Her name was Megan Nieberle. CBS News released at first, so I am not breaking any confidences or being insensitive. She knew people that I’m friends with. I have known her name since this happened and I kept it to myself but now it’s out there along with an obituary.
She was a nurse at Children’s Hospital. she was a mom, a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a niece, a friend. I could go on, but you get the picture.
And she was a nurse, a natural caregiver. I have so much respect for nurses and she was a children’s nurse. She was a local Chester County girl through and through, having also been a proud graduate of Henderson High School in West Chester.
I have no pity or empathy for Steve Jahn who shot her. Random acts like this make me quite run out of the milk of human kindness.
And while I also understand per the other media reports about how it’s hard to 302 someone. I really feel Tredyffrin should’ve tried harder and I really hate anything that sounds critical of law-enforcement because they have such a tough job and we’ve already lost someone in law-enforcement at the same time in Chester County….at the same hospital.
I will also note to everyone again that there is an official obituary at this point. This is it:
There is also very rando stuff floating across social media. That is literally Clickbait that will probably infect your phone or your tablet or your computer. Please don’t click on them, but please do report those because they’re not being put out by the family. They’re being put out by ghouls.
Steven Jahn mugshot
So NBC10 and Deanna Durante said yesterday I think it was that Jahn’s friends were trying to contact police along with his own call Saturday a couple of hours before the murder of Megan Nieberle? NBC10 interviewed a couple different lawyers about it when I was a little confused about because I thought he was like education related law?
Megan’s life mattered. This also could be any of us. I spoke to a couple of people who are my friends who are in and around Berwyn. Both of these friends of mine had been out around a similar time frame and almost went down that road close to that time when the murder was committed.
Life is a fleeting and fragile thing, indeed.
Now let’s go back to what people told police about this guy was being like, and was he not known to the police for past behavior?
Online there have been many people commenting about situations even from within their own families where the police took someone’s weapon, etc.
I don’t know what else to even say at this point. I didn’t know Megan, but this could’ve been any woman on a dark and often too quiet road. and my opinion remains that this maybe could have been prevented.
My heart goes out to her friends and family. I will remember her in my prayers. Heaven gained another angel, who is there way before she should be.
RIP Megan Nieberle.
May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May God be with you and bless you: May you see your children’s children. May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings. May you know nothing but happiness From this day forward.
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home, And may the land of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on, May blue be the skies above you, May pure be the joys that surround you, May true be the hearts that love you.
I haven’t written about this yet, but started now. I think I needed to sleep on it some more because I found this so profoundly upsetting and disturbing .
First up: a wrong place, wrong time. A woman in Berwyn murdered by an out of his mind lunatic….whom police had dealt with just a couple of hours before he shot this woman. This was a mom. She was a sister. She was a friend. she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time when someone decided to have a psychotic break. I hope they lock that guy up for a really long time.
According to the timeline laid out, Tredyffrin Police HAD Steven Jahn IN CUSTODAY earlier that evening and perhaps if they had kept a hold of him, this woman might still be alive?
It also speaks to the need for mental health evaluations to be added to requirements for carry permits etc.
I hate to refer to her as just “a woman” or “this woman” but out of respect for her family I am while they try to adjust to something anything but normal.
This woman is known to friends of mine. I have woken up thinking about her these past couple of days. This was about a quasi homeless man on a psychotic break and maybe some sort of substance abuse (who knows?) who murdered a woman who will never wake up again to see the sun rise or take joy in her family, smile at her kids, go for a walk, kiss her husband goodnight. This is a woman with kids and a husband who have to try to make sense of something utterly senseless.
And this piece of crap who shot her? Here is the police comnplaint thingy:
Now was Jahn truly homeless or unhoused? He went to Conestoga and supposedly grew up around Midland in Berwyn? People I spoke to indicated he had lived in Florida, New Jersey, and Maryland before coming back to PA in the beginning of the year? Someone said he had been at some place called the “French Creek Inn” which is some sort of no tell meets meets flop house in East Pikeland? Did anyone check that out? I never heard of that place and someone said it actually came up recently at an East Pikeland meeting?
