Tag Archives: west vincent township

it’s not nice to criticize, but…

Posted on by

……It took that reporter from the Daily Local/Mercury almost a month to report on skeet shooting leaving Ludwig’s Corner.  I think that’s a bit ridiculous.

By SARA MOSQUEDA-FERNANDEZ smfernandez@journalregister.com

Posted: 03/05/12 12:57 pm

WEST VINCENT – Ludwigs Corner Horse Show Grounds will no longer be home to the Chester Springs Skeet Shooting Club.

The gun club, which had been established on the grounds for about 60 years, disbanded on Monday, Feb. 6….According to Jacobs, the contract for the gun club’s use of the property as a shooting range allows for a 12 month notice to end the lease, giving them until February 2013 to stop using the site for skeet shooting.

“It’s just amazing that they were thinking of us instead of themselves,” said Jacobs…….Most of the complaints related to the noise [WERE] caused by the sport, however, according to Jacobs, when the neighboring houses are sold, the contracts inform new owners that they will be living next to a gun club.

  Jacobs also said that the club, which was founded primarily by World War II veterans, was not only renter of a portion of the property, but also gave the association significant donations, and provided several volunteers for the events held at the grounds, most notably the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show.

Oh and here’s a lil’ update from the Sainted Chicken (think maybe The Daily Local can check this out?):

Hi
People have asked what happened at the township hearing (Feb 13, 2012) for the Pam Brown Corrective ordinance. The video is on the Township website. In a quick synopsis, there was a resident that asked what the changes were and would the changes be explained. He was told that “the ordinance had been on the website for months and that he should have read it” (paraphrased). Shortly thereafter, several people (Patty Kozac, Michelle Thomas, unidentified others) pointed out that there was change towards INCREASE in density, not reduction. The Supervisors denied the claim for several minutes stating that is was a decrease. It was realized that the wording did INCREASE density. The Supervisors took almost a ONE HOUR executive session while the crowd waited and now will perform further review. Apparently, the Supervisors did not read the ordinance either.Nor do they follow the law, once again. To meet in Executive Session, the subject must meet certain criteria.

http://www.lgc.state.pa.us/deskbook06/Issues_Citizens_Rights_02_Pa_Sunshine_Act.pdf     See page #42

For the density discussion Meeting February 13, Video Part 1, 24.24 minutes to 32.30 minutes. The rest of the hearing is gone. Poof! Disappeared. I understand that the hearing went from 7:30 pm to about 11:00 pm. Only 30 minutes of the hearing is available. Why? ANOTHER video missing. Most likely to prevent the viewer from hearing the Pam Brown discussion. Just like the missing December 16 video which most likely is to keep the viewer from catching Clare Quinn calling a resident a “bitch”, (which Clare Quinn denies).

The hearing has been continued to April 2 for the Pam Brown Corrective Ordinance and will continue to field questions and figure out what has been changed and why. I recommend people be there. I understand the last hearing was well attended.

By the way. In today’s Pottstown Mercury, a sad article on the demise of the Skeet Club in Ludwig’s Corner.
http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20120305/NEWS01/120309793/ludwigs-corner-skeet-shooting-club-disbands&pager=full_story
It is my belief this is the strategy of the township to erode finances from the Horse Show to push them towards a sale of the property to the township. Support the Horse Show. Become a member. Attend the event. Remember those that are still attempting to take it away, albeit subversively.

To see my previous mailings please click on http://tinyurl.com/westvincentinfos  As usual, if you want to be on or off my list, or have some comments or suggestions, or know someone who would like to be on the list, please let me know.  Feel free to forward this email on to anyone you think might be interested.   Especially though, if you don’t want to continue to receive my mails, please tell me, it will be done.  Just hit reply to this email or write to chestercountynews@gmail.com
Best wishes
Chickenman

