Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 156, No. 2
INSIDE
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
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Cloyd selected as new Oxford Borough Council president Two new council members are sworn in and two incumbents begin their second terms as council members as 2022 gets underway By Betsy Brewer Brantner Contributing Writer
Trail Creek Outfitters...6A
Kennett falls Henderson...1B
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Mary Laura BuchnerHulse and Amanda Woolston took the oath of office as new Oxford Borough Council members at the council’s reorganization meeting on Jan. 3. Two incumbents, Robert Ketcham and Amanda Birdwell, were also sworn in at the same meeting. All wore masks and were sworn in before a crowd of onlookers who were also masked.
COVID-19 will continue to be one issue facing the new council members. Buchner-Hulse said she enjoyed her first meeting and is anxious to ask questions and learn. “I have been studying the budget line by line and want to make sure that going forward we have the funding for what we will need in the future,” she said. “I have every confidence in our borough staff. Our Photos by Betsy Brewer Brantner borough manager explains Amanda Woolston was sworn in as a things very well and wants new council member by the Honorable Continued on page 2A
Judge Scott A. Massey.
Mary Laura Buchner-Hulse was sworn in as a new council member by the Honorable Judge Scott A. Massey at the Oxford Borough Council reorganization meeting.
Penn Township In Wyn’s memory: officials discuss New Garden purchases Jennersville 7.8-acre property for Hospital closing preservation ‘We’re all just hoping and praying this is a temporary closure’ By Marcella PeyreFerry Contributing Writer
Camp & Education Guide...4B-8B
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries............4A & 3B
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Two of Penn Township’s five seated supervisors were re-elected to new six-year terms in November. William “Radar” O’Connell and Jay Ennis both took the oath of office delivered by District Justice Scott Massey prior to the beginning of the annual board reorganization meeting that took place on Jan. 3. Victor Mantegna continues in 2022 as the board chair with O’Connell serving as a vice chair. Meetings for the coming year will be held on the first Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. with work sessions on the third Wednesday of each month. The supervisors discussed the recent closing of Jennersville Hospital, noting that the hospital name had been removed from the building that day, and that yellow boards have been put across the helicopter landing pad. At this point there is no new information for the board to share
with the public. “We’re all just hoping and praying this is a temporary closure,” Mantegna said. The township’s Director of Operations Karen Versuk reported that Medic 94 emergency medical services will be in and out of the township building for the next two weeks as they adapt to the closing of the hospital. Medic 94 is being permitted to continue to use their base at the hospital building until April 1. If the hospital is still closed at that time, the current plan is to allow them to move into the Penn Township building until a permanent home can be found. Historical Commission member Scott Steele reported that there has been great public interest in the Red Rose Inn. The monthly open house tours at the Inn will resume in the spring. “People really appreciate the investment the supervisors have done in that building. The community very much appreciates it,” Steele said. Continued on page 5A
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
New Garden Township recently purchased the 7.8-acre property once owned by the Hiles family in Landenberg, which will be protected and preserved in perpetuity.
By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer For three decades and from nearly every angle and view, Cindy and Wyn Hiles had the fortune to stand on the back deck of their Landenberg home and watch nature unfold, uninterrupted. Their 7.8-acre piece of land, tucked into the crevices of a valley off of Penn Green Road, is a painted portrait of the seasons, a nearly silent soundtrack, a playground for the wild things and had been a sanc-
tuary for Cindy, Wyn and their two sons. Over time, the family built a few cottages on the banks of the White Clay Creek below their home and then a suspension bridge, but generally left everything else perfectly untouched. Cindy and Wyn were even married there, before guests and the steady and persistent sound of the creek. “The property had a calming effect, and we loved the view,” Cindy said. “We would often muse to ourselves that people pay a lot
of money to go on vacation to places that offered the same view that we were blessed to see every day. We would sit on the deck and watch the birds, the fox and the deer, and it didn’t feel like we were in the middle of the I-95 corridor, but that we were living in some wild and open space.” After Wyn passed away in February of 2016, Cindy discussed potential future options for the home and property, and the resounding opinion was that no one wanted to see the property Continued on page 2A
Kennett Consolidated School District stays the course on COVID-19 response By Chris Barber Contributing Writer Kennett Consolidated School District Superintendent Dr. Dusty Blakey announced he would continue the present precautions the administration is taking in response to the sharp increase in cases of COVID-19 over the past several weeks. In his report at the Jan. 10 school board meeting at the Mary D. Lang Kindergarten Center, he said the number of cases in the district has increased from 26 cases in November to 282 cases last week in the six schools in
the district. He attributed the rise in part to friends and families getting together over the holidays, as well as the prevalence of the omicron variant. “We knew we would see rises after the breaks,” he said. “We saw a rise after Halloween as well.” He stressed that he wants to keep students in school, and unless something unforeseen happens, the district will continue requiring masks. The district will also keep on sanitizing, deep cleaning, testing, contact tracing and quarantining in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
One change that has been issued by the Chester County Health Department and CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) is the quarantine period for people who have tested positive has been reduced to five days. Blakey also said that based on information from health sources, he believes the COVID-19 pandemic locally has neared its peak and will begin to go down substantially in the next few weeks. Still, he said, he does not want to get into a situation where he is directing masks on-and-off every time there
is a change in statistics. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Michael Barber said if the incidence goes down substantially two weeks in a row, there is the option to modify the mask requirement. In other district news, Director of Facilities George Wolhafe announced that a new well has been drilled on the Greenwood Elementary School property and, after water testing has been done, the school will begin to use it. The Greenwood well ran dry several months ago, and since that incident the district has been bringing in a
tank truck full of fresh water each day. Wolhafe said that operation has been going well and the digging for a new well reached water at about 800 feet. He added that the school will hook up to public water “in the next few weeks.” Physics teacher Jeff Moreau asked for and received approval to take a group to students on a three-day field trip to West Virginia to visit the Green Bank Observatory, which has a powerful radio telescope. The board also approved the addition of several Continued on page 5A