Alex
is an adult male rabbit that is
available for adoption through the Chester County SPCA. He came to the shelter on
Sept. 23 as a stray. Alex is a very sweet rabbit and would make a great pet for
a first time rabbit owner. He keeps his cage very tidy and seems to be litter
box trained. Alex loves his treats of carrots and lettuce. Did you know that
rabbits are the third most common pet cared for by the Chester County SPCA?
Alex is looking for a responsible care
giver who will give him the love and attention he needs. If you are able to
provide that home, visit the Chester County SPCA at 1212 Phoenixville Pike in
West Goshen or call 610-692-6113. Alex’s registration number is 96796828. To
look at some of the other animals available for adoption, visit the shelter or
log onto www.ccspca.org.
Chadds Ford Township supervisors held their first public
workshop, but no residents attended the 5:30 p.m. session. It was held in the
conference room at the township building.
The workshops were announced during the Jan. 4
organizational meeting. Supervisors’ Chairman Deborah Love said she hopes that
having the workshops will help streamline the regular monthly meetings.
Supervisors use the workshops to review a possible agenda
for the regular meeting, and to get an idea of what each of them think about a
certain agenda item, but there is no voting during the workshops.
During the Jan. 25 workshop, all three supervisors, along
with Township Manager Joe Barakat and engineer Joe Mastronardo reviewed the
facts concerning two conditional use hearings scheduled for 6 p.m. before the
Monday, Feb. 1 regular meeting. Those hearings concern possible auto sales at
Jack Heilman’s car service center on Route 202 at Dilworthtown Road and a
cellular service tower for Metro PCS.
Supervisors will also consider extending the temporary sign
ordinance for 2010 during that February meeting, but revisit it again in March
after talking with business owners.
Love said people have not been getting the permits for those
temporary signs and don’t know the rules.
The temporary sign ordinance went into effect in early 2009
to help businesses advertise during the economic downturn.
Supervisors will also consider appointing a Planning
Commission member to the Historical and Architectural Review Board and a deputy
zoning and code enforcement officer.
Also planned for discussion is a review of the
recommendations made by a Civic Association task force regarding a USDA study
and controlled deer hunt to reduce incidents of Lyme disease in the township.
The study will cost an estimated $8,000 and Supervisor Garry
Paul said during the workshop that he would like to interview someone from the
USDA before committing to an expensive study, and then possibly make a decision
during the March supervisors’ meeting.
“We need to find the magnitude of the problem … what’s
involved in the study. … We want people to know we’re willing to go the next
step in getting the right information,” Paul said.
The regular February supervisors’ meeting was moved from
Wednesday, Feb. 3 to Monday, Feb. 1 to accommodate the travel schedule of
Supervisor George Thorpe.
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.
All is not rosy with the Brandywine Battlefield Park, but
George Thorpe isn’t throwing in the towel just yet. He still needs to know
whether any entity in Chester County is willing to help the park financially.
Chester County commissioners have been silent, he said.
The Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission stopped
funding the park operation in August. Since then, the group Friends of the
Brandywine Battlefield has been running the site on a shoestring.
Thorpe, a Chadds Ford Township supervisor and a former
president of the friends group, has been working to keep the site open with the
possibility of the township becoming the site operator.
He received financial commitments from Delaware County and
several Delaware County townships–including Chadds Ford, Thornbury and Concord–
but that’s the limit of local help.
“Nothing has changed. We still have no support from any
Chester County entity,” said Thorpe, “no Chester County governmental agency at
all.”
Neither Chester County Commissioners, the county tourist
bureau, nor any of the neighboring Chester County townships have offered any
assistance, he said.
Thorpe said the Chester County commissioners have simply not
responded, either negatively or positively.
The total commitment from Delaware County and its townships
is $75,000. But the park needs more than $300,000 per year to operate fully.
In December, supervisors from Birmingham and Pennsbury
townships gave reasons for not committing.
Charles “Scotty “Scottoline from Pennsbury said he thought
that Thorpe should be including other entities and that the Pennsbury Board of
Supervisors could reopen the budget this year to include something for the
park.
John Conklin in Birmingham said it wouldn’t be right because
supervisors there were already raising taxes for 2010.
Thorpe has been asking for $5,000 from the townships.
