December 24, 2009 - ChaddsFordLive.com

Birmingham tax hike in effect for 2010

Birmingham Township Supervisors’ Chairman John Conklin said
he and the other supervisors didn’t want to raise taxes, but felt the increase was
justified to offset a drop in revenue.

The 2010 budget raises the property tax from 1.5 mills to
1.6 mills, roughly $.63 per week for average household, according to Supervisor
Bill Kirkpatrick. A mill is a tax of $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property
value.

Supervisors also voted to levy a Local Service Tax of $52
per year on individuals making a minimum of $12,000 per year while employed in the township. That tax is
expected to bring in an extra $30,000 per year.

Conklin said the township needed to increase its revenue
because revenues had been dropping and the carry forward amount each year was
also decreasing.

“The board is responding to a two-year drop in revenue that
started in ’08 and worsened in ’09. In ’07, when revenues were strong,we actually
prepaid $100,000 of debt. … The increase in taxes is really an attempt to prop
up the revenues that we have not been able to replace,” he said.

He said revenue dropped roughly $50,000 since 2007 and that
he sees no increase soon. If that downward trend would continue in 2010, he
said, the reserve would also continue to be drawn down. The carry forward
amount had also dropped by $50,000, according to Conklin.

He added that the recent snowstorm took a big bite out of
the reserve funds, going from $20,000 over to $6,000 under.

The revenue drop was due to a weakened housing market
resulting in less property transfer tax revenue, he said.

The 2010 budget anticipates $1,750,000 in revenue (which
includes a carry forward from 2009), $1,235,000 in spending with $515,000
carried forward into 2011.

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.

Birmingham tax hike in effect for 2010 Read More »

Family takes cruise for the century

Local News

Elizabeth Price is a Wilmington native, a Concord Township
resident and the oldest member of Brandywine Baptist Church in Chadds Ford,
“But,” she said, “I’m the oldest of everything.”

Price turned 100 on Dec. 1. Twenty-two members of her family
took her on a cruise to celebrate her reaching the century mark.

Price’s daughter, Pat Crozier, calls her mother an eternal
optimist and Price’s philosophy reflects that optimism. Having lived for 100 years, she has
seen many changes and she’s optimistic regarding them all. “I don’t think any have
not been for the general good,” she said but added that she thinks computers
have been the greatest change. She spent her working years as a secretary and
is still amazed at the change from old manual typewriters to computer word
processors.

“And you can ask a computer anything and it’ll give you the
right answer, right away. I don’t know how, but they do it,” Price said.

One of her earliest recollections goes back to when she was
3 or 4 years old, she said, when her mother took her to see her grandmother who
was soon to die. “I felt there was something important there in taking me out
to see her. She was in bed. And she didn’t look like anybody else. This little
lady was small so, to me, she was very unusual, right off because I compared
her to my mother and she didn’t look like she belonged to her at all.”

Her most poignant memory, however, is of a second cousin who
was born with a birth defect that prevented proper development of her feet. She
said her cousin’s feet were more like flippers.

“She was a very good Christian woman and she taught Sunday
School. The children loved her. She had a way about her and the children just
took to her. In her church she was very well known and very well liked,” Price
said of her cousin.

According to Crozier, it’s possible Cousin Marguerite may
also have lived to 100.

Price has survived three husbands but still misses the first
one, Lawrence Kirby, the father of her children. Meeting him, she said, is her
fondest memory.

“He was married before, and his wife had died. We were a
small enough church so that when a new member came in you got to know them
right away,” she said.

They met in 1933 and married in 1934. Price raised his two
daughters from his first marriage before having her own four children with him.
Those four were each five years apart.

“Isn’t it interesting they were all five years apart? I
didn’t do it deliberately,” Price said with a chuckle.

Her saddest memories concern her husbands.

“I didn’t expect any of them to die, and then to have then
all die, to me is unfortunate. I loved them all. I could have lived the rest of
my life with any of them,” she said.

Yet, Price has no regrets.

“I’ve had a wonderful life outside
of losing all three husbands. I couldn’t help it,” Price said.

And she does have some advice, to
trust your instincts and hope you’re right.

“You have to take everybody at
face value. Sometimes you learn you were wrong, but that’s what I’ve learned.
Some people you can trust, some people you can’t,” she said.

She also advises to “Sleep on it.
That means you think about your decisions well and hard. And get good advice.”

Her birthday cruise was far from
her biggest trip. She’s travelled around the world twice and would only do one
thing differently, given the chance.

Price said she would love to have
rented a house in England and stayed there for at least one month.

“I loved England. I felt very much at home.”

She would also like to have studied a foreign language.

Price is a member of the Red Hat Society, an international
social group for women over the age of 50. She still attends the luncheons
every other month.