Anyway, this guy was picked up with his guns at his cousin’s house on Conestoga Road? Look at him? Is that just a full mental break or something else as well? Why do I ask? Because I figured out WHY his name was familiar. 2013. Crazy car accident after hit and runs in East Goshen on North Chester Road. Like 3 hit and runs and his own car upended in the woods.
And next we go to the death of that poor State Trooper Corporal Timothy O’Connor. Fatally shot while performing a traffic stop by one Jesse Nathan Elks. This happened out in West Caln. Another guy who snapped who owned a gun. Elks then ate his own gun.
Timothy O’Connor leaves a wife, daughter, and other family like his beloved parents behind. I literally started crying at one simple comment on the Chester County District Attorney’s Office Facebook Page from his namesake father. All it said was “I love you son.”
So I can’t really find the social media of Jesse Elks but obviously they are out there somewhere because people are posting about it.
Screenshot
When you dig into Elks you find he fathered kids by two women, married one who later divorced him. He was living in a mobile home park in Honey Brook, not sure if it was the township or West Caln area. He seemed to me to be a POS with anger issues and a coward. He took the life of Timothy O’Connor and then killed himself depriving the State Troopers and O’Connor’s family of justice. At least the women who bore his children are free of him…and I hope his kids do okay through this as innocents in his act of murder.
So why did Jesse Elks have a gun?
Look I am not debating the right to own arms. I am asking when the f*ck are they going to add mental health evaluations to the ownership process? It’s the people with the guns doing the killing, so it’s a different conversation to the regular or more typical gun control conversation.
It’s like the fact that sometimes when people have these mental health breaks, law enforcement needs to confiscate weapons sooner, rather than later.
Corporal O’Connor and currently unnamed wife, mother, sister, friend both were taken to Paoli Hospital. What a terribly sad duty for those who work at Paoli. Two tragedies that were random acts of senseless violence. I hope they met on the way to heaven.
I am not particularly eloquent about these senseless acts and I so want to be because these two victims whose souls left their human form at Paoli Hospital deserve that….from all of us.
We live in an awful world right now that needs more happiness. Pray for these families and for these two people murdered through random acts of violence and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This could happen to anyone, and that is the most gut wrenching thought of all.
I close with what Timothy O’Connor’s mom posted. It was public. Mrs. O’Connor, I don’t know you either, but like the currently unnamed murder victim in Berwyn, we share people in common and I am just so damn sorry.
People, we need to strive for a better world. And heaven has two new angels way before they should have been there. And can we also put in a plug for Chester County officials to get a hospital back in the area of where the other two closed with a trauma center?
So I think this is Tredyffrin Township and this is Stormwater funkadelic. The pipe drains to the public sidewalk. As ONTO the sidewalk along Lancaster Avenue – talk about a winter hazard for pedestrians especially, right?
This is the strip shopping center at 41 E Lancaster Avenue in Paoli where Our Deli etc is.
And no, I was not driving when I took this picture. I was a passenger in a car.
So whichever municipality this is they need to deal with this. It’s a fall hazard for pedestrians and this is going right out onto the road which causes another potential hazard trying to keep the road clear during winter icing events.
We all know the roads aren’t going to be perfect in the winter but something like this dripping over time in freezing weather could just be big enough to cause an accident. I mean, let’s face it. It’s problematic enough getting out of this weird little strip mall.
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?
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?
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?
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:
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?
Part of the February 18, 2025 board of supervisors meeting in Tredyffrin contained members of Mount Pleasant community coming forward and asking for help from their township. Tredyffrin Township…again…
First of all, I would like to commend the residents of Mount Pleasant for coming forward again. They have come forward so many times over the years and I have been following this issue personally for about 20 years now.
Second of all, I would like to know what the zoning gal in Tredyffrin actually does? all I really heard out of her mouth is what she couldn’t do or excuses. A no-no queen. What does it take for this employee paid by the taxpayers to get off her ass? This woman talks about needing evidence how much evidence does she need? How about she goes and looks for herself? How about she does her job?
