Yeah….so Villanova held a meeting with neighbors over at Cabrini. I actually am glad they did it, except listen to a snippet of the presentation and I have to ask if this Villanova official has ever visited Villa Blue Tarp in Mount Pleasant?
This neighborhood is mostly Chester County/Tredyffrin, but a part of it is also Upper Merion/Montgomery County. The Tredyfrin part of it has some seriously ridiculous off campus party pits. Forget about are the houses safe for the students to live in, will the neighbors ever have peace? The lady speaking at Cabrini I’m sure has the best of intentions, but she has zero clue or doesn’t want to have a clue of what actually goes on in off campus party pits in Mount Pleasant, which is close Cabrini.
Neighbors also reported the following who were at the meeting:
FYI Traffic is going to be awful when Villanova opens the Cabrini campus next year!!!
Villanova says they have purchased six large buses. Shuttle service will leave Cabrini campus every 5-10 minutes 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM.
400 on campus student vehicles. 600 staff and commuter vehicles. Who knows how many Ubers and Doordash type vehicles, right?
That’s a lot, isn’t it?
They are permitted on campus at any time. The King of Prussia and Eagle Road entrances will close at 10:30 PM and reopen at 6:30 AM.
All traffic during this time will enter and exit on Upper Gulph.
I am very glad I don’t live near there. And with Villanova going to Cabrini and Valley Forge Military failing, and who knows what’s happening to that land, how will Radnor and Tredyffrin be protecting their residents through this?
I am glad that Cabrini is not going to be a giant parcel for residential McMansion development, but all the same, Villanova doesn’t have a good track record with their off-campus students, so what’s it going to be like over there?
Also to be considered is the practicality of the traffic implications on a lot of these roads, which are overtaxed and overburdened already.
Buckle up residents, you can hope this will all go smoothly, but I predict a lot of bumps in the road.
And speaking of Villanova, what are they doing with their main campus area property (or properties?) that back up to Aldwyn Lane? And doesn’t the university own properties on Aldwyn Lane? Is Radnor protecting their residents over there or ignoring them?
This is going to be interesting for sure, right? It’s their own version of Happy Valley without the great ice cream right?
Here is some of what I saw on Compass, a PA website which has gotten rather cartoonish:
This is horrible. Parents want answers. Human beings in general want answers. Who hurt babies?
In early July, baby was taken to hospital from the daycare in what media reports tell us were dire circumstances. As this was unfolding, we all learned that something else happened to another baby in May.
This woman who I am not sure is in or out of jail at this point was a teacher in the infant room. So parents who have to put kids in daycare, who are they entrusting their kids to here? Also concerning? If there was some other sort of incident in MAY why was she still there in JULY? Is she still employed?
Also interesting? She has a Bill Cosby lawyer, doesn’t she? But then again he is one of the best.
I had shared story links to this when it first happened and then I randomly saw a comment today that made me wonder:
It was not the she is still employed comment as that has popped up here and there already, it was about the parents of kids there. Are they really and truly being shall we say discouraged from discussing this? So the owners don’t want kerfuffles in their Main Line existence? OK totally get this is their business in an uncertain time, but umm who are they hiring and wouldn’t they WANT their families to be able to talk about this an also to allay the fears of parents with kids there?
Truly I hope that is a misperception, misunderstanding, don’t you?
Also, this woman who was charged seemingly left a review of the daycare on Google? What kind of hot mess situation is that and why haven’t the owners contacted Google to have it removed?
So reading this you have to ask is this Catalina Baldwin who was charged a MOM? If so, where is her child right now?
I do not and never will understand people who hurt children. I was discussing this topic with a friend today. And we are old enough that we come from the dark ages of being a kid where stuff just wasn’t discussed or acted on a lot of the time.
Why aren’t we doing better today?
I just can’t with this and would be interested to see real reports of this daycare. But I don’t know any of us will get that because this is a criminal investigation now. So I guess that means no one will hear from daycare owners either, right?
A friend of mine sent me a news report and a Facebook post from an animal rescue this morning. It blew me away and made me want to throw up at the same time.
At the end of May, the news in the region was filled with the horrible site of a barn, full of animals in Montgomery County, up in flames. It was known as House of Wiggle.
We all shared the articles and the GoFundMe raising money for the injured animals and family affected. The GoFundMe is up still and active.
I just don’t understand animal abuse. And these people have a lot of children as well as per the wife’s testimony in 2024:
The testimony says 11 children, and implies some special needs, are they OK? What happens to any animals on this farm now?
I guess I am incredulous to an extent of the amount of media coverage that these people got after their fire and now they’re facing a whole other level of public scrutiny, aren’t they?
