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Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 150, No. 41
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Chew and Giovan crowned Homecoming king and queen
Photo by Steven Hoffman
Newark Life Magazine
Oxford Borough officials want Lennex to resign By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
INSIDE
Brendan Chew and Natalie Giovan were chosen as the Homecoming King and Queen at halftime of the football game on Oct. 7. Please see pages 10A and 11A for coverage of Oxford's Homecoming activities.
Citing “a number of misrepresentations” and “a blatant lack of communication” regarding the Oxford Area Sewer Authority’s dire financial situation, Oxford Borough officials are calling for the ouster of Edward Lennex, the executive director of the Oxford Area Sewer Authority. At Monday night’s Oxford Borough Council meeting, council president Ron Hershey read from a prepared statement outlining some of the issues that borough officials and residents have with the Oxford Area Sewer Authority’s operations. The message was
About halfway through the London Grove Board of Supervisors’ Oct. 5 meeting, the board gave approval to the design of a new roof Unionville tops Great at the township-owned Valley...8A Inniscrone Golf Course – not to exceed $2,500. Later on, the board agreed to table a decision on whether or not to upgrade the paving of cart paths on the course, until next spring. The golf course appeared on the agenda once more, and this time it was a decision that will influence the financial picture of where the course will be headed in the next five years. The township approved Oxford Hornets football at a request by the Heathland Homecoming...11A
Hospitality Group, the course’s management company, to modify its five-year contract with the township to include an amendment that states that if an annual audit detrmines that the course has endured a financial loss for the preceding year, that Heathland will pay the township 50 percent of the loss, up to a maximum amount of $10,000, and that the township will be responsible for paying the remainder of the loss to Heathland within 30 days of the audit. It’s a change to a five-year contract that the township signed with Heathland when it came on board as the management team of the course in 2011. The contract expires on Dec. 31, 2017.
“Right now, for whatever the loss is after $10,000, we have to absorb it,” said board chairman Richard Scott-Harper. “One of the things we explored was to incentivize Heathland to make a profit, and the answer, legally, is ‘No.’ We can’t give them a percentage of the profit, or a bonus. It’s illegal to do that. This was the first step in trying to balance the scales in an existing agreement.” A second amendment to the agreement, also agreed to by the supervisors, states that for every year of the Heathland contract, Heathland wil use an independent auditor to conduct an audit of Healthland’s books and records regarding its management of
Inniscrone. In other township news, the board received an updated building progress report, updated construction schedule and site work costs for the Department of Public Works’ new maintenance building on Rose Hill Road, that is expected to have an official groundbreaking ceremony later in October. The board recommended to public works director Shane Kinsey that the predominant color of the building should be neutral, and a final color selection is expected to be decided soon. Kinsey also said the department announced the retirement of two long-time employees – Wayne Barker, who spent for 38 years working for the township;
Andy Dinniman: A senator battles for November By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
INDEX Opinion........................7A Calendar of Events.....3B Obituaries...................5B Classifieds..................7B
© 2007 The Chester County Press
clear: Local officials felt blindsided by the state of the Sewer Authority’s financial situation, and the leadership of the Sewer Authority has fallen short of reasonable expectations. The Sewer Authority is managed by an eight-member volunteer board. Lennex is the highest-ranking paid administrator, and is in charge of the day-to-day operations. “Our residents have lost confidence in the current leadership, and specifically executive director Ed Lennex,” Hershey read from the statement, which concluded with a call for the Oxford Area Sewer Authority Board to demand Continued on Page 3A
London Grove tweaks agreement with Inniscrone management team By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
New mural completed in Oxford...1B
60 Cents
Follow the political career of State Sen. Andy Dinniman, and you will find a man of gentle contradictions. He is the living embodiment of the quote made famous by former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who said that while politicians may campaign in poetry, they govern in prose. Watch him speak; often, he will close his eyes and smile, as if searching through his mind’s dog-eared thesaurus for the perfect words. Watch him at a public event, and he morphs into everyone’s favorite uncle. He reads stories to schoolchildren. He milks cows at the Unionville Fair. And yet, he also carries the ferocity of a pugilist, both in Chester County and in Harrisburg. He is unafraid to roll up his
and Dwight “Ike” Myers, who spent 16 years with the township. Kinsey said that the department has created a new superintendent position that will be filled by Mark Vitanza to the role of public works superintendent. Vitanza previously worked for Kennett Township and West Bradford Township. Joey Swift was also hired to join the department. The board approved both appointments. David B. Arscott, assistant director of the Stroud Water Research Center, will present the ecological findings of the two water monitoring systems the township recently purchased, at the next board meeting on Nov. Continued on Page 3A
Kennett librarian heads for peace By Uncle Irvin
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
State Sen. Andy Dinniman, with J.M. Herr and Ed Herr of Herr Foods and Karen Simmons, president and CEO of the Chester County Community Association.
sleeves in a fight to hold back the Artesian Water Company from activating a Landenberg well. He enacted tough legislation to fight human trafficking and Lyme
disease in Pennsylvania, and authored Pet Protection from Domestic Abuse, which calls for strengthening the state’s animal cruelty law to increase the
penalty when animal abuse is committed in a domesticviolence situation. For the more than 30 years he has served as a Continued on Page 3A
The constant friction regarding the Kennett Library (a.k.a. The Bayard Taylor Library) has taken a toll on very competent head librarian Donna Murray. Murray left in the middle of September and the library board, led by Tom Swett, has made no public announcement, even though they have initiated a search for a replacement. It is no wonder that Murray fled. As she told Uncle Irvin many times, she just wanted to be a professional librarian, not a Continued on Page 3A