Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas Volume 149, No. 36
INSIDE
Three arrested for home burglaries By John Chambless Staff Writer
Kendall residents write a book about their new lives.........................1B
60 Cents
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Two men from Landenberg and a woman from Avondale have been charged in burglaries that netted them jewelry, electronics and guns that they then sold or traded for drugs in Wilmington, Del.
Hunter Zunino
New Garden Township Police said they responded to a burglary on Aug. 15 at a home in the 300 block of Bucktoe Road in Avondale. The homeowners said they returned from vacation to find the front door unlocked and an upstairs bedroom door forced open. Stolen items included jewelry and five handguns.
Benjamin DeRitter
Tyler Snyder
‘We’re down to a pretty short list’
Lamborn Hunt projects finally nearing completion
Investigators were told by the homeowners that their daughter’s boyfriend, Tyler Snyder, 24, of Landenberg, had stolen items from the home in the past. During an interview, the daughter, Hunter Zunino, 18, of Avondale, said she had dated Snyder for about a year, and that while her parents were away, Snyder had spent the night at the home. Police learned that Snyder and his friend, Benjamin DeRitter, 19, of Landenberg, had traveled to Wilmington, Del., to buy drugs with the proceeds from the stolen property. On Aug. 16, police interviewed Continued on Page 2A
photo by Carla Lucas
The 30th annual Kennett Square Mushroom Festival will be held from Sept. 11 to 13, filling the downtown with thousands of visitors, a parade, a car show, mushrooms of every variety, a children’s entertainment stage, live music, celebrity chef appearances, the National Fried Mushroom Eating Contest, a Kennett Symphony concert, the Mushroom Run and Fun Walk, and lots more. Visit www.mushroomfestival. org for all the details.
Pothole problems may have local solution
East Marlborough studies PennDOT proposal to allow township crews to patch state roads By John Chambless Staff Writer
Darryl Strawberry will share his tough life lessons...9A
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
Long-delayed cosmetic projects in the Lamborn Hunt development in London Grove Township are being completed.
By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
Kennett Square sculptor Stan Smokler spotlighted at Delaware Art Museum...4B
INDEX Calendar of Events............2B Opinion.............................7A Obituaries.........................8A Classified..........................8B Police Blotter.....................7B
London Grove Township engineer Ron Ragan told the township’s board of supervisors at the Sept. 2 meeting that nearly all of the remaining -- and long-delayed -- punch-list projects in the Lamborn Hunt development have been completed, or are about to be. Continued on Page 3A
Penn board seeks public forum regarding pipeline By Nancy Johnson Correspondent At the Sept. 2 meeting, the Penn Township Board of Supervisors discussed the upgrades to the Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company’s pipelines that run through Penn Township and said township residents will have an opportunity to learn more about how the upgrades might affect them. The board is determining a date and location for a public forum. Karen Versuk, the township’s operations officer, said, “We need to inform our public so if they are approached for an
easement, they know what the value is. They ought to pay for what they are taking from you. This [pipeline] does not benefit this community one iota. It only provides cheaper energy for some people a couple hundred miles from here.” Now that the demolition work on the Red Rose Inn is complete, one of the next steps will be re-roofing the building. The supervisors have been considering either a metal roof or cedar shake shingles. “The building is unique, and I personally feel it should have cedar shake roof, and the dormers in front should Continued on Page 5A
The age-old problem of potholes on state-owned roads may finally be addressed if East Marlborough Township adopts a new proposal from PennDOT. The Board of Supervisors examined the proposal, which would allow individual townships to address road maintenance issues that the state-run department has not had time or manpower to address. Up to this point, local crews were not allowed to fix problems on roads that are under PennDOT jurisdiction. Township manager Jane Laslo led the discussion at the board’s Sept. 1 meeting. “Those of you who pay close