But again, disbelief.How could they? How could they do this? How could they take money from people after this fire knowing how they treated the animals?
I guess once again this is a case of know your rescue?
This is horrible and tragically sad.
It looks like all the social media accounts for this rescue have disappeared.
There is no way around how ugly this is. No way at all. Now, of course, those of us familiar with Lower Merion School District know that the Central Bucks Superintendent is Dr. Steven Yanni. Yanni was Superintendent in Lower Merion for a few months, never moved into the district and then was gone back to Bucks County (where he lived, so you know that was a heck of a commute to the Main Line every day.)
It was always my opinion that Yanni used getting the job in Lower Merion to get him back where he wanted to be, which was Buck County and of course now he’s on leave because of all of this so maybe that wasn’t the best decision?
Now, although not a fan of Yanni, I am less of a fan of the insanity that goes on in a lot of these Bucks County school districts, especially this one. Let us not forget things like Clarice Schillinger, founder of the Keeping Kids in School PAC, who recruited nearly 100 parents to run for school boards across Pennsylvania over masking/anti-vaxxing etc who also made national news as the Bucks County party mom who was accused of slugging a kid?
Bucks County is a total circus with their school districts, especially Central Bucks.
But what came out in this recent thing and this report that was filed that was so explosive to me demonstrates that there’s like this breakdown between school districts, the state including things like “Child Line”, and police departments.
It reminded me of something that happened in Chester County and that was the death of that poor girl, Malinda Hoagland. That made national news as well.
So these two cases this new one in Bucks County and this one from last year in Chester County, to me clearly illustrates that all these agencies that are supposed to be working together for the benefit of children are in fact not.
Let’s start with Child Line which has been a subject of scrutiny in the past. In 2023 there was a report put out about their registry by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Temple Law School:
Now I think because of the problems experienced because of Child Line not l functioning properly, or perhaps functioning unfairly as these articles indicate, it also means that school districts are perhaps reluctant to go to the state and file with Child Line?
I know from what parents told me I guess it was a couple or a few years ago when there were issues at some local daycare places. Parents told me about their experiences calling Child Line among other things they basically felt like when they called in something they weren’t heard or taken seriously. Others have said to me it’s like calling any other thing in Harrisburg that’s supposed to help residents, it’s just a study in frustration.
Of course the greatest irony is because the federal government is monkey around so much with education and actually most probably wants to try to get rid of the Department of Education, these resources are needed more than ever.
I think there’s a lot of blame to go around. And then you look at the hierarchy and what not within each school district. Often teachers are afraid to step forward. They have to deal with their peers. They have to deal with their teachers union. They have to deal with the administration. It is my opinion that that’s why you didn’t see very much happen that should’ve happened with the whole scandal within the Great Valley School District of making hyper sexualized and horrible fake social media profiles of teachers within that district. That made the news and then it fizzled out and disappeared.
That issue shouldn’t have disappeared like that, but you know in order for law-enforcement to do anything teachers have to step forward and allow their names to be used, don’t they? The school district certainly didn’t want this blown up anymore in Great Valley. They wanted it to disappear.
And then there is the crap that all of the school districts have had to deal with since Covid. First there was masking an anti-vaxxing. Now it’s back to book banning. The latest was Radnor School District. And there we all saw a familiar face from the Great Valley School District book banning debacle that included litigation that cost the district and taxpayers quite a bit of coin, and the litigation went nowhere.
I’m pleased to report that Radnor school district is UN-banning the books it banned and I’ve posted the link to the meeting so you can hear how the parents, residents, and former attendees of various Radnor schools felt. You have to surf a little bit into the video, but it’s well worth listening to these people.
The school districts in Pennsylvania seem to deal with a continual circus. I think that’s fair to say. That makes it harder for them to do their jobs.
I also think that is fair to say I think there was an enormous breakdown in the Central Bucks School District, circling back to what I opened this post with, but they’re not the only district that suffers from these things. Now I think Superintendent Yanni will be the scapegoat here and the fall guy, especially because the Republicans in that area didn’t want him here in the first place, did they? But he’s not the only one that can take a lap or two for how that whole horrible scenario all happened at Jamison Elementary.
I have to be honest and say that I am not surprised that there are issues in any school district when it comes to special needs kids. There are the teachers and administrators and other personnel who really really care, and then there are the ones who don’t.
I have had many friends over the course of my life who have had kids with varying degrees of special needs in some very familiar school districts who ended up having to take their kids OUT of these public school districts, and in some cases, sue the district to get the kids into better programs elsewhere.
And then there are the parents who want school districts to deal with severe bullying issues, and things of that nature. And there’s a lot of double talk, but not a lot of action. And sometimes the bullying is not from the kids, it’s the adults, yes?