About Rich Schwartzman

Family takes cruise for the century Read More »

Chadds Ford woman now a published author

Local News

When talking with Jeanne-Marie Curtis, one gets the feeling
that the Chadds Ford resident and single mother enjoys learning from life’s
experiences. She’s taken that enthusiasm for life and parlayed it into a
self-published book, “Junctions by Jeanne-Marie, (Every Woman’s Journey) and
Journal.” The book includes two short stories and seven poems. There are also
blank pages the reader may use as a journal.

“[It’s for] any woman that is or has had to face a difficult
situation. It takes you from fear to hope and finally to wisdom,” she said.

She agrees that men go through the same things and is
considering writing another book for men. “Junctions,” however, is strictly
from a woman’s viewpoint for women.

“Some of the stories are true, things that actually happened
to me,” she said.

Curtis said she’s always jotting down notes, recording
thoughts that come to mind, usually in poetry form.

“It’s not thought out. I don’t work at it. It just comes in
my mind, sometimes in the early morning, and I’ll write it down,” she said.

Curtis has been writing down her thoughts since becoming a
single mother 12 years ago following a divorce.

“One day I sat down and I looked at [the writings] and I
realized this is a journey that I’ve taken and that I think a lot of women have
taken, and we’re universal in that,” she said, with “that” being “the universal
growth of all women.”

“What unites us is the treasure of our emotional depths. We
can trust our instincts, feel our pain yet choose to live happily.”

Curtis reviewed her notes and poems and decided to get them
published. She went to Blurb.com, the company that put the book together for
her.

“I was writing for myself, but then I just wanted to share
it,” Curtis said.

The point she wanted to share was how people, “grow from
being fearful and timid and maybe not sure of ourselves, not trusting
ourselves, not trusting our instincts to a level of wisdom where we now feel we
can share what we know with other people.”

She defines wisdom as learning from trusting one’s instincts
and knowing what works and doesn’t work. Curtis also said that what women go
through is pretty much universal.

“All that we go through makes us stronger and that our job
after that is to pass it forward,” she said. “We don’t really get through hard
times or difficult situations alone, even though we might feel that we do. We
really don’t when we look back on it,” she said.

Curtis also said there are times when it’s perfect
strangers, “earth angels” as she calls them, who help the most.

Curtis currently works as a paraprofessional at Chadds Ford
Elementary School with kids in grades K-2 on whatever things the teachers need
her to help with. She started when her daughter was in kindergarten, but her
background is human resources management, having worked at Chester County
Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania.

She said coming to CFES was the best thing she ever did
because, “I’m a single mom and when my daughter started here I wanted to be
home when she as home, so this was the perfect opportunity. Being here has
actually opened my eyes to a lot of things about working with children and I
don’t ever see myself going back to my old career.”

Curtis said she didn’t realize how much influence the
teachers really have on the children. “School is so much a part of the child’s
life, much more than I ever knew before I had a child myself,” she said.

That discovery has been reinforced during her time as a
paraprofessional at the school.

“Junctions” is currently
available at Borders Books in the Shoppes at Brinton Lake.

About Rich Schwartzman

Chadds Ford woman now a published author Read More »

Frugality for all

Opinion

If someone wanted to learn how to handle money responsibly,
to whom should he or she go? The obvious answer is someone who understands
frugality, budgeting and some level of self-control. Maybe that expert messed
up earlier in life, but later learned his or her lessons well enough to help
others avoid, or grow beyond, mistakes.

One type of person who should not be sought out for advice
is one who continually fails to see the error of his or her ways, but that may
be just what is happening. It seems the government, the U.S. government, whose
debt is in the trillions of dollars, is ready to spend millions to teach
Americans how to handle their money responsibly.

According to Politico.com, the money for the program comes
in the $849 billion health care bill. That bill sets aside $375 million to
promote responsible lifestyles that includes financial literacy.

Consider the words of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, who
Politico quotes as saying: “The federal government is never going to encourage personal
responsibility and never has. Personal responsibility is a good principle – but
not the government doing it.”

Both critics and proponents of government spending have, for
generations, spoken out against fraud and waste in government, but even the
most ardent advocate must see the hypocrisy in having a government with a
$12-trillion debt tell people how to live within a budget.

Politico also quotes U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, as saying “The
federal government, which is now $12 trillion in debt and riddled with hundreds
of billions dollars of waste, management, duplication and ineffective programs,
has little credibility educating Americans about financial responsibility.”

No one is denying that financial illiteracy is a problem, but members of
Congress, both in the House and the Senate, need to look in a mirror when they
talk about such things. Yet adding insult to injury is a story posted on USA
Today saying that six-figure incomes are growing for government employees.

USA Today analyzed federal salary data and learned that the percentage
of federal employees making $100,000 per year or more jumped from 14 percent to
19 percent during the first 18 months of the recession. And that’s before
calculating overtime pay.

‘Federal workers are
enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession
that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector,” wrote reporter Dennis Cauchon.

Also, according to Cauchon,
already highly paid federal employees are doing better. He said Defense
Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in
December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009. The same increases show up in other
agencies and departments.

