willistown is being ruined by the nutbag brigade.

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

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

Now let me set the stage here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rant over.

new discovery related to duffy’s cut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cherry picking in chester county

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

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

I wonder was there an underlying traffic reason for stop?

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

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

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

skullduggery surrounding shuttered brandywine hospital campus

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

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

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

Fascinating.

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

Guess this is shady is as shady does?

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

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

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

By John George – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal

Jun 9, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ciao for now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

exciting duffy’s cut update?

the upper main line ymca shared pickle with easttown township hits the news on a rainy day.

I was wondering when the local TV media was going to pick up the pickle the YMCA of Greater Brandywine organization, Upper Main Line YMCA and Easttown Township have found themselves in. Boomchakalaka, today was the day and this was literally just on 6 ABC Action News Philadelphia a bit ago.

Yeah whatever, it took me by surprise and the beginning of the video is wobbly. The report was completely unexpected. I can’t believe someone other than myself and Savvy Main Line is actually covering this. I have no objection to pickleball per se, no matter what people want to say, but I did not like the way the neighbors have been treated to date.

Below are links from just 3 meetings where pickleball and the Upper Main Line YMCA (UMLY) were discussed:

For more Easttown Meetings, go to this page on their website and noodle around: https://pa-easttowntownship.civicplus.com/129/Agendas-and-Minutes

As I reported on May 17th, the neighbors are taking UMLY etc to court. I do not feel the neighbors wanted to do this but they were not being heard were they? And they were not being heard for a long time, weren’t they? And now media is catching on.

Once again the peeved and pickleball aggrieved will say anyone supporting the neighbors and the affected neighbors are horrible, terrible people. Well maybe if UMLY which now says they want to be good neighbors had been good neighbors in the beginning, this would not be where people are now, correct? And the YMCA of Greater Brandywine has been heavy handed before in dealing with people, haven’t they?

And people will say what do neighbors think buying a house near a YMCA, but to them I say oh really? UMLY is located in a historic resource…in a residential district, so wouldn’t common sense dictate they should try harder?

Residents are entitled to a reasonable expectation of quiet enjoyment, and people might like playing pickleball at UMLY but the residents do indeed have to be considered. And they were not being considered. Neighbors have apparently been trying to deal with this for a couple of years? These neighbors are far nicer than UMLY deserves. Personally I would have given them six months.

Anyway, now the news is settling into covering this. UMLY and Easttown sadly, could have avoided this, couldn’t they have?

after the fire: 1 year later

A year ago on May 1, was the first of two fires which devastated an old historic home at 400 Leopard Road in Berwyn. Both fires were vicious and devastating, putting first responders at risk and not exactly creating a safe scenario for neighbors.

I had loved the whimsy of this house since I was a teenager growing up on the Main Line. I had friends who grew up in this part of the Main Line, and those who live here as an adult not so far away, so I have literally been driving past it forever. Sugartown is also one of my favorite drives from Chester County to the Main Line.

And here she sits. The first fire was May 1, 2024 and the second devastating fire was late July, 2024.

As we know the former homeowner, Kathryn Frankel, was charged with the second fire, I have no clue what happened with the first fire.

The house just sits a lonely sentinel to a senseless tragedy to this day as you drive by.

Can this house be restored? I am thinking no, but who knows? I just think someone will see a corner lot and eventually place a McMansion with not nearly the heart and soul once held by 400 Leopard Road.

There has not been a trial yet. It is just so sad. ***But if you look at the docket it looks like her bail was revoked???***

And then there is the thing on the Delaware County dockets?