It’s everywhere. People post photos on social media. They call the police. They contact the township.
This has literally been going on for years.
Why is it that the public has to carry the burden of proving all of this? Where has the Township manager been all of these years? And as far as the parking issues on the street? Maybe it’s time for a South Philly lawn chairs movement?
Years ago, when this Township did not, and at that point was not putting in a student housing ordinance I had friends that were homeowners that moved out of this township to other municipalities because of that.
And for the supervisor Carlotta Johnston-Pugh who wanted to know about just calling up Villanova University and finding out if it was a student house, is she for real? Everyone knows that for years Villanova really doesn’t have a clue as to where their kids are living off campus. And if Ms. Johnston-Pugh went there, did she show bias last night ?
Let’s talk about the latest off campus student house. Residents remarked a car from NY, CT, and I forget where. You can watch the video I have embedded. You know it would be really nice if municipalities paid attention to off-campus student housing and rentals the way they are supposed to wouldn’t it? So for what it’s worth for this to have 927 Mt. Pleasant to have become a student house it should have possibly gone through zoning except for the holes in the freaking ordinance that Tredyffrin that Tredyffrin has known about since they created this ordinance reluctantly years ago, correct? Does this house even have a certificate of occupancy as a rental?
Mazie B. Hall’s home before it came down years ago. Now this where I have always been puzzled about Tredyffrin. They have bragging rights to Mazie Hall since she lived in Mt. Pleasant. I think they named a park after her. So why have they never honored her 103 years on this earth by trying to preserve the community she fought for and called home? Every time I hear anything about Mt. Pleasant I feel like they are trying to erase it.
Get off your asses, Tredyffrin Township supervisors and staff. Quit making excuses, saying what you can’t do, quit ignoring the people of Mt. Pleasant. Last night, Tredyffrin Township supervisors and staff, you were seen. Clearly. And get yourselves a new manager and zoning Chiquita. It’s well past time.
It was but a tiny blip on the news radar here, and it was another PA grifter thing. A guy from Paoli named James Keating.
We saw it as a mention in Patch this past summer: Astoundingly but not surprisingly no one else around here picked up the story, not even the Daily Local. This I seem to think was right before the news waves got busy with the Gladwyne grifter, Scott Mason, wasn’t it?
Max Bennett,Patch Staff / Posted Wed, Jul 31, 2024 at 11:51 am ET
PAOLI, PA — A Paoli man has admitted in federal court to fraud, authorities said.
Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said James Keating, 52, of Paoli, pleaded guilty Tuesday in New Haven federal court to an crime stemming from a fraud scheme against his former employer.
So a friend from Connecticut sent me a blip from the Fox news channel in CT a couple of days ago. They quipped something about Southeastern PA and these grifter types. Yeah…sigh…sad…
Marc H. Silverman, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that JAMES KEATING, 52, of Paoli, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in New Haven to 20 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for defrauding his former employer of more than $1.4 million.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Keating was an Assistant Vice President and surety bond claims handler at Allied World Insurance Company (“Allied World”). He later served in the same capacity at Crum and Forster subsidiary U.S. Fire Insurance Company, where he also handled claims on Allied World surety bonds. All surety bond claims were handled through Allied World’s offices in Farmington, Connecticut.
Between 2017 and 2021, Keating defrauded Allied World in two ways. First, he used a shell company, American Construction & Industrial LLC, to bill Allied World for unnecessary claims work that was not performed and took the proceeds for himself. Second, he solicited and received kickbacks from Allied World vendors through another Keating-owned company, Surety Risk Solutions (also known as “SRS” or “SR5”), without the knowledge of his employer. Keating also caused these vendors to use another company in which he had an undisclosed ownership interest, Kodiak Asset Recovery, for asset searches at vastly inflated prices. Keating profited nearly $1 million through American Construction & Industrial LLC, more than $350,000 in kickbacks through Surety Risk Solutions, and nearly $125,000 through Kodiak Asset Recovery.
