Monday, September 13, 2004

Board of Supervisors Meeting 9/2/2004 PART 2

The S.R.O. meeting on 9/2/04 was exciting. After the workshop discussion (see Part 1), the regular meeting began. During the managers' reports section, a resident asked why the township trash bills included an insert about grass. Yes, we all got one... an image of a spiked and bejeweled young person with a lawn mower... double meaning it would seem. Why instead of learning the reasons for the new rate (for trash collection), residents were instead informed about grass clippings (in the late summer) and not about leaves? Kichline said that she downloaded the image from the PA website and that although the office staff started to stuff envelopes with a letter of explanation, she had the letters removed and the grass thing inserted in its place. Odd.

The first resident to speak during the Comments session got everyone's attention. She had spent several weeks researching the investigation of the township employees' GSA violations and had many questions to ask the BoS. She wondered particularly why not all of the violators were named. She also wondered what the price tag of the investigation (to the township) was. She requested that the BoS respond next meeting or at a mutually agreed time. There was applause when she was done.

During her presentation the presence of six (?) uniformed police was noticed. Former Supervisor, Stan Kocher, asked what they were doing there... he'd never seen that before. Chief Dorney said that he didn't know which officers were there and maybe they were there for support... a new detective was being named and a new officer hired. He didn't know if they were ON or OFF duty. Interesting for sure.

The next voice from the audience, asked about the association of the Forks Youth Athletic Association with the beer tent at the 250th. Dean Turner (PC and 250th planner) explained as best he could that this was legal and that the FYAA had its permit and that all precautions would be taken to keep people from drinking too much and to keep kids away. He said that no "youth" would be working the beer tent. MADD has objected (via email directly to the Supervisors) to the word Youth in the group's name... if it's going to be selling beer.

This resident also asked why the township was not requiring sink hole studies for all new developments. The BoS (Ackerman?) explained that the sinkholes are known to be here and that spending money to study them would be a waste.

Projects were on the table too... Towne Center at Sullivan Trail was advised to put in a landscape buffer on the Jackson Farm side. Countryside Estates Section 2 was there for Preliminary Major... whatever that is... and the new officer, Terrie Feinberg was introduced... and the promotion of Philomena Sandt to detective was approved. T. Feinberg was in attendance, P. Sandt was not... maybe the six uniforms were there to stand in for her?

This week's meeting (9/16/04) should be interesting.

1 comment:

It's a FAC said...

Thank you for posting to the F.A.C. blog. Your comments are welcome here for sure. That's what this blog is all about, Forks residents' opinions. I must take issue with the tie-in you made to the past township events as there was no intention in the reporting to either make that correlation nor to do any other thing except to note that it seemed odd, given the residents' presentations.

In recent history of the US (and lots of other countries too), a uniformed police presence at a public forum was suspect. It generally meant crowd control. It didn't feel right either night here in Forks. It felt like there was a possible intent to intimidate particular speakers. Their presence was reported. It happened. They were there. It caused some degree of consternation among others attendees too and was posed as a question to the Supervisors. It was worth reporting.

As to posting a police officer at the door, well, maybe Forks is no longer part of the US and we just don't know it yet? I guess we are a rowdy bunch. Again, thank you for participating!