The circus of school districts needs to get back to the best interest of the child. Every time one of these horrible things happens school districts say they’re going to do better. Then the state will say it’s going to do better, and eventually it all goes back to the way it was doesn’t it? Actual change and reform need to happen.
And that includes a need for school districts to have effective mechanisms in place to deal with the parents that think that what they believe personally should be applied across the board to every parent with things like book banning. The dead baby poster toting book banning poster toting parents are taking up a lot of valuable time within our school districts. They seem to think that their rights matter more than everyone else’s. These circus routines distract from more important matters. You know things like child abuse. Or actual education.
And Harrisburg? Well, Harrisburg is its own cesspool, and this is a glaring example of what they need to actually do better as well.
And then all of these school districts and the state have to work better with law enforcement. it has to be a partnership for the betterment of the children, putting the egos and partisan politics aside.
OK, I’m getting off my soapbox now. But I just think there’s actual reform that needs to happen and it’s not just in one exceptionally problematic school district in Bucks County.
I don’t get these people. I really don’t get these people. First of all their borough council president dresses like a shlub. There is business casual and there’s dude -can’t- you -really -brush -your -hair -better- if -you’re -going -to -wear -it -long -and -iron -your -T-shirt -casual.
And then you have a couple of people you hear talking, especially when they’re discussing Sabine Park, who say things like (paraphrasing) “Well I’m not sure that I’m really actually going vote for this when the time comes, but this is what I would do if I was doing XYZ.”
Gosh all of Narberth Borough Council appears to be a little bit preggers here?
Sooooo there’s the factoid that it is a park. It is land that was deeded for a park over 100 years ago correct? so why are they even contemplating this in the first place? Are they completely oblivious to the fairly significant case law in Pennsylvania alone about selling parks for development? Isn’t their solicitor aware?
I mean it’s pretty simple isn’t it? If land is deeded and donated to municipality for a park then it is technically land that belongs to the residents and the residents don’t want it developed do they? That’s one thing that’s just something that is bugged me since the beginning. Yet there they are again discussing what kind of zoning would be better if they sell the land.
And they as of now have spent who knows how much money having it looked at by Penoni so that it can be appraised properly…..and then you have these borough council people who were saying well we’re just looking at all the options. What is it they don’t get that it’s a park?
Sigh….it gets better and I encourage everyone to watch the video because the shlub who is the borough council president is arguing for massive mixed use projects on part of the site and then also says how nobody wants any single-family homes any longer. I have to ask him what is it he is living in on the Narberth- Wynnewood border exactly, an apartment?
I just don’t get it but hey I don’t get the extremely unattractive development that has occurred in Narberth already. Like The Elm. Named for a tree and are there any sizable plants in sight? Or just developer specials? And look, it’s the same Legoland construction seen everywhere….even along I-95 in Philthadelphia.
But hey Narberth and development? Odd relationship? Remember Narberth Arbors?
Now you all remember when I wrote about Sabine Park recently I had one of the borough council people kind of come at me for talking about it, so what is it exactly they are doing just spending taxpayer money on appraisals for shits and giggles ?
Anyway I’m sad for Narberth. Here’s hoping more residents wake up.
So yo, Narbs and Lower Merion neighbors, did you think this was going away? It is NOT. I wrote about this before and the lawyer fighting to save this park is working hard (Phil Rosenzweig) BUT people? You need to go BACK to meetings and speak. Or speak via zoom. Email. Contact media.
I checked when this all went up on Narberth Borough’s website for this evening and well, can you say shifty? They barely provide notice and that is a TYPICAL SLEZOID move to keep people away from meetings.
Narberth’s Democrats should be ashamed since well.. developing a park is hardly environmentally friendly is it? It’s just greed and laziness.
Where is the clause about shady shit in trying to sell a park for development???
People, you can zoom or go in person. But NOTHING beats bodies in the seats in person.
The Save Sabine Coalition has a website. It does need to be updated, as people have lives and they get busy. But folks? It’s pretty simple: if you don’t take an interest, Narberth Borough Council will continue down this path, which to me is sad and I thought they had grown past it but they haven’t.
I can’t fight this fight for you guys, I can only point it out. And I can say I think it is WRONG because it is wrong. But these people who are Narberth Borough government including lame duck Mayor Andrea Deutsch need to hear it from you guys.
That is kind of all I have got.
Narberth has issues and there are people on this borough council who leave me gobsmacked that they don’t get this.
Downingtown tried this a few years ago and got smacked down all the way to the PA Supremes.