Judge Bolden ordered Keating to pay restitution of $1,226,603.97, which represents the loss to Allied World of $1,446,491.95, less $219,887.98 that he previously repaid as part of a civil judgment.
On July 30, 2024, Keating pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Novick.
Next comes what I could find on the Federal Case. It was just out there for downloading. Just a couple of things is what I am sharing. The “GOVERNMENT’S MEMORANDUM IN AID OF SENTENCING” and “REPLY IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM”
How sad if you read any of it. As is the case with the 19035 guy, the 19301 guy is also a case of want vs. need. Is it fair to say, greed motivated this? Think of the wasted years of education with this guy, and obvious intelligence. According to the PA Disciplinary Board, her was also once a lawyer.
I don’t understand this. I wish I did. How do you blow up your life like this?
Of course then there is the elephant in the room. Another familiar name who was in the initial insurance company court filings, who was dropped out of it at the end of the day. Keating’s wife.
So we are 100% clear: she was in the filings then dropped out. Claims against her were DISMISSED.
Life is a meandering path. We are given one life and at the end of the day, everyone wants to be loved and happy, right?
Then with some, the basics of life fall along the sidelines as some see what they think is an easy win where no one gets hurt. In this case it was an insurance company, right?
Face it, who can honestly say given the issues insurance companies cause insureds, you don’t wish insurance companies ill? How many have had medical claims denied? Homeowners claims played around with? Say take for another example tree damage. There is a house close to me that has had it’s roof covered in a blue tarp for well over a year an a half would be my guess at this point. Upscale neighborhood, nice properties, and there they are with a giant blue tarp on the roof. What about fires? Take the burned out shell of a historic house in Berwyn at 400 Leopard Road (Leopard and Sugartown.) We drove past there this past Saturday on our way to dinner. An eerie ruin surrounded by cyclone fencing. But that is an arson investigation, right? That has it’s own set of rules and many many players.
BUT we know the difference between right an wrong, right? So what happens when the moral compass falls to the wayside? Bad things. Like this. And yet another family blown up, right?
And I still can’t believe given all of the coverage in Connecticut and nothing really here. News deserts?
Well I know this has been brewing a while but wowza. I feel sorry for the neighbors. I don’t play pickleball, so it means nothing to me. I have friends who play and love it. However I do know that it is unusually noisy.
I did a little nosing around and found out this has been going on for a while (as in more than a year? Maybe two years almost?) AND if you listen to the entire meeting somewhere a neighbor says pickleball courts were built without permits? I did a screen record of the meeting because Easttown has their meeting on You Tube but unlisted so that makes me think they could disappear so….
I found the Upper Main Line Y response ineffective. I am told that the Brandywine Y (which I guess owns them now?) has or has had similar issues? I remember a big issue when they wanted to put pickleball in Lionville a year or so ago.
So things about the meeting that made me laugh out loud: kind of asking Eattown to pay for or pay towards noise mitigation with some special fencing? Umm I am still wondering HOW they built the courts without permits?
Back to the meeting. The residents were well spoken and polite. Many of the Upper Main Line YMCA (“UMLY”) supporters and patrons…less so.
One person, can’t recall her name, was as rude and dismissive as could be…and is the apparent chair of the Willistown Planning Commission? Well we all know how Willistown residents get so wonder how she would be feeling if it was next door to her ?
Some of the patrons of UMLY were pleasant-ish and polite, as I mentioned. But so many of the others? Asshats with a misplaced sense of entitlement. I did not hear any neighbor say take away the pickleball courts, only that the noise HAS to be dealt with. Some of the most immediate neighbors, like on Longcourse Lane (a great street, incidentally) are showing by my research as being in Tredyffrin. So accomplishing anything is harder because UMLY is in Easttown.
Here is where UMLY is on the zoning map. Notice the R-1 AKA Residential:
Here is the another attachment – a land use table- I found in e code 360 on zoning:
So again, not a zoning professional. Not an attorney. But I can read. And I have to ask if UMLY is playing a game they can win? And yes I suggested a land use lawyer to a friend to pass along to the residents. Ask the residents in Narberth and even Willistown who have used this man and they will tell you worth every penny.