Disappearing public meeting tapes?  Wow that is so Good Government for West Vincent, isn’t it? I mean good lord, I criticize Lower Merion but they make the meeting tapes available and run them on public access television. Radnor is even easier access to things of a sunshiney nature.  Look at West Vincent and their “minutes may be available” of it all.  Seriously?  Aren’t they required to make things like this available, not lose meeting tapes, minutes, etc?  Who are the state reps and state senators that serve in and near West Vincent? I am also curious to know is West Vincent this bass ackwards because they seceded from the rest of the Commonwealth of PA and possibly the U.S.?    Seriously, the more I hear about West Vincent the more I wonder how the State hasn’t looked closely at them and the way they do business at a minimum.  Mayberry politics at their worst. West Vincent needs sunshine and a good broom.

judgement day in west vincent

Posted on by

Hmmmm.  Seems like someone had better sell more  cheese?  So yes, it’s Judgement Day in West Vincent and it seems that some certain supervisor might want to consider the whole “judge not lest ye be judged” thing of it all?

What is behind Curtain Number One?  Curtain Number Two?  Curtain Number Three?

The irony of the photo I found and (it links back to Philly Homegrown) is it shows Sue Miller.  Hmmm, wonder what they did to get this super posed shot?  I don’t recall any of them being this pleasant the whole time they have been at Bryn Mawr Farmers Market.  I swear this woman in the photo was the one who was kind of rude to me the one time I tried to buy a little something from them.

You see, when the Millers come to market in Bryn Mawr they price for what they think Main Line prices should be.  Truthfully, their prices are worse than what I see in farm markets in the Hamptons.  Birchrun Hills Farm is incredibly over-priced in Bryn Mawr.  (The irony is that if you go to some other Farm to City Markets some vendors price differently from market to market and of course that is incredibly dumb because a lot of us patronize more than one market in season.)

The other thing about Birchrun Hills Farm is they make such a big deal out of their blue cheese.  Personally, I think it has the consistency of rubber and about as much flavor.  If you really want to taste excellent local cheeses try Shellbark Hollow or especially Yellow Springs (Yellow Springs really is front and center in goat cheese in my opinion.)

So, I wonder, since Mr. Miller purportedly partially farms on township i.e. taxpayer farm land does he offer residents a cheese discount ever?

too much sunshine in west vincent for vampires?

Posted on by

I am on pins and needles waiting for the update of last evening’s Board of Supervisors Meeting in West Vincent where they were discussing controlling the public voice as far as public participation. Or was he there and just really, really tiny wearing his Super Politician Cloak of Invisibility?

What I heard thus far is King of all Goats Supervisor Ken Miller was a no-show?  Now some of my farmer friends are starting to see their mama goats drop new kids on the block, so was he playing midwife?  Or merely playing possum?

And was the Township Manager James Wendelgass really out sick?  Does he need chicken soup from Chickenman? I seem to recall reading/hearing about absences like this when eminent domain was heating up to try to be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving?  So is this a small government tactic to make sure there are no quorums, etc when decisions have to be made?

My largest amusement factor of meeting tidbits thus far is Supervisor David Brown having an apparent case of selective male Alzheimer’s and having zero recall on how meetings, etc go in Lower Merion Township? Where he spent many years, as in decades before becoming a reinvented country gent? REALLY?

Ok so if he can’t remember, wow, if I were him I would worry about being effective as a West Vincent Supervisor.  Here are some choice activities from his own political resume posted on his own website (one will asume the website will stay up of course?) He posted this info, to show you the good people of West Vincent his qualifications.  So pardon me if I do not believe he doesn’t know anything about “how Lower Merion does things, and that’s where I’m from”.   See (partial posting):

CIVIC

  • Gladwyne Fire Company Director 1982 – 2005 Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2005 Solicitor 1980 – present
  • Gladwyne Civic Association Former Director

POLITICAL ACTIVITY

  • Republican Committee of Lower Merion & Narberth Committeeman 1976 – 1990
  • Counsel to Committee 1990 – 2004
  • Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2004
  • Former Solicitor to Montgomery County Controller

Mr. Brown, with all due respect to your many years of service in Lower Merion, but in my humble opinion, you know exactly how things are done now and were done then in Lower Merion.

As an outsider looking in, I do not get any of this.  Why so many issues that skirt transparency and sunshine let alone public participation in the government residents are paying for?  They want public participation, but only if they control it? Welcome to Pravda or what? How is West Vincent supposed to know and listen to its citizens if it muzzles them?