So today I was sent proof that West Whiteland Township is making good on their word to secure the historic Joseph Price House at 401 Clover Mill Road on the corner of S. Whiteford in Exton. West Whiteland Township has a property maintenance code that they enacted I guess within the last couple of years so it appears they went over and they had their public works board up the parts of the Joseph Price house that had basically deteriorated, rotted or were broken into. So the house is secure for now and I am told township/police are keeping an eye on it and isn’t that great?
Joseph Price House boarded up
I’m guessing that you all remember I wrote about this again recently right? It’s just when the urban explorers tell you a historic house needs to be boarded up, you know it’s bad, right?
That ownership tags back to a property in Ambler, but not the Borough of Ambler. Here’s an aerial shot of that house:
Interestingly enough, this is another old house and according to Montgomery County was built around 190 one. Sometimes they aren’t particularly accurate so it could be a little earlier and ironically close to the same period of the Joseph Price house correct?
Now the owner of record has lived there longer than 2002, actually the property dates back to being purchased in Ambler around 1985. Anyway, when you look at the aerial shot, you see all those old cars right? What’s so interesting? Is the old cars that West Whiteland has wanted them to remove off the Joseph Price house property, right? And does the Joseph Price house have anything weird on the roof?
So is that a sad coincidence the both properties appear to have old car corpses?
And there is one more coincidence. The Township Manager of Lower Gwynnedd is the former manager of West Whiteland and Tredyffrin. As the Saturday Night Live Church Lady would say, “isn’t that special?”
Also there is this lovely act in PA called Act 135. Could West Whiteland Township put the Joseph Price house into a conservatorship to save the house ?
Laura Smith, Vice Chair of the Towamencin Board of Supervisors in Montgomery County, PA is a rather unfortunate woman who thinks making the Nazi salute on TikTok is funny.
Well now she is an internet star ⭐️
Only her TikTok account laurasmith6036 has seemingly disappeared?
Gosh was it something she said?
Do the Jewish members of the Montgomery County Republican Party approve of this behavior? Do the rest of the Towamencin Board of Supervisors find her behavior acceptable?
Here’s how you can ask them:
I think Laura Smith should take her pathetic nasty ass off of that board and resign, don’t you? I doubt she will but it’s a nice thought.
I don’t understand why anyone with a brain would think that it’s okay to give a mock Nazi salute. I just don’t.
This is not OK.
The media is starting to wake up to this new TikTok star…
What I don’t understand about people like Laura Smith is her candidate of choice was duly elected President of the United States. Why isn’t she happy? Why does she do something so horrible?
She’s now just another elected official who has betrayed the public trust. She is also obviously lacking a moral compass. Hell she should run for Congress and go sit next to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Most probably don’t remember the movie Finian’s Rainbow. But it is a 1968 American musical fantasy film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and adapted by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy from the 1947 stage musical of the same name. It was about an Irishman and his daughter, who steal a leprechaun’s magic pot of gold and emigrate to the American South, where they become involved in a dispute between rural landowners and a greedy, racist U.S. senator. There was this song in it called “How are things in Glocca Morra” and it always made me think of Narberth Borough in Montgomery County, neighbor to Lower Merion Township.
by Carolyn Davis, Inquirer Staff Writer Published Aug. 2, 2014, 3:01 a.m. ET
For a while after Sean Metrick came in during 2015 as Narberth Borough Manager (he was assistant manager for a year or so before this in Narberth) things were better. There was also a some decent borough council people with local institutional knowledge and not necessarily politically entrenched. For a few years they worked hard to reform Narberth and then Metrick went to West Chester Borough when Ernie McNeely left West Chester for Lower Merion Township. Since Sean Metrick left in 2020 it has been an odd parade of multiple managers.
First up after Sean Metrick left was assistant manager Matt West.
So for some reason they didn’t give this Matt a real shot at being manager and when he left in 2021, they hired a woman named Samantha Bryant. Matt West went to become manager in New Britain Township in Bucks County, while Samantha Bryant came from New Britain Borough in Buck County.
But Samantha was fairly short-lived and two years later poof she was gone…to Maine…quite a difference in salary, except cost of living is probably much less and well, quality of life might be better for her.
So after that great mystery, in came the next manager. A man named Ken Cammilleri. He was barely in Narberth before he was gone. As per his LinkedIn he was literally there 5 months. He came here from the Minnesota
Ok keeping up? Next Narberth Borough bought back former Assistant Manager and acting Interim Manager Matt West for 2024. I still don’t get why they never offered this guy the manager job full time, yet he’s been a pinch hitter what twice? Always the Narberth bridesmaid?
So Matt is now at Plymouth Township and Narberth has yet another new manger as of like today or last week or something.
