Earlier this month, the Unionville-Chads Ford School Board unanimously approved amendments to its public complaint policy. This is the formal school policy that allows residents and parents to submit formal complaints about personnel and policy, and that used to require senior school officials to meet and confer with the complainant as part of the formal dispute resolution process. The former policy also required that complaints…
This year marks my 25th year of being an active resident and citizen of Chadds Ford. That’s long enough to remember the township’s extensive negotiations with Toll Brothers over the development of the Sunset Hill Girl Scouts Camp. Residents attended meetings, wrote letters, and made their opinions known on every issue imaginable, such as where the ingress and egress would be, what the lot size…
Some readers may recall, or at least know of, the old Broadway musical Damn Yankees. In the show is a musical number “Whatever Lola Wants,” performed in the movie version of the show by dancer, singer, and actress Gwen Verdon. The thought of some people always getting what they want started coming to mind in the fall after hearing Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Superintendent John…
Regarding your recent article, “Sanville Defends Recommendation,” I think Mr. Stookey raises some common sense objections to the project’s financial analysis prepared by the school district. The school board should exercise its duty to the community and think independently of the school administration. To lay to rest any doubts, the board should postpone its vote on an RFP and adopt Mr. Stookey’s suggestion to engage…
Stop the train! Unionville-Chadds Ford School District continues its headlong rush to approve a $120 million outlay for a new middle school next month, despite a financial analysis that remains deficient. Chadds Ford Live did an excellent job of reporting the concerns I expressed about the district’s faulty numbers at the Jan. 6 school board meeting. Some progress has been made in addressing them, but…
School Superintendent John Sanville wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a new, $120 million middle school. District residents, with decades of experience in finance, have questioned whether the financial analysis underlying Sanville’s recommendation is “incomplete and misleading.” Based on my experience, as a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience and a parent who has been engaged in a multi-year battle with the…
I have advocated for improvements to veteran healthcare in the past decade. U.S. Sen. Toomey’s office was abysmal, but Sen. Casey’s office was fantastic. Casey’s office was always supportive and proactive on the issue, trying to work across the aisle to address the invisible wounds of toxic exposures. With his support and leadership, we finally passed the largest veterans healthcare bill in decades, the PACT…
Let’s start with a story or two. Running up to the 2012 election, a very liberal woman whom I’ve known for a long time said something had to be done about all those nasty guns that kill people. I told her that if she and her fellow Democrats don’t like the Second Amendment, they should work to have it repealed. She didn’t like that idea…
With election day a week away, signs for both Democratic and Republican candidates have either been vandalized or stolen throughout Chadds Ford on a regular basis. Freedom of speech and expression are the bedrock of our democratic republic. We are all free to support our candidates by placing lawn signs on our property within the guidelines of the Chadds Ford Township Code. Defacing or removing…
I believe that a thoughtful consideration of the facts, the truth, will convince all but the most blinded MAGA adherents that they cannot vote for Trump and must vote for Harris, even if they have some genuine policy concerns. I am and have been a registered independent voter, not a Democrat. Trump supporters have genuine grievances and justified fears. The economic policies of the last…
I read with interest, the three articles about UCFSD School Buildings. While they indicated that people have called attention to the limitations of the middle school building for years, it was in June that a study was commissioned, with a vote by the board to take place in seven to eight months. Other columns indicated the need for work in three of the elementary schools.…