Round 4 Update

Bottom line of last night's meeting.

1. Per Robert Hoffman, a project manager for Traffic Planning and Design who testified on behalf of Weis Markets, the road is currently graded as an "F" (Failing) and will still be an "F" if Weis is built. Clearly the 10,000% projected increase in traffic will only make this intersection even worse.
2. Charlie Schemehl, a Vice President for Urban Research and Development Corporation, who also testified on behalf of Weis, claims that one benefit of this Big Box/Grocery (Weis) store is that people won't be forced to shop at Giant. This was news to us as we did not know that Forks Residents were not currently allowed to leave the town limits to shop at the 5 or 6 other grocery stores within 5 or 6 miles of Forks Township!
   
3. One thing that we do agree with Mr. Schemehl on; "This township has serious traffic problems and they are going to get much, much worse". There is a lot of blame to go around for this lack of poor planning but we can start with current board members Supervisor 60% (a.k.a. Donald "Don" Miller) who has been in office for over 20 years, Supervisor David Hoff, 12 years, as well as former Board members Tim Merwath, David Kolb and Henning Holmgaard, who all opened the flood gates for this over development and traffic nightmare.
4. Several residents made very good points last night. One of our favorites was regarding the fact that while there will be a left turn into Braden Boulevard from Sullivan Trail (115) into the Big Box/Grocery (Weis) from the Southbound direction, there will be no traffic light. Wanna guess how backed up the traffic will be in this turn lane Monday through Friday from 5-6:30 pm or on Saturdays and Sundays? Think that this is a recipe for head-on collisions as southbound traffic attempts to scoot into Weis?

So since all of the town's "experts" agree that we have a mess on our hands with traffic, congestion, overcrowding in the EASD, etc., etc., why isn't the township pursuing every possible legal avenue to put on a moratorium on building until better solutions to these problems are found? One wonders.......

Here are the accompanying news articles from the Morning Call and Express-Times. Speaking of the Morning Call, a special, and big welcome to Reporter Madeleine Mathias who is now covering Forks Township. Madeleine is known for her investigative journalism such as her 3-part series on the Kunkel Tract at Easton High School. We look forward to Madeleine shining the same light of truth on our town as she did with the Easton Area School District. Be careful Madeleine, like rats, when you turn the lights on around here those in power do the Texas Two Step very quickly and we don't want to see you get trampled as they are scrambling!

Another C. David Howell?

The Forks Action Committee (FAC) has posted the following statements on their blog and website regarding the thus far four announced candidates for Board of Supervisor.

• "We are proud to present these fine men for your consideration."
• "The last four have passed through FAC’s qualification process."
• "All four are worthy candidates"
• "These outstanding Forks residents have completed FAC candidate questionnaires and gone through our review process."

While we appreciate FAC's intentions, we must never ever forget that it was the Forks Action Committee who gave us C. David Howell. Supervisor Howell offered great campaign promises but thus far has failed miserably and seems to have forgotten everything he wrote in his November 1, 2005 campaign letter.

For better or worse, candidates Chuss, Billings, Egolf and Wideman will be judged by the company they keep, which naturally includes Supervisor C. David Howell.

We wish them all the candidates well but they should all know that because of their apparent close affiliation with FAC and C. David Howell, the public will be very suspect of their campaign promises as they will be forever tied to him.

We urge the entire leadership of the Forks Action Committee to reveal their own identities so that when they deem candidates as “worthy” their fellow residents will know exactly who is qualifying candidates. They should also better explain their “review process” as well as make the residents of Forks Township aware of their own qualifications that enable them to determine which candidates are indeed capable to successfully serve the 13,000+ residents of our community. This will give FAC standing in this area as working in the shadows brings into question exactly who is making these statements on candidate qualifications.

Wrong Stockertown, a bad decision!

Below is a "Letter to the Editor" that appeared in today's Express-Times.
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Forks Twp. vote a Weis decision

Hooray for the Forks Township supervisors who voted for the Weis grocery store. Every person I've spoken to is looking forward to another choice for grocery shopping.

I hope the Residents Who Care, if they really do care, would care more that the township is doing something about the old Laneco Plaza.

I've been following this folly for some time now. Most amusing is how some of the Forks planners have been anal about the look of this proposed store. They can look diagonally across the intersection from this proposed store to see that great example of architectural beauty, a storage facility, which is coincidentally less than one mile from another storage facility. I think some people need to have their priorities in order.

