Friday, May 18, 2007

NIMBY Howell

A) “This is a totally inappropriate use of public land,” Howell said. “It's an eyesore.”

B) He said cell towers are “really ugly,” noting he had taken pictures of several towers, which he called “monstrosities,” on a recent trip to New Jersey.

Comments like these from Supervisor Howell remind us just how far removed he is from the realities of our society today.

Statistics from CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industry Association) and other groups clearly demonstrate that across America, for better or worse, people are not signing up for traditional landline service anymore and that they are relying solely on their wireless (cell) phone. While this should be reason enough to get past the aesthetics of this proposal, consider two other points.
  1. While on the road; If our teenage drivers have an emergency, our elderly parents need medical help; our non-driving children are at sports practice and need to reach their parents immediately, should we really put cosmetic appeal before public safety?
  2. The desirability of this park location is that there are no immediate neighbors close enough to distress with this cell tower. If tMobile did approach a private landowner with the tower idea how many neighboring residents would be outraged. Keep in mind; thanks to the BoS deciding to develop virtually all of the open space into residential housing there are no wide-open areas to just plop in a cellular site.
Supervisor Howell, the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality just does not hold water any longer. National tragedies (i.e. 9-11) as well as homeland security needs and public safety concerns rightfully outweigh decorative taste.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Primary thoughts

With the primary over and two incumbents gone, we suspect that there will not be much election discussion or coverage again until late summer.

We do have some initial thoughts though.

The Board of Supervisors is in desperate need of-
  1. Cohesiveness. With four candidates, which two will best bring this board together while still allowing for civil debate and respectful disagreement?
  2. Neutrality. Which two will best represent the citizens and not a pac like the infamous “3-D’s” of Howell, Miller and Hoff?
  3. Ethics. Whom among these four candidates will restore faith in the Board of Supervisors and remove the rightful cloud of mistrust and doubt by the citizenry.
  4. Vision. Which two candidates will grasp the reality that it is too late to control growth per se, but that we need elected officials who can best plan for our already strained infrastructure and resources needs?
We sincerely hope that at least two of these candidates will rise to these significant challenges and let the public know that if elected, that they will answer the call and more.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Flooding the future

Good article about the state of Zucksville Road during heavy rains. Our favorite quote is below and we believe that the line about a developer and PennDOT will haunt this township in many areas of our community for years to come.

"There really is nothing any township official can do with that because it's a state road," Ackerman said. "Yes, the township approved the development over there but as far as putting the pipe under (the road), that's between (Zawarski) and PennDOT," he said.

Keep that reference in mind if Weis Markets does get built at Sullivan Trail and Uhler Road and traffic is as bad as our experts predict and the Planning Commission, the Zoning Hearing Board (except Ron Asteak) and the 3D's (Howell, Miller and Hoff) of the Board of Supervisors (BoS) deferred to PennDOT and the developer and approved this project. All three Boards, especially the BoS, could have mandated stricter traffic controls on Sullivan Trail but the chose not to.

One wonders why they didn't.