Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 154, No. 20
INSIDE
KSQ Farmers Market moves to the Creamery of Kennett Square...1B
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Avon Grove continues to work on new budget
Kennett students PetSeen...5B
run
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries...........2B & 3B
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Classifieds..................6B
© 2007 The Chester County Press
Landenberg residents Part 5 in a series What You resolve dispute Need to with PECO over Know About Health tree-trimming error Insurance Your doctor vs. their doctor
School district officials are looking for additional expenditure reductions. Right now, a 3.5 percent tax increase is still possible By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
Unionville High School seniors honored...6A
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The Avon Grove School Board and district administrators held a committee-of-the-whole budget work session on May 12, the latest in a series of meetings as the school district works on the spending plan for the 2020-2021 school year. Like school districts across Pennsylvania, Avon Grove is grappling with the various impacts that the coronavirus outbreak has had on schools, including the closing of school buildings since mid-March. The crisis has not only altered financial projections for the 20202021 school year, it has already affected revenues and expenditures for the current school year. Dan Carsley, the district’s chief financial officer, offered a thorough review of Avon Grove’s revenues for the current school year, as well as an update on revenue projections for the
2020-2021 school year. As Carsley began his presentation, he commented on the large number of budgetary changes that can be directly attributed to the coronavirus pandemic. “There have been a lot of [budgetary] adjustments since April,” Carsley said. He explained that the district has seen expenses decrease somewhat since schools closed. The school district’s costs for Chester County Intermediate Unit services declined, building maintenance costs are less, and district officials are also negotiating with the transportation companies to work out a deal on those costs. Superintendent Dr. Christopher Marchese noted that while the district has been closed for normal operations, Act 13 legislation passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in late March requires school districts to maintain payrolls and Continued on Page 2A
By Frank Lobb
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
As remediation for the fallen tree, PECO has agreed to three considerations for the Crawfords, including carving and preserving a bench seat into the remaining stump of the tree.
By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer On a recent afternoon, Ryan Crawford pulled into his driveway on Glen Road in Landenberg. Ahead of him was the home he shares with his wife Sarah and their 3-year
old daughter. Fairly modern in design, the home is nestled in the warm surroundings of old trees to the point where it seems it is cloaked in a canopy of peace and serenity near the White Clay Creek Preserve. Continued on Page 4A
Ten-unit townhome project proposed for Toughkenamon By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer LGB Properties, Inc., a Kennett Square-based real estate management and renovation firm, presented a snapshot of Church Street Mews, a ten-unit townhome project it plans to build in Toughkenamon, at the New Garden Township Board of Supervisors online meeting on May 18. Introducing the project’s overall design concept, attorney Joseph Riper of Riley Riper Hollin & Colagreco said that it will consist of two five-unit
townhome lots -- with a minimum lot size of 2,640 square feet – and be located on the contiguous property commonly referred to as the Brown Derby property on West Baltimore Pike that the company owns. In Oct. 2019, LGB Properties filed a conditional use application with the township that allowed for the re-use of the property, which is now being used as an office, an apartment, a carry-out restaurant and a barber shop. During his presentation, developer Tom Schrier of Building Control Systems
& Services, Inc. told the board that the overall design has been created in at attempt to better the streetscape of the Church Street corridor. “We have pushed the townhomes forward on the lots to allow for vehicular access and parking in the rear, as well as additional on-street parking, sidewalks and an attractive streetscape,” he said. “With the township’s efforts in developing the Toughkenamon Streetscapes & Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n Improvement Plan, we
believe that this project aligns with what the township is envisioning for this area.” Schrier said there are five variances that don’t conform to township laws, one of which limits the construction of townhomes to four-unit groups, which is one short of what the project calls for. “The [current township ordinance laws] allow four townhomes within a group,” he said. “We are seeking to put five in a group, because it allows us to create a looped driveway, Continued on Page 2A
Oxford uses creativity to bring Memorial Day ceremony to the community During the last few months, the Oxford Memorial Day Parade Committee watched the news about the coronavirus outbreak. It became clear, as the weeks went by and Memorial Day drew closer, that the parade would not be able to take place as it had originally been planned. The parade committee is comprised of members of the American Legion, Oxford Borough Mayor Philip Harris, Corporal Scott Brown of the Oxford Police Department, Dr Erin Kauppila, a teacher in the Oxford Area School District, Christine Grove of the Oxford Area Chamber of Commerce, and several Continued on Page 2A
Courtesy photo
Jim Coarse of Moonloop Photography and Oxford Mayor Phil Harris.
In our last article we stressed the importance of recognizing the subtle difference between denying payment for insurance purposes and overruling your doctor for determining the healthcare you need. While this difference may seem subtle, it provides the healthcare insurance industry with its most powerful means of denying the care and coverage we expect from our so-called health insurance. Namely, the claim that their doctor can overrule our doctor for determining the healthcare we need. As with any complex issue, we need to begin the discussion by separating the facts. First, your plan has carefully and deliberately given itself the absolute right to deny payment for essentially any reason it chooses. And, they do it through the contracts they require every in-network doctor, hospital and other healthcare provider to sign. We will discuss contracts in a later article, but, rest assured these contracts exist and they give your plan the right to deny payment completely independent of any doctor’s decision on the care you need. Consequently, the opinion of our plan’s doctor has nothing to do with the plan’s right to deny payment. So, why would your plan insist that their denial of coverage is based on their doctor’s disagreement with what your own doctor is prescribing? Because it causes you and me to fight the wrong war. In essence, it has us arguing our doctor’s opinion vs their doctor’s opinion where the merits of the dispute are lost in a fog of time and technical complexity, i.e., they win. Fortunately there is a better way to fight this form of denied coverage. It’s to immediately insist that the only doctor with any legal standing to determine the care we need is our doctor. The bottom line being that the opinion of our plan’s doctor is irrelevant. Case closed! This approach puts us in the right fight. Yes, our plan still has a contractual right to deny payment. But, they have zero right to deny the healthcare we need. A fact our plan desperately wants to keep hidden, as well as one that forms the basis for the subtle difference referenced above. Because, tucked away in the same contracts that give our plan an absolute right to deny payment for insurance purposes, are equally strong provisions guaranteeing we get the very care our doctor is prescribing. The only question allowed by these contracts is whether the care is paid for by the plan or the in-network provider. But, that’s a subject for another article. Frank Lobb, a local resident and business owner, is the author of “How to Refuse Your Hospital Bill.” More information about this topic is available at his website at www. killabill.com, and Mr. Lobb can be contacted at lobbsanalyticalworks@gmail.com.