Scenes from Around Town for July 8
Scenes from Around Town for July 8 Read More »
July 8, 2010
Bits & Pieces for July 8
• The Genuardi’s supermarket in Glen Eagle Square is closing
on Aug. 21. Prescriptions at the store pharmacy have already been transferred
to the Acme at routes 202 and 926. Company spokesman Maryanne Crager said the
store isn’t profitable enough to maintain. Genuardi’s has been in Glen Eagle
Square for 20 years.
• First Keystone Bank is changing its name. On Aug. 23 First
keystone will become Bryn Mawr Trust. Loretta Pitts, formerly of Fulton Bank,
is the new manager at the Chadds Ford and Willowdale branches.
• Every Tuesday in August, the Delaware Museum of Natural
History is partnering with Artisans’ Bank to lower admission prices to just $1
per person during August Dollar Tuesdays. Visitors are invited to explore
the wonders of the natural world at the Museum for just $1 on August 3, 10, 17,
24, and 31, courtesy of Artisans’ Bank.
• The Rachel Kohl
Library Community Room is available for use by local cultural, educational,
charitable or civic groups. The room is also available for use by for-profit
groups. If you are looking for a place to hold homeowners’ association
meetings, book clubs, service clubs, etc. we will be happy to see your group at
the library.
For a copy of the meeting room policy, fees, and application form, please go to
the library’s website, www.kohllibrary.org.
Bits & Pieces for July 8 Read More »
Adopt-a-Pet
Rocky is a 2-year-old neutered male brown tabby cat that is
available for adoption through the Chester
County SPCA. He originally was adopted from the shelter but was brought back on
May 10, because his owners were letting him outside, which is against our
adoption policy. Rocky is a very sweet boy looking for an inside
home where he can play with his toys and snuggle with you in the evenings.
Rocky is now looking for a responsible care giver who will give him the love
and attention he deserves. 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. Rocky’s registration number is 96799268. To look at some of the
other animals available for adoption, visit the shelter or log onto http://www.ccspca.org/
U-CF teachers working under ‘status quo’
Teachers in the Unionvile-Chadds Ford School District are
now under an extended contract. The previous contract officially expired June
30, but the extension should keep teachers on the job—even if only minimally—
when school resumes even if no new agreement is reached by then.
While negotiations for the new contract have been kept
private between the school board and teachers’ union, word has leaked that
teachers are asking for an increase of 6 percent per year for each year of a
four-year contract. Board members won’t confirm the numbers, but one member
wouldn’t deny them.
U-CFSD board director, Keith Knauss, from East Marlborough
Township, said that teachers—members of the Unionville-Chadds Ford Education
Association—would be working “by the status quo.”
“The status quo allows teachers to do any type of work stoppage
they want within the law,” Knauss said.
What typically happens under such a situation, he said, is
that teachers “work the rule.” Knauss explained that means teachers would do
the minimum required by the contract.
He said that typically means teachers would show up 10
minutes early and leave 10 minutes after school, decline writing letters of
recommendation for students and not volunteer for committees.
“It’s a display of, ‘I’m going to work to the contract, but
not do anything above the contract,’” he said.
Fellow board director Frank Murphy, from Chadds Ford
Township, said that while the teachers could do just the minimum, he hopes
that’s not the case.
“There’s a lot of nuance in interpreting the rights and
responsibilities under a contract and a status quo situation,” Murphy said.
“While there certainly could be such [minimal] actions, it’s my belief our
teachers will continue to act in good faith during the process.”
Neither Murphy nor Knauss would discuss details of the
contract negotiations, saying they could neither confirm nor deny the union’s
request for the 6 percent increase. But school board director Paul Price, from
Pennsbury Township, responded differently.
Price would not confirm the figures, but said, “I won’t deny
it… That’s not something that sounds unlikely.”
However, Price would neither confirm nor deny a rumored
countered offer from the district of no increase the first year, but a 2
percent increase each year for the remaining three years of a four-year
contract.
He has been opposed to the private nature of the
negotiations, saying he’s wanted them to be open to the public.
Price further said the “status quo” situation is not an
extension, rather that it’s required by law.
“This was not something that was worked out by the two
parties,” Price said.
He called status quo a “legal quagmire,” saying that the
board can’t make any changes without risking legal action.