Bill MacDougall-Stockertown

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Of course Mr. MacDougall and his fellow residents are happy that a new grocery store *MAY* be on the way, after all, it won't be in Stockertown, it will be in FORKS TOWNSHIP! We will be the ones who will have to endure 100x, or 10,000% more traffic, face potential serious ramifications from storm water run-off, see our emergency services taxed even further, and watch the quality of our life in Forks Township degrade even more.

As for the former Laneco Plaza Mr. MacDougall, before you challenge us to do something, why don't you ask the Forks Township Board of Supervisors why they approved Giant's new project some years ago without questioning them about the severe deed restrictions that they placed on their former store in Laneco Plaza. By the way Mr. MacDougall, most of the current board was in office at the time this occurred.

With respect to "choice" Mr. MacDougall, did you happen to notice the other five or six full service grocery stores within 5 miles of this proposed Weis Market?

Lastly Mr. MacDougall, as stated from the start, Residents Who Care is not necessarily opposed to another grocery store in Forks Township. What we are against is changing zoning rules abruptly to accommodate one specific developer. They call that "spot zoning".

Howell's Broken Promises

Below is a letter Supervisor, then candidate, C. David Howell issued just prior to the election in 2005. After his vote to approve the Weis Market plan earlier this week we are wondering how he can justify this vote. In his letter, among other things, he talks about "open roads", "open space" and "open government".

As for the road point, how can a project that will raise traffic 100 times, or 10,000% make for more "open roads"? With respect to "open space", how does a 70,000 square foot (approx.) "Big Box/Grocery" center create more open space? "Open Government" would be a great thing. Unfortunately for us, so far under his watch we went through a second township manager, who like the first one prior to his election also received a very generous severance package, we bought a $3,000 decorative table for the foyer of the Municipal Building and Mr. Howell never once publicly denounced the 60% pay increase recently given to fellow Supervisor Donald "Don" Miller nor called for Mr. Miller to reject it.

Mr. Howell did correctly state one point in his letter regarding it being a critical election as Forks entered the final phase of development that would have a long lasting impact on the future quality of life for the residents. Sadly, for all of us, instead of leading the charge to find less traffic producing businesses such as a hotel, office buildings or light manufacturing, C. David Howell took the easy route that will deliver long term challenges and detriment to our community.

As bad as C. David Howell's performance was in year one, we fear what else he will do to the township with 5 more years to go.....gulp :-(


A before-the-election letter from Howell:
November 1, 2005

Together, we can do better in Forks.

During the past months, I have taken my campaign for Forks Supervisor directly to the people, door-to-door, face-to-face. My message: Open Space. Open Roads. Open Government. Honest Change. My message was tested at each doorstep, listening, spending as much time as each resident required.

Whatever the election’s outcome -- win or lose -- I will never forget the people I met along the way. My wife and I were grateful for all the glasses of water, offers to rest in a kitchen and for all the tours of homes and gardens. These were touching, moments with wonderful glimpses into the proud people of Forks. My thanks to all who met us with kindness and encouragement and who made this campaign so memorable.

This is a critical election as Forks enters the final decade of its development. The decisions made in the election booth Nov. 8th will have a lasting impact on our future quality of life.

I’m a fourth generation resident of the Township. My great grandfather could never imagine the Forks of today. Longer-term residents think fondly of the past while new arrivals love what they find today. Yet, both groups are deeply concerned for the future and what it may hold for them and their children.

I speak for honesty in Forks. Am I in this alone? Or are we in this together? Good people of Forks, I believe that together, we can do better.

C. David Howell
Candidate for Forks Supervisor

Letter to the Editor

Many thanks to the Express-Times for printing this Letter to the Editor.

Some GREAT news!

Supervisor David Hoff made it official last night that he will not seek re-election. This is WONDERFUL news for every citizen of Forks Township.

It is lovely that Mr. Hoff was able to recall some of his "accomplishments" as most of us can only think of the long-term damage he ushered in and that we will have to live with long after he's departed the Board of Supervisors and Forks Township.

Good riddance Mr. Hoff, and please don't hesitate to take Howell and Miller with you. Now that would be PROGRESS!

Newspaper articles

Here are the articles from the Morning Call and Express-Times regarding last night's Board of Supervisors meeting and decision.

