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Chester CountyPRESS
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Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 153, No. 52
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
$1.00
Overflow audience demands answers in Kennett Township investigation Several say supervisors showed complete lack of oversight and irresponsibility, and called on them to resign their posts By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer During a three-hour and 45-minute public meeting with a tenor that fluctuated from factual and informative to hostile and confrontational, an estimated audience of more than 500 residents, officials and stakeholders who crowded the Red Clay Room in Kennett Square on Dec. 17 to hear the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors navigate through the journey of how former township manager Lisa Moore allegedly stole $3.2 million in township funds since 2013. While the vast majority
of those in attendance displayed reserve and respect for the proceedings, the meeting was repeatedly interrupted by a group of about two dozen who loudly called for the resignation of board chairman Scudder Stevens, and supervisors Dr. Richard Leff and Whitney Hoffman, and accused them of displaying an egregious lack of oversight and poor accountability in allowing Moore’s activities to go unchecked for so long. Against this verbal barrage, Stevens, Leff and Hoffman painted a picture of Moore as both a trusted employee and a lone culprit who was complicit in a mountain of deception
that violated township safeguards and deceived her colleagues, township officials, outside service vendors, state and township auditors and the township’s oversight committee – from the time she assumed the title of township manager in 2010 to the time of her dismissal in May of this year. “As the township supervisors on whose watch this happened, we realize that the buck stops here,” Stevens said. “It is our job to do everything possible to fix this mess, and this meeting tonight is just one part of the rebuilding process that began eight months Continued on Page 2A
Photo by Chris Barber
Lucy Meadowcroft is helped by her mother, Shelley Meadowcroft, as she lays a wreath in the cemetery.
Departed veterans honored at Wreaths Across America ceremony By Chris Barber Contributing Writer
Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
An overflow audience of more than 500 attended a public meeting hosted by the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors on Dec. 17 that attempted to inform the public about the recently completed investigation involving former township manager Lisa Moore’s alleged embezzlement of more than $3.2 million from the township.
Parking garage opens in Oxford...4A
Oxford Police Department teams up to brighten the holidays for local families Police officers in Oxford have a tradition of handing out bikes or toys to local children. This year, they received a boost from local businesses and the Oxford Area Chamber of Commerce By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer The Oxford Borough Police Department once again collected and distributed toys to families in Oxford. This year, the police officers’ efforts to brighten the holidays for
Local students spread holiday cheer through giving...1B
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries.................2B Calendar of Events.....6B
number of years. For a few years, bikes were collected and distributed to youngsters. This holiday season, the police department set up a collection box where new, unwrapped toys for boys and girls up to the age of 16 could be dropped off. Continued on Page 4A
By Chris Barber Contributing Writer London Grove Township two new supervisors, no new taxes and a plentiful supply of road salt. The board passed a 2020 budget of $3,481,928 at its November meeting. There are no new taxes included in the spending plan. Jacqui Guenther, the director of finance and human resources, said that
in the more than five years she has been on the job in London Grove, the township has held the line on taxes. “And I believe it goes back years before that,” she said. The big income items for next year (rounded off to tens of thousands) are earned income tax at $1.87 million, real estate taxes at $639.5 thousand and fees from SECCRA the landfill for $544.5 thousand. The major expenses are
CABINET FACTORY
3460 Naamans Rd, Wilmington, DE 19810
Continued on Page 2A
‘Please continue to honor your brother’
A community rallies in support of well artist By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
London Grove presents balanced budget with no new taxes
Classifieds...........4B-5B is moving into 2020 with
© 2007 The Chester County Press
children in the area were boosted by the Oxford Area Chamber of Commerce and many local businesses. Oxford Borough police officer Shakira Greer explained that police officers in Oxford have been reaching out to help children at the holidays for a
Several hundred friends, neighbors and out-of-towners joined to honor departed war veterans at Oxford’s Wreaths Across America ceremony on Dec. 14. The event took place at the Oxford Cemetery late on Saturday morning under cloudy skies and amidst a chilly, wet haze. There in the cemetery are the graves of veterans from as far back at the American Revolutionary War. It is the 11th year Wreaths Across America has been celebrated in Oxford Borough, and in one of those years – 2016 - the local residents actually organized and produced the greenery themselves, lacking the funds to buy the wreaths. Along with spectators and participants, the Chester County Sheriff’s deputies were there to keep it organized, and a band of bikers – the Leatherneck Nation – showed up to show their respect. Additionally, local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts helped out. The history of the Wreaths Across America event goes back to 1992 when Morrill Worcester, the owner of a wreath company in Maine, recalled how awed he had been by a visit to Arlington National Cemetery years before when he was 12 years old. Having determined in his adulthood that he had a surplus of wreaths that year, he arranged to have them sent to a section of the Arlington Cemetery that does not get very much attention.
road maintenance at $463.0 thousand, support for the Avondale and West Grove fire companies at $297.8 thousand, and ambulance/Medic 94 at $180.8 thousand. There are substantial individual expenses for salaries, administration and some road equipment. The real estate tax remains at .125 mills. A mill is a tax of $1 of every $1,000 of assessed property. Continued on Page 4A
Years ago, Harald Herglotz of Newark loved to spend his weekends far from the pressure of his job as a successful packaging designer for Westvaco in Newark. He would load his two young sons and his dog in his Volkswagen Bug, drive north to his parents’ home in Wilmington, where his younger sisters Helen and Heidi would pack themselves into his tiny car for long drives in the Chester County countryside. The crowded VW Bug would grip the winding roads for hours, whistling by farms and vistas, and on several occasions, the traveling
troupe would stop at the Laurel Spring well on Penn Green Road in Landenberg. Once upon a time, during a period that is now confined to history, the well served as a natural water fountain, quenching the collective thirsts of generations of New Garden residents, many of whom would fill up entire jugs for the sweet taste of the clear water. For Heidi, cupping her hands and welcoming the cool water was not only a weekend ritual, but one that would become one of her favorite childhood memories. In 2012, long after she and her husband had moved to Franklin Township to raise their children, Heidi Continued on Page 5A
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