April 23, 2009

Jeff Leiser said he believes the proposed $70 million high school renovation project is needed. He has two kids attending Unionville High and, yet, he says he can be objective if elected to the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board.

The Birmingham Township resident – one of three candidates vying for the two seats for Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board from Region B – has one thing to say to those who doubt his ability to be objective: “ Let’s talk about it.”

He said he would ask those who question his objectivity if they had actually taken time to understand current conditions, to understand the current scope of the project.

“ I’d say, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ I’d like to have a respectful debate about it. I think that if we disagree, but do it politely, I think we’ll wind up at a better place in the end,” Leiser said.

Also running for the two seats are Holly Manzone of Pocopson Township, and Laura Shannon Maurer, of Newlin Township. The three candidates come from the three townships that make up Region B.

Leiser and his family moved into the school district from Wilmington in 2002 and he says having his kids getting their education in such a good district is important.

“ We feel absolutely, truly blessed that we are living here, that our kids are getting a great education,” Leiser said. “I’m watching what’s going on with respect to the improvement project. I’ve been going to a lot of school board meetings and workshops, and I’m thinking that I can make a difference here. And I think it’s time for me to give back because we’ve received these blessings being here.”

He added that he couldn’t think of a better way to give back to the community.

“I don’t view politics having anything to do with this. This is 100 percent wanting to give back to the community, and I have zero percent political aspirations.”

Leiser did cross-file to run in both the Democratic and Republican primary elections on May 19. He is a registered Republican, but said he rarely, if ever, votes a straight party ticket.

“And my feeling about the school board is, if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian, it’s irrelevant,” he said. “Does one party over another want great education for their kids and others don’t? Does one party over another want high property values supported by an excellent school system and another doesn’t? No. It’s pretty much universal.”

He said he became more in tune to what was going on within the school district during the last two years following the heated debates over the renovation project and the failed referendums.

He said he voted against the first referendum, but was looking for a reason to vote for the renovation. It was then he got to tour the school and saw problems in the science lab, that he changed his mind.

“It’s a safety issue,” he said.

The possible expense of $69 million or $70 million is worth it, he said, adding about $400 per year to his property taxes. According to Leiser, the construction costs alone would be $39 million. The rest would be associated costs, architect and site preparation fees, etc. He thinks the scope of the project is proper.

“The project is an investment in our future,” he said. “It’s a reasonable investment.”

One of the reasons he voted against the referendum the first time, he said, was that he felt he wasn’t getting the information he wanted or needed, as a voter and taxpayer, to vote for it.

And he said improving communication is one of the things he brings to the table that will help the district. Improving communication with customers is his job. Leiser is an account executive, managing large customer relationships for W. L. Gore and Associates.

“What I do for a living, primarily, is to try to understand customer needs and then try to identify what offerings my company has to help meet those needs. I see the high school improvement project as that very thing,” he said.

That the two referendums both failed was a sign that the board did not understand the needs of the community, the district’s customers, said Leiser.

“ I think I can help this board with community relations,” he said.

His other main qualification is that he does have two kids in the district.

“ I have skin in the game,” Leiser said.

It was a day for cheers and congratulations as Chadds Ford Elementary School held an all day celebration of being named a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.

The school achieved the award based on results of standardized testing last spring, testing done as part of the No Child Left Behind Program. Word of the achievements reached the school in September.

There was on open house for parents to visit the classrooms, a special lunch and dinner as well as an all-school assembly in the afternoon, Monday, April 20. Special guests at the assembly included Unionville-Chadds Ford School district Sharon Parker, a representative from the U.S. Department of Education and a special video appearance by former CFES Principal Charlene Stone from China.

Also speaking were representatives from each grade of the K-5 elementary school.

The teachers were also given pins in honor of the blue ribbon designation.

Current Principal Mark Ransford opened the assembly telling students, parents and teachers how honored he is to be the principal of an award-winning school, but said it wasn’t his doing.

He said it was due to the work of all concerned, the students, teachers, staff, district directors and parents, and that they should all remember the feeling.

“ I hope all involved will feel a sense of pride for years to come,” Ransford said.

He also challenged everyone not to let down.

“Excellence is never sustained by standing in one place. I ask you to join me in continuing a passion for excellence. … Respect the individual and reject mediocrity. Beginning today, let’s start working on our next blue ribbon,” he said.