Is it true when it got around to this public participation on the agenda that Supervisor Brown said there was nothing to the issue other than to tell people that it was “still being worked on”?  Magna Carta anyone?

Maybe as a helpful outsider I can remind Mr. Brown of his own words from when he was a candidate?

Thus far West Vincent has left me alone.  I do feel, however, that they need to be reminded of freedom of speech and opinion….and that political satire is as old as dirt.

happy now mcmansion dwellers and west vincent township?

Posted on by

Apparently, skeet shooting is no more at Ludwig’s Corner.  Pity.  I received an update from the horse show folks:

The End of an Era
Fifty three years ago, what might seem like a different era, The Chester Springs Skeet Club which was originally made up of WWII Veterans approached the LCHSA about operating a gun club on the Horse Show Grounds.  That was the beginning of a long and friendly relationship between the two entities.  Over the years, names and faces in both organizations may have changed but LCHSA could always count on the “Gun Club” and their family members to volunteer for the Labor Day Horse Show, as well as monetary support.
Regrettably, as the neighborhood grew up around the grounds, and after much debate, LCHSA decided to give the contractually required 12 month termination notice.  The Gun Club decided it “was in the best interest of the Horse Show to end shooting as soon as possible”.  They reported that they would end their use of the Horse Show Grounds on Sunday, February 12, 2012.
LCHSA will forever be grateful to the members of the club and their families for their help with the Horse Show.

I hope the McMansion set will now be blissfully happy in their Tyvec wrapped Barbie’s Dream Houses.  The irony is I bet those who have kids who play video games deal with more noise than skeet shooting will ever produce.  But now when Buffys jet off in their GIANT SUVs chatting on  cellies to pick up that one lettuce leaf they will be able to do it in quiet.  Well except for the fact that skeet shooting will no longer drown out the inanity of their conversations taking place on said aforementioned cell phones (cellies) …

Sorry was that sarcastic?  It was meant to be.  People who move to relatively rural areas need to get real.  Next horse, goat, and cow manure will be too stinky for their Febreeze Set and Refreshes to handle….and chickens will be too loud some day and tofurkies will then take up residence in chicken coops all over Chester County because they are more quiet…and what is left of rolling lawns and fields will continue to be replaced by AstroTurf because nothing says natural like plastic grass.   Eyes rolling. (Sorry I feel better now.)

(And for those of you looking for a new home to skeet shoot, consider the West Chester Gun Club: http://westchestergunclub.com/ )

Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show also included in their update how they came to be:

How the Horse Show came to be.
In recent months, we have been asked by many about the history of the “Horse Show”.  With great thanks to Woody Zook, who has been involved with the Horse Show throughout most of it’s history, we have been able to review documents and programs from almost every Horse Show.  It is my intent to share a piece of history with every e-mail I send.  If any of this information rings a bell with you, or you can add further information, or perhaps photos, please respond to this e-mail, as we’d like to talk to you.  The Horse Show is a significant piece of the history of our township that should be shared.
It started like this…..
“In 1944 a group of people living around Ludwig’s Coner banded together to give a horse show at Ludwig’s Corner.  The group consisted of Mrs. E. C. Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Dare, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Baxter, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hamilton, Mr. A. L. Coffman, Mr. Richard Coffman, Mr. Guy Richards, Mrs. Henry Biddle, Jr., Mr and Mrs. Edwin Bruner, Mr. Scott Rice, Mr. A. Chapin Rogers and Mr. Joseph Myers.  They were all very fond of horses and enjoyed fox hunting in the territory of the Eagle and Kimberton Hunts.  Around the opening of the fox hunting season on Labor Day, it seemed to them, (it) would be a good opportunity to get together to put their hunters through their paces.  It would also be a means of bringing the whole community together for a day of fun and visiting.  The proceeds of the days entertainment would go to the local Boy and Girl Scout Troops to help maintain their activity.”
page 1, official records of the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show.

And oh yes, they seem to think West Vincent residents need to pay even MORE attention to the doings in West Vincent….

Would you like to support the horse show?

