Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 151, No. 50
INSIDE
60 Cents
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Township OKs tax increase to pay for new emergency services fund By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
During Kennett Township’s 2018 budget presentation, unveiled and adopted at the Dec. Hitting the slopes is a tra- 6 Board of Supervisors dition for this group...4A meeting, the board voted 3-0 to approve a 1.9 mills property tax increase for township residents to the tune of approximately $930 per household annually, that will be dedicated to a new emergency services fund that is expected to cost $1.5 million a year. Board chairman Scudder Stevens and supervisors Whitney Hoffman and Dr. Richard Leff all approved the tax increase. Introduced at the preA new West Grove busisentation, the fund will ness has everything for be a new addition to the your home...1B township’s 2018 budget
categories, which also include a capital fund, general fund, library fund, open space fund, sewer fund and state fund. The tax will be dedicated entirely to the new fund, and will appear as a line item on residents’ tax bills. It will not be co-mingled with other township funds. The creation of the emergency services fund is an outgrowth of the township’s continued financial commitment to the Kennett Township Police Department, and its inclusion in the newly-formed Emergency Services Commission, that consolidates Kennett, Pro-Mar-Lin and Longwood fire companies in an inclusive effort to better serve the six area municipalities they serve. Continued on Page 3A
Up to the Challenge
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
Kennett Township is challenging the Kennett Square Borough to see which municipality will raise the most donations for the annual “Change for Change” program, sponsored by The Martin Luther King Jr. CommUNITY of the Greater Kennett Area. All funds raised through the challenge will be donated to the Kennett Food Cupboard, which offers food to families on a monthly basis and to low-income senior housing residents. Pictured from left to right are Board of Supervisors Chairman Scudder Stevens, Township Manager Lisa Moore, and supervisors Whitney Hoffman and Dr. Richard Leff.
A West Grove mother turns grief into action by forming drug addiction support group
Living for RJ By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
Artist John Suplee captures the places we’ve lost...7B
INDEX Opinion........................7A Calendar of Events......2B Obituaries...................4B
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Classifieds..................6B
as a member of the Class of 2009, he began using marijuana and alcohol. RJ Zwaan loved two things His mother, Jacki, saw above all else: Christmas, that what began as experiand making people laugh. From the time he had learned to walk, he took to life with the ferocity of someone who chooses not just to embrace it, but tackle it. As a boy, he played baseball and football. He learned to play the drums when he was 8, and taught himself to play the piano. mentation had eventually He dreamed of becoming spiraled into an addiction. a Marine, so he joined the His actions, once fueled by Young Marines, and spent his enthusiasm, had become his summers at Quantico a byproduct of his drug and and Paris Island at drill alcohol abuse. For Jacki, camps. it was like witnessing an Soon after he entered emotional freight train Avon Grove High School accelerating with no brakes.
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
This past May, West Grove resident Jacki Smiro created Live4RJ, a non-profit advocacy group whose mission is to create change through community-based solutions meant to assist all adolescents, young adults and veterans suffering from drug and alcohol addiction.
30, 2008, he went out partying with his friends, mixing alcohol with pills that were later identified as Suboxone, a highly addictive narcotic that blocks the effects of opioid medication. “Subs,” as Suboxone
is often called on the street, are more commonly abused for this purpose than to get high, although the medication can still produce a euphoric effect, as it still acts on the same opioid Continued on Page 2A
Meola named Penn Township president of the continues work Kennett School Board on Red Rose Inn Perigo will be the school board vice president
Photo by Steven Hoffman
The Kennett School Board recently reorganized for 2018. The members are Rudy Alfonso, Mark Bowden, William Brown, Michael Finnegan, Aline Frank, Victoria Gehrt, Joseph Meola, Dominic Perigo, Jr. and Paola Rosas-Weed.
By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
© 2007 The Chester County Press
She drove him five hours one winter day to a treatment center, only to return there two days later when a representative from the center told her that RJ wanted to go home. RJ said that he didn’t need treatment for alcohol. Although he had passed military entrance examinations for the Army, RJ began to avoid the phone calls from the recruiters. In an attempt to get her son into court-ordered treatment, Jacki had him arrested in April 2008. He spent ten days in the juvenile detention center. She reached out constantly to Children & Youth Services locations throughout Chester County. On the evening of June
Joseph Meola was selected to serve as the president of the Kennett School Board during the annual reorganization meeting on Dec. 4. The school board also welcomed four new members as a result of
the November 7 school board election. The four new members are Mark Bowden (Region A), Paola Rosas-Weed (Region B), and William Brown and Victoria Gehrt (Region C). Returning school board members include Meola, Rudy Alfonso, Michael Finnegan, Aline Frank, and Dominic Perigo, Jr.
Once the new board members took the oath of office, they were seated with the other members and the board moved on to its first order of business— electing a president for the next year. Alfonso nominated Meola for president. It was the only nomination, Continued on Page 3A
By Marcella Peyre-Ferry building, the existing Staff Writer porch was torn off along with the wings added over Restoration work is con- the years, bringing it back tinuing on the historic to it’s original core from Red Rose Inn, with Penn the colonial era. The new Township Supervisors porch will be in line with approving the next steps at what might have been their Wed., Dec. 6 town- original to the building. ship meeting. The township is also conStamped concrete was to tracting for regular pest be installed at the front control in the building to entrance to the building address any possible terbeginning Dec., 7. That mite or rodent problems. work will be followed “When you have a buildby construction of the ing that’s not occupied you front porch by Smucker have to treat it or you get Exteriors. rats,” Supervisor Curtis The township received Mason said. three bids for adding the Interior work on the porch to the building, building has already all using the same speci- included tearing out closfications for the project. ets and extra bathrooms. “I Prices ranged from a high think after the first of the of $34,224 to Smucker’s year we’ll determine a list low bid of $19,750. In of interior maintenance addition to submitting the that is required,” Historic lowest bid for the porch, Committee member Scott Smuckers has already done Steele said. work on other aspects of Improvements are also the building including the being made at the townexterior fascia. ship building where When the township exterior lights are being Continued on Page 3A began restoration of the