Price referred to a case in which teachers in another
district were working under status quo, but went on strike when soft drink
vending machines were changed. According to Price, a court ruled the vending
machine change to be a change in the working conditions and awarded
unemployment benefits.
(Price could not recall where or when the case happened and
ChaddsFordLive.com was unable to verify his comments.)
He said that decision means the U-CF school board can’t make
any changes to the health coverage or supplementals under status quo, even
those already deemed too expensive to maintain.
Price also said the union has threatened to “work to the
contract” if there’s no new contract. He said it happened the last time the
school year started without a new contract, saying the union told teachers not
to take papers home to grade and not go to school early to set up classrooms.
“The teachers have been extremely belligerent and extremely
child unfriendly,” Price said.
Union President Pat Clark declined to comment on the
contract negotiations.
“I can’t comment on that right now because we have a media
blackout,” Clark said.
Union members are under status quo now, he said, because the
contract expired June 30. Clark sees no problems with that.
“What I can say is we’re working toward an agreement and we
will work under status quo if we don’t have an agreement when school starts.
That’s really about all I can say at this time,” Clark said. “We’ll work under
status quo as we work toward a resolution.”
Clark became union president on July 1.
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.
U-CF teachers working under ‘status quo’ Read More »
Board approves liquor license transfer
Chadds Ford Township supervisors unanimously approved an
inter-municipal liquor license transfer for the Olive Branch Restaurant on
Route 202.
Approval followed a month-long continuance of a June hearing
into the matter. Supervisors’
Chairman Deborah Love continued the June 1 session to July 7 so Supervisors’
Vice Chairman George Thorpe could weigh in on the matter. Thorpe was absent
from the June hearing.
Several conditions were established before the vote. Liquor
sales may not exceed 50 percent of the gross income, food and alcohol service
are for the main building only, there is to be no outdoor music or
entertainment, there may be no outside advertizing for take out beer and the
restaurant hours are limited.
Liquor sales must stop at 1 a.m. Friday, Saturday and
Monday, and stop at midnight the rest of the week. Food sales may continue for
an additional hour.
The business must also actively monitor the parking lot for
open container violations and loitering.
Owner Brian McFadden bought the restaurant and the former
Antonio’s motel and is looking to re-establish the use of both businesses. The
12-room motel is now part of the Budget Host Inn franchise. He hired the
operators of the Olive Branch in West Chester to operate the restaurant.
McFadden testified last month that there are no abutting
properties so selling alcoholic beverages would pose no nuisance.
Also testifying last month was restaurant manager Marie
Cantatore. She said the restaurant has been operating as a BYOB and open until
9 p.m.
While the current restrictions limit service to the main
restaurant only, that could change later. Cantaore said they might eventually
want to serve food in a breezeway area between the restaurant and motel. There
was also talk of having a piano bar in the basement area and building a gazebo
for outdoor use.
The restaurant would have to file again for such uses,
according to township solicitor Hugh Donaghue.
Other business
• Supervisors approved a HARB recommendation for new signs at Bryn Mawr Trust.
Bryn Mawr is taking over First Keystone Bank next month. The new signs will be
same color and size, just showing the new name.
• The board also filled two new vacancies on the Planning
Commission. Replacing Bill Taylor and Gary Whelan are Peter Wells and Scott
Dickinson.
• Love set a new Chadds Ford record by concluding the
regular meeting within 35 minutes.
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.
Board approves liquor license transfer Read More »
Economic pugilism
In the red corner,
wearing government approved trunks, the master of economic disaster, the leader
of fiscal futility, John Maynard Keynes.
His much ignored
opponent, in the black corner, wearing freedom trunks, the prophet of profit
and loss, Friedrich Hayek.
If only the debate over economics were as simple as a boxing
match that most people could ignore without bearing the burden of ignorance.
That’s not the case, however.
Keynes and Hayek represent two fundamentally different views
on economics, with the Keynesian view of spend, spend, spend even when you
don’t have the money being the one adopted by most—if not all— modern day
governments, including that of the United States.
Every year in the United States, regardless of which party
controls Congress, regardless of which party the president belongs to, the debt
continues to increase.
When John Kennedy took office the national debt was $290
billion. The Johnson administration grew the debt to $345 billion. At the end
of the Nixon/Ford terms in office, the debt was $493 billion.
