Unionville-Chadds Ford School District celebrated its 100 years in service with a brief parade Friday. The parade started where the district began in 1923, at Unionville Elementary School, and made its way down to the high school football field before the start of the homecoming game.
Here’s the parade in photos.
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Beth Stefanide-Miscichowski, running for Delaware County District Attorney, took aim at the incumbent DA, Democrat Jack Stollsteimer when she spoke to the Chadds Ford Republican Party Saturday. She said crime in the county is up more than 25 percent.
“Why am I running? Because the policies that have been enacted by this district attorney are not working. Delaware County Prison has its lowest population in probably 25 years, and that’s because there is a policy in play to empty the prison and let repeat violent offenders back out on the street where they have been committing more dangerous crimes. They’re actually escalating in their behaviors. They’re escalating because they know this district attorney [Stollsteimer] will not enact consequences for their behavior.”
In a brief interview after she spoke, Stefanide-Miscichowski, who’s been an attorney for almost 30 years, repeated her concern about rising crime in the county and what she called the “coordinate de-incarceration efforts,” meaning low bail or no bail, and the “prosecutorial nullification where we are not prosecuting entire classes of crime.”
When reminded that Stollsteimer held a recent press conference where he said shoplifting will be prosecuted to the fullest, Stefanide-Miscichowski said he did that because she already had two news articles criticizing him for not prosecuting petty theft or break-ins of cars, or other low-level crimes.
Other candidates addressing the local GOP were Jeff Jones, running for Delaware County Council, Dawn Getty Sutphin running for Judge of Common Pleas, and Brian Lamb, from Pennsbury Township running for a seat on the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board.
Jones told the Chadds Ford Republicans “We’re looking down the barrel of a 35 percent tax increase in the county. What’s important to realize is that it’s just poor fiscal management.”
He mentioned several municipalities, Chester, Upper Darby, and the Chester-Upland School District having major financial issues including bankruptcy and receivership issues.
“I think there is, lurking in the background, some of these similar issues across the county that [people] aren’t aware of,” Jones said. “So, having a voice on Council that is opposite of the five Democrats that are currently there, starts to create an infrastructure that will support, uncover, and work with our municipalities across the county to keep the quality of our lives strong. This isn’t a battle about Republicans and Democrats. This is a battle for the quality of life in Delaware County.”
After his address, Jones said his primary issues are public service and taxes.
“Taxes are high and are going up in all phases: municipal taxes, school taxes, and county taxes. I want to control that. I don’t want to tax our families out of Delaware County.”
He said his public service for all is actually a trust issue. He said people need to think that elected officials are in office to serve everyone, not just a few people, not just to drive an agenda that helps some but not others.
In her bid for Judge of Common Pleas, Dawn Getty Sutphin said repeatedly that she is bothered by judges who legislate from the bench. She’s been a lawyer for 34 years and, for the last 10, she’s been with the Public Defenders’ Office.
“I know what it takes to run a courtroom. If you want a judge that is not going to legislate from the bench, a judge that is going to disallow politics in the courtroom, then you need to vote for me,” she said. “I believe in nonpartisan justice. I believe in applying the law as it’s drafted regardless of my personal views. And I believe in treating everyone with integrity and respect.”
She later repeated that her focus is “making sure that everyone has fair, unbiased and nonpartisan trials.”
Brian Lamb is running to be one of the school board directors from Region C which includes Chadds Ford and Pennsbury townships. As is so often the case, Lamb said he’s running because he has kids going to school in the district and moved into the district because of the schools.
“Since the time we moved in [2019] the academic performance has gone down and the taxes have gone up,” he said. “So, I’m running to reverse that trend.”
Lamb said he has no political credits to rely on, but that he’s a father, chemical engineer, and a Little League coach. At which point he donned a KAU baseball cap and spoke about how he motivates players and hoped that would help motivate voters. He left the meeting early because he had to coach his team in a ballgame.
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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What if I were more of a mystic? Would my religious experience be something I physically feel as some sort of spiritual shift from the everyday world? I know I am too much in my head and too much in the details of life to be a mystic, but I do wonder what it might be like to have more of the mystical in my life.
Every year, on one particular holiday, I try hard to connect spiritually by letting go and aiming for unbridled joy. That holiday is Simchat Torah, the holiday commemorating the completing and starting again of the reading of the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah. Simchat Torah translates to Joy of Torah and happens to be today. As I wrote here in 2020, I go a little wild, not only dancing but also throwing my children in the air as part of that dancing. I have also partaken of the alcoholic drinks served on the holiday. While both may have pushed worries or sorrows from my mind, I have to admit that both leave my body aching later.
This year, I will do it all again. Will I feel mystical? Not likely. This year, though, I am hopeful that I will look like a mystic. I hope that others wonder what propels my joyous display. I hope that others see in my behavior the contrast between the decorum of regular services and the party atmosphere of Simchat Torah. I hope to show that there can be a deeper spiritual connection.
Elie Weisel tells the story of Jews in a concentration camp unable to celebrate Simchat Torah because they did not have a Torah scroll. In his telling, one man picks up a child and says, “This will be our Torah!” and begins dancing. When I dance with and throw my children, I do think of them as Torah scrolls. I think of how children retain much of their essence even as they appear different every year. I think of children as both easy to read and unfathomable. And I love the idea that they are Scripture.
When I say that I would like to feel more of a mystic, I am also thinking about a Simchat Torah ritual related to children. Only on Simchat Torah do we call children up to the Torah for an honor; at all other times of the year, those being called up have to have attained Jewish adulthood (bar/bat/b. mitzvah). On Simchat Torah, after every adult has been given an honor, the children are asked to come together, often under a canopy, to be led by an adult in reciting the blessings for a Torah honor. After their honor, many recite Jacob’s blessing to Joseph’s sons as a blessing for the youth. It is a moment that breaks through the rest of the Torah reading to include those least likely to be following along. In that ritual breaking, I find a blessing for all of us, child and adult: Torah is not only shared by all of us, it is also shared through us.
Again, I don’t know if I will feel unbridled joy and either escape the mundane or free myself of its concerns. I do sense, though, that I–and anyone open to it–might feel that there is something more: something perhaps innocent like a child, or ecstatic like a dancer, or spiritual like a mystic. The key, it seems to me, is to feel, to feel the possibility, and to feel that possibility as a reality. This year, I’m feeling it.
Rabbi Jeremy Winaker is the executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hillel Network, responsible for West Chester University, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and other area colleges. He is the former head of school at the Albert Einstein Academy in Wilmington and was the senior Jewish educator at the Kristol Hillel Center at the University of Delaware for four years. Rabbi Winaker lives in Delaware with his wife and three children.
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