Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 152, No. 34
INSIDE
Oxford Borough hires a new police chief By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
Oxford Borough has hired Sam Iacono, a police lieutenant with the West Chester Volunteers clean up graf- Borough Police Department, as the new police chief. He fiti in Crossan Park...4A will officially begin leading Oxford’s police department on Sept. 10 after borough council unanimously approved the hiring during its meeting on Monday night. Iacono brings 32 years of experience with him to the new position. Oxford Borough Mayor Lorraine Bell said that Iacono worked his way up through the ranks 1723 Vineyards opens a new tasting room...1B
60 Cents
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
with the West Chester Police Department, serving as a patrol officer, sergeant, and lieutenant. He was involved in all aspects of community policing—ranging from patrol operations and criminal investigations to police training and working on the narcotics division. In addition to his extensive professional experience, Iacono is also already familiar with Oxford—he is a longtime resident of the Oxford area. “Our community is fortunate to have such an experienced leader coming to the Oxford Police Continued on Page 2A
Local grapes get a new home
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
The 11 acres that make up the 1723 Vineyards in Landenberg and Kemblesville now have a new partner – a tasting room that offers spectacular views and a comfortable spot to enjoy a wide variety of locally made wines. For a complete story, see Page 1B.
Flying Field air show Plans for Brown Derby property takes to the skies unveiled in New Garden
By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
Members Show at Oxford Arts Alliance...1B
INDEX Opinion........................7A Obituaries...................3B Calendar of Events......5B Classifieds..................6B
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
Kyle Krow from Reading sits in the cockpit of a 1939 Bucker Jungmeister, one of several antique aircraft on display at the annual Festival of Flight air show, held last weekend at the New Garden Flying Field.
scheduled for Aug. 18 and 19, and although the skies let loose a torrential The New Garden Flying and steady downpour last Field’s annual Festival of Sunday, they graciously Flight had originally been opened up the day before,
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By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
© 2007 The Chester County Press
for a full day of aerobatics and demonstration. From one end of the flying field to the other, on tarmacs, in hangars and in Continued on Page 2A
The resurgent Village of Toughkenamon, whose economic spirits have been lifted in the past year with new businesses and bold ideas, is primed to add another notch to its transformation with the planned construction of new town homes on the site of the now-closed Brown Derby at 1470 West Baltimore Pike. In a presentation before the board, Geoffrey Bosley, vice president and chief financial officer of LGB Properties – a Kennett Square-based real estate management and renovation firm – spelled out the company’s plans to develop eight to ten town homes on the rear of the four-parcel, 1.35-acre property, which
borders Church Street. Each town home will be estimated at $225,000 each, and will include three bedrooms and a one-car garage per unit. Bosley said that LGB Properties also has plans to re-develop the restaurant building, which include the construction of up to nine two-bedroom apartments and a small take-out restaurant or a small office space. At the moment, the company has the Brown Derby property under agreement, and hopes to finalize its sale in a few weeks. Construction, Bosley said, could begin as early as the fall. “We think that the property is in need of a re-freshening and a makeover, and [present] a different idea than Continued on Page 6A
Decision time? Oxford Borough Council held an extended meeting on Monday night to discuss the parking garage project. With bids on the project now set to expire in October, borough council could soon take a significant vote on the project By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer The Aug. 20 Oxford Borough Council meeting started early and ended late as the community continues to grapple with the proposed multi-modal transportation center project. A standing-roomonly crowd gathered in the meeting room of the
Oxford Area Senior Center on Locust Street for the start of the meeting at 6 p.m. The project has dominated the discussions at countless council meetings during the past two years, and council decided to set aside an additional time period to discuss it with residents as the time for a significant decision draws near. The Aug. 20 meeting
began with borough manager Brian Hoover offering a brief recap of the project up to this point. Hoover explained that when the borough received the bids for the project in June, the lowest bid came from CPS Construction, and the amount of the bid was slightly more than $7.3 million. However, that lowest base bid included about $404,000 in build-
ing permit fees. Since the borough is the developer in this case, those fees can be waived, which would reduce the base bid to about $6.9 million. For most of the last three years, the borough has been applying for funding from state and county sources, and has been enormously successful in the effort. Hoover explained that the borough
has a total of approximately $4,618,077 in funding already secured, which is more than 60 percent of the project’s costs. That figure includes grants from state and county sources, as well as more than $1 million that the borough was gifted for a new borough administration building. A new administration building is included as part of Continued on Page 3A
Residents address U-CF School Board about facilities plan By John Chambless Staff Writer A recently announced proposal to upgrade the outdoor athletic facilities at Unionville High School brought several people to the Aug. 20 meeting of the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board. During public comment at the meeting, former school board member Holly Manzone told the board, “There’s a lot of buzz around the community
about this outdoor facilities plan. … We we have this public survey about the outdoor facilities, and the survey pretty much shows that everything’s OK. About 60 percent of people had a positive opinion of the traffic flow, about 50 percent thought the recreational facilities are adequate. Overall, people seemed pretty content with the way things are. Then we hear that you’re thinking about spending $10 million to improve it. It just seems
this is something that we don’t need to do – why is it being pursued? Why not just drop it and move on? There are a lot of people in this district who prefer that you’d focus on academics, rather than trying to find ways to justify sports things, particularly for outside groups.” Board member Gregg Lindner added, “I just want to state for the record that there was no $10 million proposal last week, or the week before that, or this
week.” Speaking in favor of some aspects of the proposal was Ruth Russell, who has been an assistant tennis coach at the high school for the past decade. “Having six tennis courts for a varsity tennis team is like being handicapped. It impacts how long our matches go,” she said. “Varsity tennis is a seven-court sport. We don’t have enough courts to finish a varsity match within daylight hours, let alone sometimes even allowing
our JV teams to play. … We have high quality tennis teams. This would be a good time to bring us up to a varsity level, and while you’re at it, add the eighth court, because it allows the JV team to rotate in and finish matches. As a taxpapyer, I would highly support moving the tennis courts to a place where we can finaly play a full varsity match.” Echoing that support was Janet Johnston, who has Continued on Page 3A