The Chester County Commissioners’ office did not respond to
phone calls from ChaddsFordLive. Thorps asked both counties for $55,000 each.
When asked if there was any type of deadline, Thorpe said he
was unsure.
“I really don’t know how to answer that. The deadline is
when the park first closed. We needed to do something and we can’t keep going
on the way we are,” he said. “It’s not an attractive situation for visitors.”
The park is getting some money from the state for
maintenance and utilities–about $135,000–but it’s still operating at a deficit
of more than $100,000 per year.
The money currently being raised by the park comes from
admission fees, school and other limited programs, donations, the museum shop
and what few events the park has had, such as Patriots Day the end of November.
“We still have income [and] it’s being done very nicely, but
on a very small scale.
He also expressed frustration over the number of items PHMC
took from the museum display cases. There are only a few items in each of the cases.
“It’s a taxpayer’s right to have those for visitors to see,”
he said. “It’s a terrible situation. The PHMC shouldn’t want it to be that way.
The state shouldn’t want it to be that way. The governor, other people
shouldn’t want it to be that way.”
None of the money the Delaware County entities have
earmarked for the park is being used yet, Thorpe said, adding: “We are waiting
for an answer, a positive answer from Chester County and everything will be in
order. We’ll be off and running.”
Asked how long the park can keep going as it is now, Thorpe
said he doesn’t know. Yet he expects things to pick up as spring approaches. He
said the winter months are always slow. There are fewer school groups coming in
and liking that to fewer tourists visiting seashore resorts during the winter.
“The sessions we have [beginning in March] will raise money
very nicely,” he said, “but that’s still not enough.”
There are no events currently on the schedule, but the park
is looking to set some for March.
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.
State police are looking for a man identified as Kevin Michael Cox
for a series of robberies in which he threatened retail employees with
hypodermic needles he said were infected with HIV. A police report said that, on Jan. 24, Cox
robbed the Cameo Water Wear store in Glen Eagle Square and a day later did the
same at the California Sun Mega Salon on West Chester Pike in Concord Township.
Cox is in the company of white female but their
whereabouts are unknown, according to the report.
• Pennsylvania State Police from Troop K, Media are
investigating a daytime burglary at a residence on Bethel Road in Concord
Township. Police say perpetrators broke down the front door of the home and
then stole a safe containing $900 in cash plus gold, silver and pearl jewelry,
birth certificates, Social Security cards and U.S. passports. The incident
happened on Jan. 25 between 9 a.m. and 6:60 p.m.
• Police report a 62-year-old woman had two credit/debit
cards stolen from her purse while at the American Bar & Grill in Concord
Township on Jan. 18. The cards were later used in the amount of more than
$2,000 at various locations, the police report said.
• Someone stole a Boss V-Plow and 100 bags of calcium from a
construction site at Painter’s Crossing Shopping Center sometime between Jan.
15 and Jan. 20, a police report said. The plow is valued at $4,750 the calcium
at $1,300. Anyone with information is asked to call the state police at
484-840-1000.
Two stories ripped through the American political world last
week, stories that pleased Republicans and some other conservatives, but that
frightened the Democrats.
On Tuesday of that week, Republican Scott Brown defeated
Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election for the U.S. Senate seat
previously held by the late Ted Kennedy. Pundits and politicians alike
scrambled to explain the wherefores and whys of the results especially in light
of what they would mean for national healthcare and the political face of the
U.S. Senate.
Adding to the turmoil was a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two
days later overturning provisions of McCain-Feingold. The court said, in a 5-4
ruling, that corporations may now fund political campaign ads up to the date of
the election.
Opponents of the ruling–Democrats and other liberals and
so-called progressives– see the decision as stacking the election decks in
favor of Republicans, while others see the ruling as being consistent with the
freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment.
Mr. Brown’s election in Massachusetts does throw at least a
small monkey wrench in President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s plan for
national healthcare. But that monkey wrench is that the Democrats no longer
have a 60-40-seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate. With negotiation,
they could likely still get something passed, even with the idea being fiscally
unsound and beyond the scope of constitutionally enumerated powers.
Some commentators have said that the vote in the special
election was a mandate against national healthcare while others say it’s more
of a reaction to the candidates themselves. We’re more inclined to think the
latter.