I added the lighting component of the zoning code because that is also a consideration. Hypothetically, lights might be on later than needed in part to liability concerns. However, I also have to ask WHY those courts are not locked up at the close of every day and even seasonally when it’s too cold to play pickleball or tennis for example? I am asking because residents said at this meeting where pickleball was continuing AFTER operating hours at UMLY? And I will note at present in Radnor an elite private girls school is being rude to neighbors with super daylight bright lights at night shining into windows of neighbors. They lock their courts but say they have to keep lights on and they are not down shielded so I have been told you can wake up at 1 AM and it’s like noon. That is light pollution and that also has serious environmental impacts. It affects bird migration and other things.
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 are 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.
UMLY needs to be told a cautionary tale: the tale of Dink City Pickleball that opened for a brief time at Valley Forge Military & College….and closed because the neighbors in Tredyffrin had enough of the noise rather quickly.
Dink City Pickleball was forced to close due to a violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. The business received a notice of violation in July 2023, giving them 30 days to appeal or cease operations. No appeal was filed, and the business announced that August 14, 2023 would be its last day.
Finding the holy grail – a place to play pickle – just got easier, Main Line.
Two enterprising locals just opened what they say is the largest pickleball facility in the northeast: Dink City Pickleball at Valley Forge Military Academy & College.
And unlike YMCAs, country clubs, and Malvern’s new Bounce Pickleball, you pay only for your reserved court time. No need for a membership….With the tagline “community at play,” Dink City is more than cushioned courts, painted lines and regulation nets.
“It’s all the social things around pickleball that we offer – that’s the differentiator,” Norton tells SAVVY.
Think food trucks, corn hole and music on weekends, plus lessons, clinics, leagues, tournaments, pro shop, private events and birthday parties….“I love getting out on the court and getting a good sweat on,” says Norton who’s played pickle for nine years. “But just as much as that, I like hanging out with friends and family afterwards, maybe having a beverage or a taco or something from a food truck. That enhances the experience for everybody.”
The courts have lights for evening play and will be available year-round. “There are some hard core pickle-ballers out there who will play in the cold,” Norton says. “It’s like paddle – once you get moving, you warm up a bit.”…The two decided to cash in on the craze but make it community-oriented rather than an exclusive club. A real estate broker connected them to Valley Forge Military, which has been seeking new revenue streams to offset falling enrollment. (Since 2010, VFMAC has sold 20 acres to Eastern College, five acres to Bentley Homes, and most recently, 23 acres to developer Rockwell Custom for a new senior living complex.)
“The quickest win,” the partners say, was repurposing the lightly-used tennis courts on Radnor Road in the Tredyffrin section of campus. They loved the “heart of Wayne” location – a stone’s throw from St. David’s Golf Club and close to multiple schools, campuses and country clubs.
And if all goes well, outdoor courts in Wayne could just be the beginning for Dink City. VFMAC is in early talks to turn its equestrian center into a sports complex that might include Dink’s first indoor courts. Craft and Norton are also looking at properties in and around Philly and Maryland – although they haven’t yet quit their day jobs.
Yeah and then a few weeks later, it was sayonara Dink City, again I refer to Savvy Main Line:
IN A PiCKLE IN RADNOR. Just two months after they cut the ribbon on a popular new 16-court pickleball facility at Valley Forge Military Academy, Dink City Pickleball is closing.
The trouble began with a “handful of complaints” about noise from neighbors, according to Tredyffrin Zoning Officer Erin McPherson. When she investigated, she found the commercial business was operating in violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. She sent a notice of violation on July 14, giving Dink City 30 days to appeal for zoning relief or cease operations. No appeal was filed, she says, and today Dink City announced that Monday Aug. 14 will be its last day.
“This is not the end,” wrote owners Bryson Craft and Robbie Norton in an email. “Dink City will be back better and stronger than ever.”
