Sunday, September 30, 2007

A case of zipcode confusion

Apparently our Commissioner has decided that the folks in the Broomall zipcode can't figure that they live in Radnor. Without doing a poll to determine what the desires of the residents are she has undertaken an effort to have the zip code changed. The reason, ostensibly, is confusion by having a zip code that isn't "Radnor". I really have a great deal of difficulty with this explanation. Radnor Township has very few houses that are in the Radnor Post Office. We do have Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, St. Davids, Wayne, Newtown Square and Villanova. So why aren't we requesting that all of those folks change their zipcodes to Radnor?
I decided to do an informal poll of the Broomall folks and visited 10 hoseholds there. (There are only about 30-35) Not a single person I spoke with wanted to change their zipcode. In fact, they thought that it would be a huge pain in the butt changing their addresses on everything and may even give them problems with credit agencies.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Another wonderful Monday night

So why is it that taxpayers who raise points of interested are referred to as "you people" by some of the Commissioners? Given the current financial situation, how do we approve the leasing and retrofitting of the Sulpizio gym (at the cost of $700 K) without understanding the future operating costs? In the spirit of full disclosure: I am a fan of the idea of an "indoor facility" and have been ever since I was on the Parks and Recreation Board. That being said, I do not believe the Commissioners have been presented with the kind of information I would like to see in order to make that decision.
Storm water management is a good example of the pay me know or pay me later concept. For at least the last 20 years that I have been paying attention we have been talking about stormwater, reviewing stormwater, studying stormwater, hiring consultants but nothing significant has been done. So now we are spending $2 Million to build a retention (or is it detention?) facility at the middle school. This is not the way to deal with storm water. It should be mitigated at the source. The costs are less and the results are generally better.