADWYNE PEOPLE like the good for nothing civic association and Lower Merion Township sit up and pay attention as this could be the fate someday of Gladwyne Village. You have a new owner turning it back into a company/mill kind of town. Don’t say it couldn’t happen in 19035, it certainly damn well could.
I am sure I am not the only one extremely worried about Saint Peter’s Village which to be honest has started to look a little run down in the past couple of years. If residents and preservationists don’t get busy and pay attention who knows what could happen here and it might be on the National Register of Historic Places but how many times have things on that register been demolished for “progress”?
No rest for the historic preservation weary, I’m afraid. Only potential profits for developers, right?
I’ve written about this so many times I don’t know why I’m bothering to do it again but I am.
There are no better advocates for a community than the members of said community. It takes a lot at times, sometimes it’s easier.
But people ask, how do you do these things? You gather together. It starts with that.
I think the biggest problem I see that people have with local governments today are the poor decisions, and trying to hide things from people.
Sometimes it takes a while, but the truth always does come out. But there are things that I don’t understand today that comes out of the mouths of our local elected officials. Elected officials are the ones that are driving the bus of the municipality, yet they can’t contemplate their navels without being told what to do by staff.
Now of course they’re just places where the elected officials are just off. Do we call them corrupt or are they just stupid? I think they are stupid a lot of the times because they think their residents are stupid?
If you don’t like the face of who governs you change it, one of your most powerful tool in a citizen toolbox is your vote, along with your voice.
My friends and I have done it. It’s often a slog. Pure and simple. And while it is great to have t-shirts, catchy phrases and acronyms and lawn signs, that is literally the fun part. The crazy rest of it? It’s like having a second unpaid job you didn’t sign up for.
In East Whiteland and East Vincent and Limerick and Plymouth and West Conshohocken and Upper Merion it’s the blasted data centers. In Chaddsford, Radnor, and Malvern Borough and some other areas it’s unwelcome development.
In Easttown things are a little below the radar right now, but I keep getting inklings that things are simmering.
And Willistown is its own hot mess. You have unresolved major development issues with Rockhill Farm. And the guy who won’t let the township fix a culvert on Spring Road. And every once in a while you have people who pop up wanting sidewalks on absurd roads. In some places sidewalks are helpful, but the can’t be on dangerous roads that are not safe for walking or sidewalks to nowhere right? And the eternal thing of who pays for sidewalks when they are installed is an issue that the sidewalk advocates have no realistic answers to.
Another example I’m going to use today is Tredyffrin – what are these people thinking?
Residents are asking for transparency because everything they get is talking in circles, a non-answer, clear as mud. Like how is a supervisor named David Miller able to just write a check for a big chunk for the park being formed out of Picket Post Swim Club? The Chase Road Park but does that check really buy naming rights? (Watch the meeting)
Just the other day after sharing a concern from a resident in Mount Pleasant, a sitting supervisor, replied the following:
So let’s review: she is a sitting supervisor. Her job is to help her constituents and residents of this township. What I’m sharing is a resident asking for help. What she’s sharing meaning the supervisor is she couldn’t possibly. She can call about a leaky fountain, but she can’t also say to the township manager and traffic safety “Hey, we have a problem and there’s going to be a fatality or a really bad accident if we don’t improve the signage in Mount Pleasant.”
But hey, it’s Mount Pleasant right, so why give a damn?
I see you lazy supervisor and so does everyone else.
I will also note this is the woman who actually lives extraordinarily close to where Megan Nieberle was murdered and did we ever hear a word out of her about that?
Now another weird thing in Tredyffrin. Humble brings up Hans van Mol and he’s a curiosity to me. He likes to play parliamentarian at meetings right? So why does he not recuse himself from Parks and Rec stuff? His mama, Diane van Mol is the chair of the Parks and Rec Board is she not? Isn’t that a conflict if he doesn’t recuse himself? And has he recused himself?
And let’s talk America 250? If Tredyffrin is so proud of their flag why did Sharon Humble have the attitude of a cold wet noodle when Michelle Kichline was there. How could she not recognize Michelle’s service to the township as a supervisor for years, she was a chair and she was a county commissioner and a chair there as well!
Tredyffrin residents are waking up. Residents in other Chester County communities are waking up. Government needs to realize that we are all not sheep on this big bus of life.