Send a donation to:

Ludwigs Corner Horse Show PO Box 754 Uwchland,, Pennsylvania 19480

Check out their website:  http://www.ludwigshorseshow.org/

snowy morning in chester county

Posted on by

Snow is quiet, but not exactly silent, have you noticed? It makes almost a little whoosh sound as it falls all around you.

I look out the window and it is almost Currier & Ives perfect.  I wonder if I will ever be able to adequately capture the beauty of a winter’s morning with my camera lens.  Snowflakes flitter and float to the ground, and I think back to when I was a child and the man across the road from us had a collection of carriages and sleighs.  His name was David Gwinn, his nickname was “The Squire.”

Now today there is not actually snow on the roads where you could take a sleigh out, but for some reason this morning as I looked out the window, a memory came floating back across the early morning.  In my head I could hear the faint remembrance of sleigh bells of long ago.  It was such a happy sound.  Of course, things change and now in place of where Mr. Gwinn’s horses once happily munched apples, a McMansion is planted.

These horsey memories for lack of a better description were part of a magic that many kids do not have in their lives today.  It’s a way of life I fear will be pushed aside, and I see this pushing aside in West Vincent with every new transgression thought up against a horse show that has been not only part of the fabric Chester County for near a decade but served the community well.

This makes me sad.  These people who in my opinion, are trying to get rid of some of the very civilities that fed their pretensions to move to places like West Vincent in the first place, do not get it.   And if they, along with a local government of questionable motivation, prevail in the quest to rid Chester County of a fine tradition, what will replace it?  Nameless, faceless inanity…and no appreciation of the simple joys of winter mornings.  The new should not necessarily rule the old because once these unique qualities of a community are gone, much like when a historic home is torn down, it’s not coming back.

The birds are treating the feeders like diners on a highway, and the usual cardinal couples (they seem to like to double date at the feeder) have been joined by a bird I have never seen before today (not Mr. Flicker, but an Orchard Oriole).

Truthfully this is a Robert Frost kind of morning.  He wrote a lot about snow in his poetry.

By Robert Frost1874–1963 Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

salvo spotlight once again on west vincent township

Posted on by

The Daily Salvo is once again taking a field trip to Chester County, PA.  Specifically, West Vincent Township.  How very interesting.

Daily Salvo can also be heard on News Talk 1180 WFYL.com

The three pigs visual is darn funny. Don’t know if Supervisor David Brown, formerly of Lawyer Merion, err Lower Merion Township will find it as amusing, but here’s wondering if Daily Salvo finds his political “roots” amusing? After all given the time line, he must have had some crossover with one of the attempting fathers of eminent domain in Lower Merion Township, Ken Davis, right?   Can it be said if you follow politics that some of the “old guard” in Lower Merion nearly not only destroyed Republican politics in Lower Merion, but Montgomery County as well? So you always wonder where people go when they disappear off your local scene, right?

And isn’t it so cute that Lower Merion’s old David Brown is now what he seems he always wanted to be, as in a local politician in West Vincent?  Gotta give a guy credit for sticking to goals, right?

But the thing is this West Vincent, politics on the most local level should be about the individual, not if they are a mini-me version of politics on a larger scale.  And sometimes people present a good face as candidates and once they are in office they pretty much suck.

Seriously, local yokel politicians only have as much power over you as you allow. And remember ultimately they work for you thew residents, which means you can fire them with the power of your vote.

All I know is reading all this stuff from the outside, I wonder how long it will take for West Vincent government to implode upon itself?  A beautiful place that seems to hide a lot of inner turmoil and ugliness?  So sad.

FYI, it was Mr. Brown, who put his bio out there – and here is his poitical resume:

POLITICAL ACTIVITY

  • Republican Committee of Lower Merion & Narberth Committeeman 1976 – 1990 Counsel to Committee 1990 – 2004 Member Executive Committee 1990 – 2004 Former Solicitor to Montgomery County Controller
  • Republican Committee of Chester County Committeeman 2006 – present

So now that Mr. Brown is a Supervisor in West Vincent, here’s hoping he does the right thing by  all residents, yes?

The last word is check out today’s The Mercury – there is an editorial called “Why should West Vincent taxpayers pay for official’s health care?”