Residents in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District will be paying more school property taxes.
School board members passed a $69.3 million budget for 2009-2010 last week, a spending plan that calls for a property tax rate of 23.91 mills for Chester County residents and 20.68 mills in Chadds Ford, the only Delaware County township in the district.
With a mill being a tax of $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, Chester County property owners will pay $2,391 for a property assessed at $100,000. In Delaware County, the tax on a $100,000 property would be $2,068.
The walls–and everything else for that matter– of the old PNC bank at Glen Eagle Square Shopping Center came tumbling down Tuesday, but not before members of two volunteer fire companies got to do some much needed practice.
“I can’t remember the last time we were given a building,” said Concordville Fire Co. Chief Thomas Nelling.
Firefighters from Concordville and Chester Heights got to practice forcible entry, wall breaching and ceiling pulling as part of a training session Monday night.
“It’s the only way to get hands on training,” Nelling said.
The volunteer firefighters got the chance to practice thanks to management at Glen Eagle. It was the last hurrah for the bank building at the entrance to the shopping center on Route 202 in Chadds Ford Township.
As part of a planned renovation of the center, PNC moved its branch several hundred feet farther north on Route 202 to an adjacent lot at Marshall Road. The old building concluded its time as an active branch Friday, June 19 with the new building opening Monday, June 22 before its scheduled demolition Tuesday.
The space used by the old building will be repaved and converted into an extra 55 parking spaces for the center. The entire north side lot at Glen Eagle will be repaved, according to Steve Schnur of LaSalle Investment management who represented the center during the two years it took for the township to approve the overall plan.
By the end of he year, Schnur said, The Gap and Gap Kids will consolidate and move from the Concord Township side of the center in the Chadds Ford side into the location that was once the site for Honey Baked Ham and Blockbuster Video.
Other changes and additions include a toy store, jack in the Box, moving in next to Outback restaurant and new islands in the parking lot.
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.
As anticipated, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission voted June 17 to follow the recommendation of a sustainability study and stop funding the operation of Brandywine Battlefield Park in Chadds Ford Township.
The recommendation calls for the state to enter into a management agreement with the township and the Brandywine Battlefield Associates to operate the park for a 10-year period. A fulltime PHMC maintenance position would remain in place.
No agreement has been reached yet and questions about the site’s operation remain, questions regarding the timetable for the state pulling out and where money will come from for continued park operations.
Park employees must be given 30 days notice before the state pulls out, but even that will likely not come before the state legislature comes up with a new budget.
“The plight is money,” said township Supervisors’ Chairman George Thorpe.
Thorpe is also a recent past president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates.
Neither the township nor the associates have the money to operate the park as it has been operated. Both PHMC officials and Linda Kaat, the current president of the associates said it costs roughly $350,000 per year to run the park.
“The associates have no money,” Thorpe said. “In the last two years they either broke even or lost money.”
Thorpe said there had been some savings but the poor economy and a lack of visitors to the park have cut into the money the group did have. Last year’s rain that cancelled one half of the annual reenactment of the Battle of Brandywine also put a financial hurt on the group, he said.
According to Thorpe, the associates generate about $150,000 in business, but that is gross income, not profit. The group has sought out philanthropic organizations and has solicited contributions, but less than $3,000 has been raised so far.
He also said having the township increase taxes is not an option. And while the township has looked into partnering with Chester and Delaware counties, there is a timing problem.
“The predicament is that the state budget is on a fiscal year, while the counties operate on a calendar year,” Thorpe said. “There’s no money in their current budgets. We have to wait until next year.”
According to Linda Kaat, however, “The Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates are willing and able to take on the operations of the battlefield.”
She said it would cost about $1,000 per day to operate the park, and that might necessitate reduced hours or fewer days open.
She said her group has not yet been involved in any active talks with the township, but would start now that PHMC has voted.
Brandywine is one of six historic sites PHMC members voted to unload. Others are the Joseph Priestly House, Fort Pitt Museum, Flagship Niagara, Bushy Run Battlefield and Conrad Weiser.
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.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak told Delaware County Democrats that the 7th Congressional District in Pennsylvania would be worse off if he is not elected to the U.S. Senate next year.