Aba S. Kumi, the director of the No Child Left Behind program congratulated everyone saying that Chadds Ford Elementary School joined an elite group of schools, being one of only 12 in Pennsylvania to earn the distinction.

“Your investment in education is paying off. Chadds Ford Elementary School sets an example for other schools to follow,” Kumi said.

Stone’s recorded message was one of congratulations and to say she missed the students, parents and faculty at the school.

Among other speakers were Timotha Trigg, a school board director and mother of a CFES student, and several teachers.

Trigg expressed gratitude as a parent, and told a story of a family that had moved out of the district because of a long work commute but returned within a few years because, though the district they had moved to was supposed to be as good, they preferred the education offered by the U-CF school district.

Teacher Jean Russell brought an historical perspective to the proceedings. She attended CFES in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and her father attended the school in the 1920s.

Superintendent Parker picked up on the historical theme saying that the Blue Ribbon award was also for those who had walked the halls of CFES before and those that would come in the future.

“The award is not just for today,” Parker said, adding that is was for more than just the one school. “ This Blue Ribbon goes all the way around the entire Unionville-Chadds Ford School District.”

Spring of 2009 arrived at the Chadds Ford Gallery with a huge splash of color behind the banner reading “Scarborough Fair.” It was another opening night for one of the areas more popular artists, Paul Scarborough and once again, as has been the case since for almost 30 years, Scarborough’s fans filled the little gallery.

The Claymont-born artist said he tried something different for this show.

“I tried to project more of an atmosphere type of painting. It’s much different than my past paintings. I have a different outlook on the presentation of my work. I wanted to give a sensation of sort of lost and found, a mystery and truth type of thing.”

As an example he pointed to his painting of a Jack-o-lantern on a stonewall in which the pumpkin stands out because it’s lit and is depicted with more realism than the surrounding elements of the painting, he said.

His growth and progression of work for the show is part of Scarborough’s own growth as an artist.

The former draftsman, and member of the pipefitters’ union whose interest in drawing started in the third grade, wants his work to evolve while simultaneously keeping to at least one personal tradition that his fans have come to expect.

Fans love to look for and find a cardinal somewhere in each of Scarborough’s pieces. And to paraphrase from an old Beatles’ tune, the cardinal is Paul.

Scarborough said he was in the habit of putting birds in many of his paintings while he was doing mall shows back in the early 1970s. There would be flocks of birds, single birds, and then he started using a cardinal, usually of good size, sitting on a milk crate or fence post. It became a signature, of sorts, and he said that the cardinal represents him, the way he puts himself into his paintings.

The search for the cardinal has become a pastime for many who go to his exhibits. He said he’s had to take some paintings apart to put one in because people want it.

“People insisted I put a cardinal in the painting. … If they don’t find one, it costs me paintings,” he sad.

Scarborough is reluctant to give away secrets, but said sometimes the cardinal will show up as a simple speck of red where sunlight glistens off the ocean in a seascape, or maybe appear as a constellation of stars in a night scene.

Yet, while that tradition continues, there is also the continuation of growth and evolution as an artist.

And part of that growth has a parallel with the cardinal being in his paintings.

“When I paint something, I paint it with the thought of living it. I paint something that I feel is a part of my traveling in the local area. My style has developed to a point where, I think, it’s become a much more personal look at the way I see things in the local landscape. This has been distilling down for a number of years,” he said. “I want to make a person get absorbed into the painting and not just look at it and miss the thought I was trying to put into it.”

Even Scarborough’s color palette has grown to help show that more personal expression. He said he’s always loved color, but much of his tones earlier were muted. That has changed over the years with colors becoming stronger and bolder.

“I enjoy subdued color, but I also love the fall and I love the spring. I can’t help but express it when I see a great burst of spring pink or yellow,” he said. “There’s nothing like an azalea to make you think of spring and there’s nothing like a great maple tree along the Brandywine to be set off amongst all the green with that big burst of orange. I love to express that if I can capture it. That is what I want to do.”

Various area cleanups were held in honor of Earth Day last weekend, with roadside cleans ups in Chadds Ford and Pocopson townships and the 16 annual clean up of the Brandywine Creek by the Young Friends of the Brandywine.

Kathy Freney Smith, Young Friends coordinator said there were more than 80 participants Saturday cleaning an area of the creek from the Brandywine Picnic Park at Route 52 down to Thompsons Bridge Road in Delaware.

They collected 1.17 tons of trash, including 8 tires, a laptop, a children’s slide, lots of sporting equipment, and a propane tank.

