Op/Ed First Person Singular: Pointing fingers

Nobody’s perfect. Politicians sure aren’t and neither are reporters. I “oopsed” last week. It was an oversight on my part and something I didn’t catch until a few days after the last Chadds Ford Live update. But I shouldn’t have made the error of omission in the first place.

The April 2 Chadds Ford Township Board of Supervisors’ meeting was its typically needlessly long affair, taking much more time than necessary. While that’s always annoying, albeit routine for Chadds Ford, something more serious went down, especially so considering that the supervisors’ mantra this year seems to be “transparency.”

As reported, supervisors discussed the possibility of adding rental property owners to the rolls of those required to pay the township’s Business Privilege Tax. But what I failed to mention in that short write-up was the fact that the tax conversation, while planned, was not listed on the agenda.

So far this year, supervisors have called two special meetings. One was to discuss a carcinogenic dry cleaning chemical that polluted the ground by the old cleaner’s on Route 202. The other regarded the loop road segment planned for the southwest portion of the intersection of Routes 1 and 202.

Both meetings were important, to be sure, but they were really nothing more than feel good sessions. The dry chemical pollution had already been caught, was being properly addressed through the Department of Environmental Protection by a developer and no one was in any danger. It’s certainly not a Superfund cleanup site. (And I’m sensitive to those since I once lived in a place that I had to vacate because of radiation.)

The loop road is important, too, especially for residents of the Estates of Chadds Ford and Painters Crossing Condominiums since they live the closest to the planned road. But any actual work is years away and the engineers who spoke couldn’t offer many definitive answers.

In both cases, though, Supervisors Keith Klaver and Frank Murphy said they didn’t want people to think the board was hiding things from them. They even stressed that fact at the loop road session saying, basically, that transparency was the primary reason for the meeting.

Both meetings were nothing more than feel good sessions, but the board made a big deal about being open, upfront and transparent. Yet, when it comes to the possibility of levying a tax on a minority of people, the transparent became almost opaque.

If people were interested in hearing about landlords being required to pay a business tax, they would have gone to the meeting had that discussion been listed on the agenda. But it wasn’t listed; it was buried and only came up in conversation during the manager’s report.

Keith Klaver said he had no good answer when I eventually phoned to ask why the tax discussion wasn’t listed. He said the omission wasn’t meant to deceive anyone and will be on the agenda when it comes up again.

OK, good.

I like Keith. I probably trust him more than any libertarian journalist should trust any politician. Frank Murphy is new to office, not even halfway through his one-year honeymoon period. Unless either of them would say or do something totally egregious, I’d be reluctant to pass judgment.

In retrospect, though, I have to ask how a retired vice president of a major national accounting firm could overlook the fact that a business tax discussion wasn’t listed. Yet, I’m supposed to be a professional and I failed to even mention the situation.

I’m not accusing the board of deliberately doing something below the radar. That accusation came up before in Chadds Ford Township and led to one supervisor being voted out of office. I’d hate to see that become a problem again. While I relish controversy, such a scenario is divisive in a small town.

I am, however, pointing a warning finger that board members have to do a better job in honoring their own call for transparency. Frank made a major point of openness during his campaign.

If I don’t bring up these issues, I’m not doing a service to those who read Chadds Ford Live. It may sound cliché, but it’s the readers I have to serve. Not the advertisers and not the newsmakers, but the readers.

Yes, I’m pointing a finger at the supervisors. In doing so, as the saying goes, I’m also pointing three fingers back at myself. If I make an oversight like this again, somebody please point a finger at me reminding me to wake up.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...

Comments

comments

This Post Has One Comment

  1. FGMurphy

    Rich – You are right, I should have realized something I was about to vote on was not on agenda. I missed it. Thank you for pointing this out and I will try to be more vigilent in the future. However, I have to disagree that the Loop Road Meeting and Carcinogen Clean Up Meeting were “nothing more” than mere “feel good sessions”. Something about the word “carcinogen” I think is by definition at odds with a “feel good meeting” but perhaps we can just disagree on that one. I thought it was important for residents to know about what was being done to clean up a chemical in the groundwater. As for the Loop Road, although Penn Dot did not have a lot of answers, my goal in requesting the meeting was to not only hear from Penn DOT but to have Penn DOT hear the residents of Chadds Ford, both pro and con, on this Loop Road topic. The Penn Dot staff that attended said several times they had not thought about an issue or realized a concern until it was voiced at that meeting and will consider what was said as they do the engineering work. That does make me “feel good” so maybe we can agree on that one! Thanks.

Leave a Reply