Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 154, No. 26
INSIDE
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
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Avon Grove breaks ground on new high school The new school in Penn Township is expected to be completed in time for the start of the school year in September of 2022 By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
The Avon Grove School District officially broke ground on the new 298,000-square-foot high school on June 24. Area salons and barberAt approximately 3:20 shops reopen...1B p.m., a team of school district administrators and school board members picked up the shovels that were lined up in a mound of dirt and dug into the soft soil. Over the next few minutes, more Avon Grove officials, Penn Township Continued on Page 2A
Crump to speak at Lincoln U Commencement...6A
Oxford Borough OKs La Comunidad Hispana plans By Betsy Brewer Brantner Contributing Writer
Oxford Borough Council gave conditional-use approval to La Comunidad Hispana (LCH) to move plans forward for a medical office at 14 S. 3rd St. in the heart of the business district. The property was formerly home to the Oxford Area Sewer Authority (OASA), and will soon be utilized as a medical office with Oxford FBLA mem- administrative support bers qualify for national for primary care, famconference...4B ily practice and pediatrics provided by primary care providers (medical doctors
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries...........2B & 3B Classifieds..........6B & 7B
Photo by Steven Hoffman
Avon Grove School District officials prepare for the ceremonial groundbreaking.
and nurse practitioners), behavior health services provided by licensed counselors and social workers, social assistance and community services, and domestic violence screening and interventions. It will also enable LCH clients to secure dental care at other locations in the LCH system. These services are currently provided by LCH at their office located at 303 N. 3rd St. The new location will provide a larger space which will allow for growth, and that will also be more accessible to their patients and their needs.
Michael Malloy, the solicitor for LCH, explained the plans for the property. “We are seeking conditional use to use the first 35 feet for a medical center,” he said. “In order to oppose a conditional use you would have to show that the use in that location poses unusual harm. LCH has entered into a lease with an entity that has an agreement-of-sale with the OASA. When conditional use is granted, then that entity will sign the agreement-of-sale with OASA. The entity that purchased the property will become the landlord to LCH.” Malloy also told bor-
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waiting room and reception office space, and more room for the LCH staff. The staff will include one full-time and two part-time primary doctors. Steve Castallano, the director of business operations also told borough council that LCH plans to leave the Oxford sign on the building and will also be developing other signage for LCH, which will go through all proper channels. No exterior modifications are planned, only interior modifications. Dr. Mariana Izraelson, chief executive officer of Continued on Page 3A
Kennett Square mayor Historic Kennett leaves Republican Party Square’s Small
Business Response Fund distributes $182,800
By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
© 2007 The Chester County Press
ough council that LCH was founded 40 years ago in Kennett Square by clergy and advocates to provide health care for mainly Latinos, and that they have decades of experience in health care management and health care facilities. They expanded to other locations beyond Kennett Square, including the location in Oxford that they have outgrown. Malloy also emphasized that many of the current clients come from the Oxford area, both in the Borough and outside it. The new location will have eight exam rooms, a
In the fall of 1980, when Matt Fetick was a youngster in Downingtown, he joined his mother in canvassing through Chester County in support of Ronald Reagan, who was then the Republican candidate for President of the United States. Reagan, Fetick recalled, was the statuesque representation of a Republican Party that championed family values, fiscal conservatism and smaller government, and as Fetick began to pursue a career in law enforcement and later a role as an elected official, the principles of the Republican Party remained fastened to him like an emblem on a uniform. Beginning in early 2017 however, soon after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, Fetick, then into his second term as the Mayor of Kennett Square, began to witness a rapid and visceral erosion of the basic tenets that had defined the party of his affiliation. At first, Fetick believed that remaining a Republicanelected official would allow him to meld his political and moral ideologies within the framework of a rapidly changing Kennett Square – one that not only was enjoying an economic surge in new businesses but had also transformed itself into a kaleidoscope of demo-
Longwood Foundation donation launches second round of fundraising
Courtesy photo
Kennett Square Mayor Matt Fetick recently changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
graphics and cultures. Over time, he began to realize that being a “Republican at the table” was having very little impact, and as he began his third term as mayor, Fetick realized that his values were no longer in alignment with a party that had shifted far from Reagan-era conservatism. He saw that his party had not enacted any salient and reasonable solutions to immigration reform, and the plans to build a wall at the border with Mexico as a method of reform, he believed, was not a solution. Fetick also saw that his party had failed to offer any alternatives to comprehensive healthcare reform, other than its continued attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care
Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Fetick had also begun demonstrating his opposition to the current administration’s policies. In October of 2017, he joined thenDowningtown Mayor Josh Maxwell in condemning the current policy of the Trump administration that called for finding a replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – or DACA – created in 2012 as an executive action by then President Barack Obama, that shields nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants, including 6,000 in Chester County – who were brought to the U.S. as children, from deportation. Fetick called the Dream Act “the best of America,” and said its passage would Continued on Page 4A
Historic Kennett Square announced on Monday that the grant review committee for the Small Business Response Fund (SBRF) has distributed 41 grants to consumer-facing small businesses in Kennett Square Borough and Kennett Township. All funds donated to the fund by individuals and corporate sponsors were matched by a generous donation from Square Roots Collective. “With a tremendous outpouring of support from community members, we raised $91,400 in the first round,” said Historic Kennett Square Executive Director Bo Wright. “The match from Square Roots Collective gave us $182,800 to distribute to small retail businesses that have been struggling to keep their doors open over the months of the shutdown.” While those who received SBRF grants are grateful for the relief, said Historic Kennett Square’s Economic Development Director Nate Echeverria, the need is still great. “There have already been seven applications for the second round. The demand for these funds is high,”
Echeverria explained. A generous $25,000 grant from the Longwood Foundation has kicked off the fundraising for this second round. “The more community members contribute, the more support we’ll be able to offer Kennett’s small businesses to ensure our community’s continued vibrancy,” said Wright. “Square Roots Collective will match all donations up to $250,000, so there are still a lot of matching funds generously offered.” Echeverria said, the grant review committee was impressed by the creative and proactive plans applicants presented for making changes to keep everyone safe and for pivoting their business models to serve customers going forward. “We have a very strong, innovative, and hard-working business community,” he said. In addition to adapting to ever-changing circumstances, small business owners have faced a bewildering array of aid options over the past months. “From the first days of the shutdown, it became clear Continued on Page 5A