The partners – both young local fathers and pickleball enthusiasts – had leased four lightly used tennis courts from Valley Forge Military Academy and invested big $$ converting them into a state-of-the-art pickleball center with leagues, clinics, “Dink and Drinks” nights, summer camps and more. (See our story in the June SAVVY – link in profile and scroll down.)
“We tried to resolve the issue with the township but they wouldn’t accept our proposals,” co-owner Craft tells SAVVY.
Dink City will refund Open Play memberships and any account balances as of Aug. 15
Pickleball noise is a real problem. There is even a group on Facebook devoted to it – all areas of US and Canada:
IMPULSIVE/IMPACT SOUNDS: By definition, an impact sound is simply the solid collision between two objects, such as hammering, dropped objects, a door slamming shut, metal-to-metal impacts, etc. Impulse sound is defined as the product of a force and duration with which the force is applied. More specifically, impulse is the time integral of force from an initial time to the final time, the force being time dependent and equal to zero before the initial time and after the final time (ANSI S1.1–2013). – ……. The measurement of impulse noise is becoming increasingly common within the industrial hygiene field. Issues for measuring impulse noise issues include dynamic range, frequency range, anti-aliasing, microphone/preamplifier/power supply, sampling rates, etc.. Whether an SLM, dosimeter, or computer-based recording system is used, good impulse noise measurements are not trivial to make. The limits of the microphones may be reached. The influence of nonlinear acoustics can dramatically affect the measurements. – Taken from The Noise Manual, 6th Edition.
Like many pickleball players, when I hear (another) story about how noisy pickleball is, I simply roll my eyes and spew a few snarky remarks about how some people just can’t let others have any fun.
So, you can imagine my response when I discovered there was a Facebook Group called the “Pickleball Noise Relief Group.”
My eyes rolled back, my lips curled, and I prepared to write something blasting a bunch of Karens for wanting to shut down pickleball.However, after a few conversations with the group’s leader, Nalini Lasiewicz, and actually listening to what they had to say, I realized that automatically labeling them as a pickleball hate group that just wanted to ruin our sport was completely off base.
And my preconceived notions about people complaining about pickleball noise couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Basically, I was … I am wrong. And so are many of us who think that pickleball doesn’t actually have a noise problem.
Because for these people and many others who are too afraid to speak up, it’s a serious problem that’s causing them health and mental issues.
Pickleball players: it’s time we admit that there is a pickleball noise problem.
Meet Nalini Lasiewicz
Nalini Lasiewicz is a resident of a Los Angeles suburb who first got involved with pickleball noise issues during the COVID lockdown….Nalini says this exact scenario has played out countless times since she became an administrator of the Facebook Group created by Rob Mastroianni, a Cape Cod resident who had to sell his family home due to the noise becoming too much to deal with.
The group is dedicated to finding and supporting others across the country in similar situations. For many, it’s a platform that allows them to find ways to regain the peace they’ve lost in their neighborhoods.
Look, NO ONE IS SAYING NO PICKLEBALL. But UMLY needs to do right by the neighbors. And that doesn’t mean Easttown Township and taxpayers should be paying for noise mitigation. And If Tredyffrin shut it down at Valley Forge Military Academy and College, zoning is not so different from municipality to municipality given that the Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of PA guides it all, correct?
I have no horse in this race, but I have been watching pickleball issues out of curiosity for a while. So Easttown and Tredyffrin residents near UMLY, I hear you and I am not hearing anything other than wanting your environment back. You aren’t being unreasonable. But UMLY and Upper Main Line Y? They are. And still I ask…how did they build pickleball courts without permits if that is indeed true?
Easttown Township needs to deal with this and not play kick the can. Tredyffrin Township could step into help residents if the supervisors can stop contemplating their collective navels long enough, yes? Expectation of quiet enjoyment? It’s a real thing. So pickleballers? This is a real issue. It’s not the noise you all are hearing, it’s what the residents are hearing and that is NOT the same thing.
Pay attention to the Model Noise Ordinance video I embedded here. They talk about the expensive anti-noise fences/barriers. They are discussing how it doesn’t work….
Ok Christmas is not going to decorate itself around here. Have a good night.
