The Chadds Ford Business Association is calling it quits at the end of the year. CFBA President Joe Lafferty made the announcement at the group’s final meeting held at Antica on Dec. 12.
“We are shutting down the association at the end of the year,” Lafferty said. “It’s unfortunate, bittersweet, and Mary [Marines, the CFBA secretary, and the only other board member] and I got to a point where we felt it was time to shut it down.
Lafferty thanked several people for trying to help out and keep things going, but interest had waned.
“I think we ran into several challenges that plagued us over the last several years. Attendance [at meetings] was always an issue. Also, there were a lot of important people on the board who stepped down as well,” he said. Lafferty added that money had become an issue with the association being short of funds.
Those challenges included finding new board members and finding new business owners who were interested in joining the CFBA. While he never used words such as “disappointing” or disappointed, he did express mixed feelings that reflected such emotion.
“My gut was that I wanted to do this forever, but my gut was that we couldn’t do it any longer.”
Marines said pretty much the same as Lafferty. She said they wanted to expand “but the reality is, we need to shut down.” There wasn’t enough interest.
The CFBA officially launched in 1995 but interest in having such a group began in 1993. According to Jim Leader, of Leader Sunoco and a past CFBA president, the association got started because of PennDOT and the township.
He said a handful of business owners — himself, Emily Myers, Rob King, and Paul Geary — got together in an attempt to stop PennDOT from putting in a concrete barrier in the middle of Route 1 the length of Chadds Ford Township. He said they thought having a group talking to PennDOT would have been a stronger presentation than simply having businesses arguing independently against the idea.
Leader also said the township government at the time was strongly antibusiness and a business organization could better represent businesses in general when it came to local government action.
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.