Sestak, who represents the 7th district, made the off hand comment in response to a question near the end of his meeting with leaders of the Delaware County Democratic Party June 18.
One person asked him whether the district would be worse off if he left the house to run for the senate since he said he has been doing such a good job in Congress supporting president Barack Obama’s policies.
Sestak and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter each addressed the party leadership. Both politicians are vying for the Democratic Party’s 2010 nomination for senate. One of them will likely be the person to face former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, the anticipated Republican nominee.
The two did not attend the leadership meeting simultaneously so there was no debate or any face-to-face discussion.
Both claim to have the support of the Obama administration, with Specter saying he was in the Republican minority who voted for Obama’s stimulus plan.
The senator had spent 44 years in the GOP, but returned to the democratic fold earlier this year after polls indicated he would likely lose the Republican primary to Toomey next year.
He said he only joined the Republican Party because the Democrats didn’t want him to run for Philadelphia district attorney in the 1960s. He said the city leaders didn’t want him to clean up the town – something he claimed he did after being elected district attorney as a Republican.
However, he told county Democrats that he had always maintained many Democratic Party positions such as being pro-choice and favoring stem cell research. Specter jokingly said he finally switched back to the Democratic Party after years of being chided to do so by Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden, a former U.S. representative from Delaware, and Specter often road the train to Washington together, Specter said.
On the hot button issue of the evening, health care, Specter said he agrees with subsidizing poor people for their health care, but does not favor subsidizing companies.
One member of the audience chided Specter for his harsh questioning of Anita Hill during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.
“Because of you we have Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court,” the person said.
Specter agreed adding, “But it’s because of me we don’t have Robert Bourke.”
He also said the criticism he received over the years regarding his questioning of Hill left him more sensitive to women’s issues.
Sestak, who arrived 45 minutes after Specter had left, criticized the incumbent for “helping derail” Hillary Clinton’s health care proposals during her husband’s administration, for Specter’s favoring of privatizing social security and for his support of George Bush’s tax cuts.
He said Specter’s support of Bush’s economic policies helped lead to the failing economy.
Sestak favors health care reform, as does Specter, but said he does not favor a single-payer system. He supports the public option, however, saying the country needs “competition, but with transparency.”
On education, he said that after 30 years with Specter in the senate, Pennsylvania ranks among the lowest in Scholastic Aptitude test scores, while it is among the highest for tuition rates.
Sestak also challenged the notion that Specter is the anointed Democratic candidate to run for senate in 2010.
He objects to people thinking Specter should be the candidate just because he’s an incumbent.
“There are primaries…. and I’m prepared to take on all comers,” Sestak said.
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.
With the Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate still more than 10 months away, last week’s Delaware County Democratic Party Leadership meeting provided an interesting opportunity to watch the two frontrunners for the nomination.
Interesting because the two men, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak displayed ambition and attitude for all to see. Egos were also on display.
As reported, the two spoke before the leadership group at the Marple Township building, but they were not in attendance at the same time. Mr. Sestak arrived well after the senator had departed. That’s how the event was planned.
Mr. Specter displayed his attitude by saying how he never abandoned his Democratic Party roots even though he spent more than 40 years as a Republican. It’s unlikely that many in the audience actually accepted his claim to being loyal to the party. Indeed, there’s no question that the only reason he returned to the Democratic Party fold is because polls showed he would lose a Republican party primary to former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey.
So much for loyalty to either principle or party. Mr. Specter simply read the political wind and jumped ship in hopes of keeping his job.
Yet, the Democrats should take heart. Arlen Specter has spent a career growing the size of government.
There is nothing inherently wrong with political ambitions. What is wrong is when those ambitions are fed or perhaps fueled by a desire for power.
And while we have enormous respect for Mr. Sestak’s 31 years of military service to the country, we must question his thinking.
As a retired admiral, Mr. Sestak is fond of telling the story of how he decided to get into politics. He talks of being in an oncology ward with his daughter and how the healthcare policy he had as a member of the military saved his daughter’s life, how grateful he was and how much he wanted to give back to the country for all it had done for him and his family.