When Ronald Reagan took office the debt was $930 billion,
but when the great communicator left office the debt was more than $2.6
trillion.
By the end of fiscal year 2007, George W. Bush had increased
the debt from $5.8 trillion to $8.97 trillion. The debt now exceeds $14
trillion.
That debt is a burden on the people of the United States, a
burden on the children and the as yet unborn.
Keynesian economics and the policies that support the
concept are a failing proposition that depletes wealth through inflation and
taxation, by taxing and spending or borrowing and spending. They do nothing but
strengthen a government’s grip on its people, siphoning prosperity and stealing
liberties. Centralized power is contrary to a robust and dynamic economy.
Hayek, by contrast, was an advocate of the free market. His
classic The Road to Serfdom—published
in 1944— was an attack on centralized government and social planning.
As Thomas J. DiLorenzo wrote recently in a piece for the
Ludwig von Mises Institute:
“Hayek’s motivation for writing The Road to
Serfdom was the shocking speed at which so many Europeans — especially in
Germany — had simply forgotten all that they had learned over the centuries
about the virtues of a free society, the need for limitations on government
power, the dangers of centralized power, and the workings of capitalism as a
worldwide network of mutually advantageous exchange. It only took a couple of
decades of socialistic sloganeering to persuade Germans to abandon their
classical-liberal roots and embrace Big Government of the worst sort.”
Hayek’s work, ignored by politicians as Keynesians continue
to ridicule it, is getting a second life in the public mind, however. A few
weeks ago it was the number one seller on Amazon.com. Not bad for a 66-year-old
book that advocates a minority opinion—a libertarian opinion—from that of
officialdom.
It is the increased interest in Hayek that we find
interesting and heartening. It coincides with the increasing interest in
liberty and libertarian ideas. U.S. Rep Ron Paul from Texas, though a
Republican, is a solid small libertarian and his ideas are being met with
increased interest. Consider even U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined with the
congressman in a bid to get the Federal Reserve audited.
Consider further that even the word libertarian is getting
more use in the media. John Stossel and Judge Andrew Napolitano have their own
TV shows that bring libertarian ideas to the forefront of discussion and even
former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough dedicated a segment of his “Morning Joe”
program to libertarian ideas on June 30.
We hope the trend continues with libertarian thought
included in more TV news and commentary programs, so that the political
discussion becomes more realistic. The left/right only debate is false. There
is more than just a left wing or a right wing. There is more to economic
thought than just Keynesian economics.
Let’s hope the intellectual and philosophical heirs to Hayek
and other free market thinkers get a chance to verbally duke it out with the
statists in the mainstream media.
Police log for July 8
• State police reported that a Chadds Ford juvenile faces
harassment charges after he struck another in the face with an open hand. The
report said the victim received a black eye in the July 6 incident that
happened in Concord Township.
• A man police identified as Alfred Hilbert, 31, of Chadds
Ford, was arrested at Marstan’s Furniture on Route 202 on a variety of drug
charges. A police report said Hilbert was arrested about 5:45 p.m. on July 2
after he was found to possess heroin, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Police
had been called to the seen because of a report of loitering. Hilbert, the
report said fit the description of the loiterer.
• Topp’s Pub on Route 202 in Concord Township was the seen
of a July 2 burglary. A police report said someone broke into the bar between 9
and 9:45 a.m. and stole an unknown amount of money from the jukebox and $100
from a cash tray. Police are continuing the investigation.
• State police troopers from Troop K, Media, investigated
thefts from four vehicles at Painter’s Crossing shopping center on June 30.
Items reported stolen include three purses, several credit cards, approximately
$500 in cash, a blank check, two cell phones, a payroll check, an iPod, gym
shorts and shirts. Three of the four vehicles were locked and had alarms but
none of the alarms sounded, the police report said. Police said forced entry
was used and the three locked cars wound up with damaged windows. The report
said the incidents happened between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m.
• Police reported another theft from vehicle incident, this
one from Topps Pub on Route 202 in Concord Township. A police report said a car
belonging to a 26-year-old Chadds Ford woman was broken into and $500 worth of
stereo equipment was stolen. The theft happened sometime between 3 and 6 a.m.
on June 30, the report said.
Police log for July 8 Read More »