Since we wrote about this last night, not much more to say for the moment except that we have just begun to fight!

Stay tuned and please stay involved.

Oh, by the way, according to the WFMZ website, as of this morning, Forks Township is still under a snow emergency. Good move by the 3-D's to proceed with the meeting knowing that most of the public would not attend as they respect the restrictions of a "snow emergency."

No surprise tonight

Well, despite all the facts that we and our experts provided, including our traffic engineer, who made it clear that traffic would increase 100 times, or 10,000%, and our storm water management expert who brought into serious question the developers plan to control storm water run-off if this project was approved, the 3-D's (C. David Howell, David Hoff and Supervisor 60% (a.k.a. Donald "Don" Miller) gave overall approval and voted to approve the Weis Market plan.

We are not surprised as this seemed to be a done-deal from the start.

What happens next? First, we will continue our challenge to Zoning Ordinance #298 as we still believe that this change to the Zoning Ordinance constituted "spot zoning".

At the end of the day, if for some reason we are not successful with our challenge before the Zoning Hearing Board, the only thing that will change is that the venue moves from Sullivan Trail in Forks Township to Washington Street in Easton.

Sad to say that by ignoring all of the facts provided, Supervisors Miller, Hoff and Howell don't give a damn about the residents of Forks Township!

Meet the Candidate, or not

With two seats up for election on the Board of Supervisors this year no one can deny that this election is crucial to the future of Forks Township.

With this in mind, and as part of our mission statement, we anticipate holding three "meet the candidate" events. The first two will be before the primary vote allowing each of the *party candidates to meet the public and to answer questions about their plans for the township if elected. The third event would be held prior to the general election allowing the two finalists to have one final joint appearance opportunity to publicly state their plans and respond to potential constituent questions.

While Residents Who Care will sponsor this event, we are hoping to partner with either a media outlet or the League of Women Voters to moderate the forum.

Imagine our surprise when one of our members approached the Board this evening about using the main meeting room for this purpose and was treated rudely and abruptly. Instead of embracing the idea, they made it clear that they will throw every possible obstacle in our way to move forward with this public service.

What is clear to us is that we will need to find a non Township owned venue to proceed so we may proceed without interference and roadblocks.

Even though we are taxpayers, we have to find a non Township owned building to do this public service....WOW!


*=In the primary you can only vote for candidates within your own party. So if you are a registered Democrat, you can only vote for a Democrat. In the general election you may cross party lines and vote for whichever candidate you chose to, no matter what party they are from.

Why is there a meeting tonight?

Yes, we understand that there is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Supervisors tonight, but we are wondering why the meeting has not been cancelled and rescheduled.

Consider this-

1. According to the WFMZ Storm Center Website, Forks Township is still under a “snow emergency”.
2. Many of the side roads are still icy and in many cases treacherous.
3. There was no school yesterday or today and public officials are still urging people to stay off the roads.
4. The national weather service has issued the following alert-

“Special Weather Statement-3:26 PM EST Thu Feb 15 2007

...Another cold and icy night and early morning ahead...

Arctic air combined with overnight west winds in the 10 to 15 mph range will produce wind chill values from minus five to about minus ten degrees. If you're venturing out late tonight or plan to be on the bus stop early Friday morning, please dress appropriately to minimize your chances for frostbite and hypothermia.

Many secondary roads remain icy. If you plan to be on the Road tonight into early Friday, continue to give yourself extra time to reach your destination. With the extra time, maintain a slower, safe speed for the existing conditions.

Tonight’s meeting contains many critical agenda items of great interest to the public, including-

• Kings Farm Major Subdivision
• Forks Commons/Weis Market/Conditional Use
• Forks Commons/Weis Market/Preliminary Land Development Plan

There is no doubt that many residents who would have attended the meeting will not do so because of the road conditions and warnings. Is this an honest oversight by the Board of Supervisors, or a deliberate attempt to prevent the citizens from participating in the process?

One wonders……

Press Coverage

To say that Courtney Lomax's article in the Express-Times regarding last night's meeting was a disappointment would be a HUGE understatement. If you did not attend the meeting, and you relied on this article for a solid recap, you would be greatly disappointed. None of the points made by Attorney Gary Asteak were included in this article. Why not? None of the comments from the citizens who spoke out were included in her story. Why not? None of the specific figures and facts provided by our expert traffic engineer were included in the story. Why not?