attention to which are township roads and which are state-maintained roads know that there are no potholes in townshipmaintained roads, but there are significant potholes in many of the state roads,” she said. “The most difficult one in this area is Route 926, where the potholes are really quite bad. PennDOT has come up with this new plan to encourage local municipalities to be paid for temporary repairs on state roads. “The primary reason I would recommend doing it, even though it’s a lot of work for our crew, is that we get a lot of complaints. Many people have had to replace a tire this year because of potholes on PennDOT roads,” Laslo said. Under the plan, PennDOT
© 2007 The Chester County Press
The Avon Grove School Board recently authorized district officials to move forward with negotiations to sell the districtowned wastewater treatment plant to Aqua Wastewater, Inc. The district sought requests for proposals from companies interested in purchasing the wastewater treatment plant
early in 2015. The only company to submit a proposal was Aqua Wastewater, Inc. The company provides water and wastewater services to approximately 3 million people in eight states. District superintendent Dr. Christopher Marchese emphasized that the board is only approving the proposal to allow the district to engage in negotiations, not the final contract
Continued on Page 4A
Penn promises park Supervisors reach deal to purchase land for active park By Nancy Johnson Correspondent “It’s a done deal!” said Curtis Mason by phone on Sept. 4. “Penn is going to have its own field of dreams.” For months, Penn Township’s Board of Supervisors and township solicitor Sam McMichael have been negotiating with Conard-Pyle (Star Roses) to purchase a 43-acre tract which sits along Jennersville Road near the Route 1 Bypass. Settlement is tentatively scheduled by the end of the month. “It’s an incredible location,” Mason said. “Easy access, with the bypass right there, and it abuts agricultural land, not residential.” He explained that in seeking a location for an active park, it was very important that the site be appropriate for lighted fields. “You can’t have baseball fields without lights,” he said. “You won’t be able to get enough use out of them just in the daylight hours.” While six to eight playing fields will be an important part of the park, there will be plenty of room for other activities, including walking and biking. “I’ve been trying for 15 years to buy that piece of property,” Mason said. “Now we can fulfill a promise we made to the kids of this township.”
Avon Grove School District moves closer to selling wastewater treatment plant By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
would reimburse $342 per ton of blacktop when township crews perform the patching work. The payment is intended to cover the costs of materials and labor, but more details are needed, Laslo said. “We would do temporary patching of the potholes for the winter season,” Laslo said. “We don’t take over all the maintenance on state roads, we don’t take on the storm water, we won’t be plowing Route 1. We do already have an agreement with PennDOT to plow Route 842 and 926 and 162. We already maintain them in respect to plowing and de-icing, so this would be an extra service. It may turn out to be too much work for us, but it seems to me
itself. The board voted 7-0 in favor of the motion so negotiations will continue. Business manager Daniel Carsley said that Aqua Wastewater, Inc. has offered to pay $100,000 for the sewage treatment plant, with plans to put an additional $150,000 of work into it to comply with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulations. Once the wastewater
system is sold, the district will likely pay about $75,000 annually for connecting to the system. However, the district would no longer have the financial obligations to operate and maintain the plant. Carsley said that the wastewater treatment system has sufficient capacity to meet the district’s needs into the future, and Aqua Wastewater, Continued on Page 2A
Kennett Township trumps Trump By Uncle Irvin Being rich -- filthy rich -- is a daily topic in the American media. Donald Trump is bragging about being the richest on the planet. No one is arguing with him. Last week, the richest municipality under 10,000 population unveiled its balance sheet. Even with higher-than-expected spending on the police problem, Kennett Township continues to accumulate more money than they would need to run the township forever just on its half-percent share of the earned income tax. They easily and responsibly could cut the property tax to zero. They could even give taxpayers back some of their past taxes. Kennett Township collects $2 for every $1 it spends. As of June 30, Kennett Township had $7.75 million in its general fund, with $800,000 needed to fund the rest of 2015. As of June 30, Kennett Township had Continued on Page 4A