There is no doubt as to the truth of this story, both the physical facts and his emotional reaction. What father doesn’t want the best care for his children? What father wouldn’t be grateful and want to give back to the system that saved his child’s life?
But the reality is that he was an admiral and everyone who has ever served in the military knows, RHIP, “Rank hath it’s privileges. “And that includes healthcare.
Consider an 8-year-old boy visiting his naval officer uncle when he has a bicycle accident. The military doctors did a wonderful job sewing up the gaping wound running from the boy’s knee to ankle. But 12 years later, as an enlisted man in the Air Force, this same young man, having an aggravating cough and difficulty in swallowing had to go to sick call three days in a row before the doctor would even put a stethoscope to his chest. Only then was it discovered the airman had pneumonia.
Would Adm. Sestak have had to go to sick call three days in a row before such a basic diagnostic tool was used? Would a member of his family have had to wait that long? Not likely.
So while the congressman’s story is true, it is true for a few, not all. And a government sponsored healthcare system that he wants to enact, would be just as inequitable. And it will continue to drive up the cost of proper healthcare and coverage.
Government can do more by getting out of the way of those who would bring effective alternative, efficient and more cost effective approaches to healthcare and coverage.
The congressman also revealed something about his own psyche. When asked if the 7th Congressional district would be worse off without him as the representative, he said the 7th would be worse off if he wasn’t elected senator. What does that say about his ego?
Both men talked about healthcare, employment, the environment and the economy. Neither spoke of the need to support, protect and defend the constitution or of maintaining constitutional limits on government. That’s what they should be talking about.
Hello from Williamsburg, Va. My regiment, the 43rd Regiment of Foot, one of the finest groups of British re-enactors in the U.S., has once again been invited to participate in “Under the Red Coat”, recreating the summer of 1781 when Cornwallis’s forces occupied Williamsburg just prior to the battle at Yorktown.
Most of you have seen the reenactment of the Battle of the Brandywine every year as hundreds of re-enactors recreate the encampment and battle of Sept. 11, 1777. So I thought I would let you know what it’s like to be the one in the “funny clothes” by answering the top 5 questions we hear all the time.
Weren’t women camp followers, well …uh… prostitutes?
Absolutely not! They were wives of the foot soldiers who, not being able to support themselves with their husbands away, signed on with the army as laundresses. Depending on the regiment, they were generally paid half rations. If a “slattern” were found, she would be drummed out of the encampment to the fifer’s tune of “The Rogues March”. Did you know there were upwards of 400 women on the rolls during the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge?
Did you make your costume?
Ouch! Never say the word “costume” to a re-enactor. A better word is garb. The clothes are replicas made from actual patterns and clothing found in museums and private collections. Materials used are generally linen, wool, fustian (linen with cotton) or linsey-woolsey. Cotton was rare and very costly prior to the invention of the cotton gin. The women’s gowns are pinned at the front; the petticoats fitted with draw-strings at the waste and shifts fitted with drawstrings at the neck and sleeves. We also wear a boned bodice called “stays”. Skilled re-enactors (yes, men too) sew their own clothing, but many buy them from 18th century merchants known as sutlers or have them custom made by 18th century seamstresses.
Are you really eating that food?
Yes we do and it’s delicious, thank you! Despite the deprivation of some of the armies, we have had whole pigs on a spit, capons, and roasts of beef. One of our camp followers can even make an apple pie from scratch in a Dutch oven over the coals. Uh…that wouldn’t be me. I specialize in hauling wood, water, straw and scrubbing dirty iron pots.
Do you really sleep in those tents?
Yes we do. And I can testify from my younger days that I have camped through sweltering heat in Williamsburg and Daniel Boone Homestead, sub-freezing nights in the Shenandoah Valley and Hope Lodge in November and monsoon rains at Fort Ticonderoga and Ft. Frederick. But for the most part, primitive 18th century camping is fun. Now? I can walk right into Williamsburg from “ye olde” Patrick Henry Inn. Their pool is nice too.
Are those muskets and cannons real?
Yes. Our men use the reproduction Brown Bess or Charleville. Our cannon was made in Germany. They fire blank at re-enactments but can fire live. But because they use real black powder, a line is usually set up for the public’s safety. And yes I have fired a Brown Bess more than once.