Massachusetts already has a state healthcare plan similar to
what the Democrats are proposing for the country, so voters there may only be
opposed to another level of healthcare bureaucracy and increased taxes.
But Mr. Brown ran an anti-Washington type of campaign, and
he ran hard. Contrast that to Ms. Coakley’s laid back, “phone it in” approach.
And she was so out of touch with the voters that she even thought Curt
Schilling had pitched for the New York Yankees instead of her own Boston Red
Sox.
But we are most inclined to think that–coupled with Ms.
Coakley’s poor campaign– the Brown campaign tapped into an anti-Washington
sentiment felt along all aspects of the political spectrum. That sentiment was
made most manifest with the various Tea Parties held last year. People
attending those events said they were frustrated and angry at both tax and
spend Democrats and borrow and spend Republicans.
And it is the mistrust of both incumbent parties that brings
us to consideration of that second story.
It is true that the Supreme Court ruling may work in favor
of Republican candidates who are perceived to be more allied with big business
than are their Democrat counter parts. But it is equally true that the ruling
is also in line with provisions of free speech. The problem is that both
Republicans and Democrats have spent more years accruing power than in honoring
the Constitution.
If elected and would-be elected politicians stayed true to
the Constitution and worked to preserve the liberties of individual men and
women there would be little mischief and no power to be bought by big business
or big labor. It is the arrogance of power, from both the left and the right
that gives concern.
“Written 11:20, Sunday night. Aug. 9, 1942. The day of the great Chadds Ford flood.
One that will go down in history.”
So wrote Chadds Ford resident, Chris Sanderson from his home
on Creek Road, more than 68 years ago.
As I crossed the Brandywine on my way to work during Monday
morning’s torrential rains, I looked over the bridge noticing that the rushing
waters were even with the banks and ready to spill over. I began to wonder
which way I would get home that night if the rains continued.
Those of us who live in Chadds Ford and need to cross the
Brandywine daily know what heavy rainstorms can mean–how do we get where we
need to go? We’re sort of like a little island unto ourselves at times.
The aptly named Creek Road south is out …you can’t even get
100 yards down to Station Way. Once, thinking I was being clever, I came down
Bullock Road and turned right. Big mistake! The water that covered the road
just around the corner was indistinguishable from the rushing Brandywine.
Realizing my little car would float rather easily I made a
neat three-point turn and headed back the way I came.
Creek Road to the north is out, as you will find flooding
just above the Chadds Ford Days fields and beyond Brinton’s Bridge Road.
And if Chadds Ford is flooded, then Route 926 is out, as it
is usually flooded at Pocopson at the garden center. Whenever Chadds Ford and
Birmingham are mentioned on the 6 p.m. news, you’re sure to see some unlucky
motorist (once it was even a UPS truck) stranded on top of the bridge with
water swirling all around. It’s a favorite place for network news cameras to
hang out, like a spiders waiting for their prey.
To get an idea of the June 29, 2006 flood, when the
Brandywine crested at 13.5 feet, about 4.5 feet about flood level, take a look
at the great photos by Robert F. Sparre, President of Dorset Connects, http://www.sparre.us/2006FloodPics.htm.
So how do we get off our island?
As I work south of Route 1, I usually drive down Route 202
into Delaware, take a right on Route 92 and cross the higher Thompson’s Bridge
at the Brandywine Creek State Park–a beautiful trip. Just follow the steady line of cars in front of you who are
in the same mess and you’ll eventually come up on the other side near
Centreville, Del. And those of you who live west of the Brandywine, just
reverse the route.
More macadam parking lots, wider roads and building on the
flood plains have produced more flooding for us in recent years. However, even
in the days when the swamp in back of Hanks Place was a cow pasture (yes!),
Chadds Ford was not without its historic floods, such as the great flood of
1942.
On that day, Chris Sanderson’s mother Hanna, then in her
early eighties, wrote in her diary:“Sunday, August 9, 1942- A rainy day and
comfortable. Up at 9 a.m.–soon had the work done. Then discovered there was a
flood on the Brandywine. Biggest in years. Whole Chadds Ford is under water.
But at even time, we have not been touched, thankful.”
Oh yes, and if worse comes to worse, there’s always the
Tyler McConnell Bridge!
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.”