Smith said she’s glad there were so many volunteers, but would like to see something even larger take place. She said she’s like every group that cleans portions of the Brandywine to all come out on the same day and clean the entire creek area from Honey Brook in Chester County — along both east and west branches – and all the way down to the Christina River in Delaware.

The vice chairman of the Pennsbury Township Planning Commission wants to take a seat with the Board of Supervisors.

Aaron McIntyre, 50, has been a Pennsbury resident for 10 years and has been active in open space issues, the Pennsbury Land Trust and is president of the Hanover Hunt Homeowners’ Association.

Besides serving on the township Planning Commission, he is also a representative to the Kennett Area Regional Planning Commission.

While on the Open Space Committee, he said he was involved with selecting properties for open space preservation consideration. Open space and development issues remain significant in his eyes.

“The biggest issue is how to guide development in such a way to preserve the semi-rural charm, the open space and environmental issues of the township,” McIntyre said.

But, he said that maintaining financial responsibility is just as important because “ the temptation to spend is continuing to come before the township.”

An example of that temptation, he said, is the call for more public roads, with the township responsible for maintenance versus private roads, those that exist only within a given development. Individual homeowners’ associations, not the township, maintain those private roads.

And McIntyre said there is a need to watch out for, what he called “ tax creep.”

He said there’s always a call and trend to look for ways to spend money. “ That must be carefully controlled, or it will balloon out of control,” McIntyre said. “ Money must be spent carefully and judiciously.”

Here he cites money spent on the Mendenhall property as an example, saying the township spent too much.

He said the $700,000 to $900,000 was more than needed, especially considering there were not as many environmental restrictions placed on the property as there could have been.

“There were so little that the county backed out,” McIntyre said.

Had the county been part of the transaction, there would have been more money available so the township would have paid less, he said.

McIntyre also fought against the use of township property being leased for private development of Pennsbury Village project.

Both that project and the way open space taxes were initially presented to public became controversial and divisive within the township, yet McIntyre said it’s not as bad as it seems.

“The split is one which is typical and expected because of policy differences,” he said. “ But the last two elections show the township is more united than people think, though there is vocal disappointment in the changing of the guard.”

He said he has previously supported those involved in both factions, though he is more affiliated with the Wendell Fenton and Charles Scottoline faction. Fenton and Scottoline are currently sitting supervisors, having been elected in 2005 and 2007 respectively, the two elections he referenced.

McIntyre is running in the Republican primary. He did not cross-file, he said.

McIntyre is a senior vice president with Smith Barney, involved with investment management and financial planning.

Also running for supervisor in the May 19 primary is Steve Eichinger.

For Laura Shannon Maurer, the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board has not respected the will of the voters.

The 66-year-old resident of Newlin Township did not say explicitly whether she was for or against the planned renovation for Unionville High School, but said, “I believe in the need for good, strong public schools, but the will of the electorate should have been respected.”

Maurer was referring to the two referendums that voters rejected.

She doesn’t discount the need for improvements to the high school, but said the approach must consider all residents in the district and the current economic down turn.

She said the senior population, the farm population and others on fixed incomes need to be considered and that, “All the constituents in the district need to be considered. Everyone who gets up to speak at school board meetings should be respected, not belittled.”

Maurer, a former Republican turned Democrat has cross-filed for the May 19 primary. She is opposed by Jeff Leiser and Holly Manzone. The three are vying for two seats in Region B that will be vacated at the end of this year. Region B is comprised of Birmingham, Pocopson and Newlin townhips.

Maurer, who is retired from IBM after 30 years of management, now manages a family horse farm in Newlin.

She is calling for the board to review and reanalyze past decisions regarding the renovation project — estimated at roughly $70 million – and to make changes because of current economic conditions. She said she’s big on fiscal restraint and fiscal management.

“Everyone is hurting. The economy has changed drastically [since decisions were made about the renovation project.] I don’t believe in ballooning debt. There is tremendous deficit spending,” she said.

“Everyone wants a fabulous high school, but sometimes we can’t have everything we want. Sometimes there needs to be compromise and trade offs,” Maurer continued, “and there are tradeoffs that can be made without interfering with quality.

She said the decisions must be ”non-emotional.”

While Maurer and Manzone may disagree on the renovation project, they both agree that it’s not a party issue.

For Maurer, “This is a management issue and one of respect for the electorate.”