Seems to be a factor in giving credence to the statement
“War is the health of the state.”

Financial responsibility is good for individuals and for the
government. Achieving 100 percent is no more than a pipe dream, but these two
reports show how out of whack the government is, and how ludicrous it is to
have the federal government cry crocodile tears over an individual’s economic
shortcomings.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

Frugality for all Read More »

Police log 12/24

Police

Pennsylvania state police are looking for two men suspected
of stealing $5,000 worth of narcotics that were being delivered to the Concord
Pharmacy on Baltimore Pike Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 9:45 a.m. According to a
police report, two white males punched a lock on the side panel door of the
delivery truck while the driver was inside the store. The suspects took five
red plastic medication boxes, the report said, then fled in a newer black
Nissan Altima. The red plastic boxes themselves were recovered along Route 322,
the report said. Anyone with
information is asked to
call stae police at 484-840-1000.

•Pennsylvania State Police are investigating a four-vehicle
accident that happened at Route 1 and Brinton Lake Road in Concord Township
Sunday, Dec. 20 at 1:15 p.m. According to a police report, three vehicles were
stopped for the southbound red light when a fourth vehicle failed to stop in
time and hit the rear-most car. That started a domino effect accident. One
driver was transported to Crozer Chester Hospital for injuries. Two of the
vehicles were disabled and had to be towed from the scene.

• State police from Troop K, Media report that between 6
p.m., Dec 18 and 7 a.m., Dec. 19 someone removed four wheels and tires from a
vehicle parked at a residence on Bridlewood Drive in Chadds Ford Township. The
vehicle was left resting on four tires under the frame, according to the
police. The stolen property is valued at $5,200. Anyone with information is
asked to call the Pennsylvania State Police at 484-840-1000.

• Pennsylvania State Police from the Avondale Barracks
report a one-car accident on Creek Road south of Cossart Road in Pennsbury
Township about 11 a.m., Dec. 13. No injuries were reported in the accident that
happened when the driver lost control of his 2005 Volkswagen Passat while
negotiating a left hand curve in icy conditions. The car hit a tree before
coming to rest.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

Police log 12/24 Read More »

Blogging Along the Brandywine

Along the Ford

As I read Dr. Kayta Gajdos’
Mind Matters column last week, her beautiful words of wisdom drew me back to my
family’s Christmas of 2006 and how we accomplished the near miraculous that
year–we changed Christmas and rediscovered the Light.

This, then, is my Christmas story for you:

On Dec. 24, 2005, my 95-year old
father entered Bryn Mawr Hospital for the last time. He passed peacefully at
home less than three weeks later in the first days of the New Year.

In our family, our father was Christmas.

As the oldest son of immigrants
from southern Germany, he grew up in a small North Dakota town of German and
Scandinavian immigrants, speaking only German for several years.

On Christmas Eve after the
Lutheran church service, he and his brother would go in to the living room to
open presents left under the tree by Der Christ Kindle or Christ Child. Christmas
Day was for opening stockings filled with treats from St. Nikolaus.

Even years later, as an adult, my
father always wanted to open all his presents on Christmas Eve. So we adapted
his German traditions and opened a few presents at night.

On Christmas morning my sister
and I were not permitted to come downstairs until my father had donned his robe
and slippers, and had finished a prolonged shaving routine. We would sit there,
midway down the long staircase, pleading with him to hurry for what always
seemed an interminable length of time until he was ready.

Then sitting in his favorite chair,
he would joyfully open additions to his H.O. train lay-out or favorite treats
like chocolate covered cherries, Marzipan, pistachios, Macadamia nuts, Heath
Bars and licorice, sampling each as he opened them. (At 5’11” my father always
remained a trim 168.)

But now, nearly a year after his
passing, as Christmas 2006 approached, these two college-educated, adult
children were at a loss as to how to celebrate that first Christmas without the
family patriarch.

We couldn’t change our father’s
absence, so we changed Christmas.

In the neighborhood of our
childhood, where our mother still lives, miles of quiet winding streets are
lined with luminaria each Christmas Eve. So my sister Pat, her husband and I
decided to get out of the house, and take a long evening’s walk through the
glorious sparkling lights.

That first year Pat kept stopping
to pick up toppled luminaria, re-lighting each one until I told her at that
rate we wouldn’t get home until midnight. We started giggling and laughing like
kids, running down the street, rejoicing in the beauty of the lights and the
clear, crisp air, twinkling with stars.

The healing had begun.

On Christmas Day, the three of us
drove down the hill to the 46-acre Jenkins Arboretum and walked the 1.2 miles
of winding trails. It was free, open on Christmas Day and an all- embracing
affirmation of life.

Later we would have two Choke Cherry
trees, native to North Dakota, dedicated to my father’s memory.

Christmas will never be the same
without him, but in making some new traditions, we found the Light that had
been lost to us.

Merry
Christmas Chadds Ford!

And thank you Dr. G.

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”

Blogging Along the Brandywine Read More »