Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 155, No. 41
INSIDE
Avon Grove celebrates Homecoming...1B
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
With local hospital on life support, elected officials react strongly Jennersville Hospital closure ‘At all costs, we have to save alarms Oxford Borough officials our hospital’ By Marcella Peyre-Ferry Staff Writer
The Penn Township Board of Supervisors began their Oct. 6 meeting with some comments about the recently announced decision by Tower Health to consider closing the Jennersville Hospital in early 2022. The township had issued a press release detailing the supervisors’ response to the possible closing. “As host community to Jennersville Hospital, no township has been more supBig Homecoming win for portive of the existence of Oxford...1B Jennersville Hospital….” the press release said. “We’re doing everything in our power as a township supervisors board, but we don’t have very much power,” board chairman Victor Mantegna said. The board was clear that they had no prior knowledge of the Tower Health announcement. “No one at Tower Health
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INDEX
ever included any community stakeholders in this momentous decision, but rather, they sprung it on our community at large without asking for input or …help,” the township press release said. “We on this board were blindsided as everybody was,” said supervisor Jay Ennis. “The township is taking a hit by them closing that hospital up.” The high number of senior living communities in the township are particularly impacted by the potential closing of the hospital. “Jennersville Hospital is the home of the only emergency room and medical helipad for our entire region of Southern Chester County. Southern Chester County Emergency Medical Services (Medic 94) is also housed in the emergency room,” the press release said. The township has already offered Medic 94 a temporary
By Betsy Brewer Brantner Contributing Writer
The announcement of the planned closure of Tower Health’s Jennersville Hospital and emergency room set off an alarm with Oxford Borough Council on Monday night. Council fears for its residents during medical emergencies. Ware Village, numerous adult communities and multiple school districts are being served by the hospital and its emergency room. Council member Dick Winchester spoke about a Continued on page 2A recent personal medical emer-
gency involving a loved one saying, “The care my loved one received at Jennersville saved her life. She was then sent on to Christiana Hospital, but I’m not sure what the outcome would have been if not for Jennersville.” Winchester was not the only council member to voice his disbelief that the hospital/ emergency room would close so abruptly without a plan to take care of the community. A hospital/emergency room has been at the location in Penn Township since 1959. The hospital’s projected closure in early 2022 has left
many residents in Chester County wondering where they will go for emergency care. The closest hospitals with trauma centers are at Christiana Hospital in Delaware or Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pa. Gary Vinnacombe, who has been deputy chief of the Emergency Medical Services for two years said, “I heard the news and was as shocked as everyone, but we went into action mode to figure out what we will do. We are in the process of publishing Continued on page 3A
Moore still owes Kennett Township nearly $1.9 million By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
On Oct. 4, former Kennett Township manager Lisa Opinion.......................5A Moore was sentenced to Obituaries..............2B-3B a three-to-10-year prison Classifieds..................4B sentence and five years of probation by Chester County Court of Common Pleas Judge David Bortner, stemming from her embezzlement of more than $3.2 million from Kennett Township beginning in 2013 and end-
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ing in 2019. In all, Moore was charged on five counts including theft by deception, dealing in unlawful proceeds, forgery, tampering with public records and access device fraud. In addition to her sentencing, Moore is also required to pay full restitution costs back to the township in the amount of $3,249,453 – the sum she stole during that nearly eightyear period. At her hearing, Moore’s attorney’ Julia Alexa
Rogers informed Bortner that a certified cashier’s check in the amount of $1.27 million was given to the township earlier that day. When it comes to full restitution, however, Moore still owes Kennett Township a sizable chunk of money – nearly $1.9 million, to be more exact. At the start of the Oct. 6 Board of Supervisors meeting, township manager Eden Ratliff broke down what has been paid and what
still remains to be paid out of the $3.4 million Moore admitted she stole from the township. In addition to the $1.27 million repayment, $82,000 currently being held in escrow was also released, amounting to $1.352 million in total recovered costs. While Moore has been convicted ( she received a 30-day waiting period from the day of the hearing to appeal her sentence or change her guilty plea), the matter of reclaiming
the money lost during her nearly eight-year embezzlement of township funds remains on the front burner of the township’s initiatives. Since the investigation by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office into Moore’s wrongdoing began in May 2019 -- which led to her arrest in December 2019 – the township has been committed to recover the entirety of the money stolen by its former manager. In 2020, Continued on page 3A
School board discusses Friday’s lockdown of Unionville High School By Monica Fragale Contributing Writer Police are continuing their investigation into the threat last week that prompted Unionville High School and Patton Middle School to be locked down and the homecoming football game to be postponed a day. “This continues to be an open and ongoing investigation” by the state police and East Marlborough Township police, accord-
ing to Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Superintendent John Sanville. “We are hopeful that it will be brought to a successful conclusion shortly.” Sanville spoke about the lockdown at the school board’s work session Monday night. “These situations are never easy, and we have to maintain the safety of students and staff and community,” Sanville said. The district sent out a series
of updates about the lockdown over the course of Friday. The lockdown was prompted by a message on a high school bathroom wall. “At this time, we are following our lockdown protocol and safety plan at the high school and middle school, requiring all students and staff to remain in place,” Sanville wrote in his first two messages to the community, asking parents not to pick up their students until the police determined it was safe for the
students and staff to leave. Subsequent messages informed the community that police were interviewing students, and that the schools would be dismissed at 12:30 p.m. “The dismissal is being done in coordination with local law enforcement,” Sanville wrote. The final message said that police determined there was no credible threat. At Monday’s board meeting, Sanville thanked the administrators and teach-
ers from both schools for maintaining a “caring atmosphere” for students during the lockdown. “When you’re in lockdown for two-and-a-half hours, it’s not easy to keep everyone calm,” Sanville said. “It’s not an easy thing to do to create a caring atmosphere for a long period of time. I’d like to thank the staff for the way they handled that.” Birmingham resident Vishal Shah thanked school Continued on page 2A
‘It was really worth it to bring our family back together’ Camp Dreamcatcher’s 2021 camp session presented some unanticipated challenges because of the pandemic, but all the work was worth it when everyone came together again for a productive—and enjoyable—experience By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
The Camp Dreamcatcher staff and volunteers knew that when the kids arrived at camp this year, the burdens © 2007 The Chester County Press they were carrying would be heavier than normal. There was no in-person camp session in 2020—one more Courtesy photos casualty of the global panThe kids really enjoyed the arts and There was COVID testing as people demic—and the impact of the arrived at camp. crafts activities.
coronavirus had hit many of the kids’ families hard. So Patty Hillkirk, the founder and executive director, and the entire Camp Dreamcatcher team expected the children to be more affected by depression than in previous years. They also expected more behavioral issues during camp, especially for the youngest kids, because of all Continued on page 2A