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.
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.
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