Though we wish that the story filed by the Morning Call's Joe Nixon was more comprehensive, it was much better than the offering submitted by Ms. Lomax. A few points about Mr. Nixon's article.

1. As for this comment-The developer's attorney, James Preston, said making the comparisons was indicative of an approach where we're ''trying to cook the books, so to speak.'' Let's be honest. Our traffic expert offered tremendous evidence as to why building this "Big Box"/Grocery Store would bring catastrophic traffic congestion to Sullivan Trail. That is not cooking the books, that's stating reality. SamCar Realty/Weis Markets hired their own expert to present a traffic study which supports their application. This doesn't make it gospel.
2. The developers may meet their obligations for the site but, as our expert testified, the improvements will be geared towards the "Big Box"/Grocery Store and not necessarily Sullivan Trail, Uhler Road and/or Braden Boulevard. Consider this analogy. If you pitch the drainage on your house to push water away from your home, and it ends up on a neighbor's property, have you mitigated the water problem or have you solved just your own issue? If these improvements are done, they may indeed address the needs of Weis Markets, but what about Sullivan Trail and the other roads?
3. As for the improvements, everyone should keep in mind that ultimately they are up to PennDot as Sullivan Trail is a state road. So if PennDot decides the improvements are not needed, or if they scale them down, the projection of 100 times more traffic, or a 10,000% increase of trips will end up being the best case scenario!

Since we already posted most of the key points in our last posting ("The decision should be obvious") we won't rehash them again, but here is some more food for thought.

• Are you ready for an anticipated 8+ minute wait time to enter/exit this supermarket?
• Our expert traffic engineer made it clear that this store would produce an "F" grade for traffic as proposed. Most likely you would not accept an "F" on your child's report card so why would you want an "F" for your major roadway?
• Shouldn't every precaution be taken regarding storm-water control? Do we really need to repeat the horror of the 3 significant floods in our township of the last 2 years to finally learn our lesson?
• What's the rush? Why is the township and the applicant pushing so hard for approval TODAY before all of these concerns and points are fully explored and answered? If Weis is permitted to build, once their lawyers, experts and advocates go home, you, and all the citizens of Forks Township will be left dealing with the ramifications, financial and otherwise.
• This is a "conditional use" request. In other words the Board of Supervisors can stipulate virtually ANY conditions (traffic, storm water, public safety, etc.) that they want in order for this application to be approved.

As worried as we are about traffic, storm-water control and safety, we remain focused on also pursuing our challenge to the zoning ordinance (#298) that made this possible as we believe this still constitutes spot zoning.

Though you can't speak out at the February 15th Board of Supervisors meeting on this matter, you can call your elected representatives before the meeting and urge them to vote NO on this conditional use request. There is too much at stake and too much to lose if we get this wrong. Please call them today.

David Hoff, Chairman
610-252-0785 x203

Don Miller, Vice Chairman
484-239-0277

C. David Howell, Secretary/Treasurer
610-252-0785 x 202

John Ackerman, Supervisor
484-239-1783

Bonnie L. Nicholas, Supervisor
610-252-0785 x204

The decision should be obvious

A quick post for tonight and we'll follow-up with more detail soon. Here are some of the highlights from tonight.

1. We learned that if this "Big Box"/Grocery Store is approved, traffic on Sullivan Trail and Uhler Road will increase 100 times current levels, or 10,000%!
2. The Township appears to NOT be applying the new standards for storm-water management to this applicant and which are set forth in the new Pennsylvania and EPA guidelines which MUST be enacted by the township by April of this year. After three devastating floods in less than two years, why not?
3. Supervisor Howell suggested comparing traffic to the proposed Weis Markets to the current Giant Grocery Store. This would amount to comparing apples to oranges. As our expert traffic engineer testified, if a comparison is to be made it must be to a single use (i.e. Wegmans) stand-alone supermarket, not one that shares space and a common driveway with other retail establishments such as Giant.
4. Supervisor Hoff engaged our traffic engineer expert on the impact comparison of this proposed Weis Markerts to the alternate plan of a CVS Pharmacy. The question that begs to be answered is why aren't the Board of Supervisors working with SamCar Realty to attract an occupant that would not bring such horrific traffic and still provide the township with good tax income? Examples include a hotel, office buildings and a satellite college campus.
5. There has been no consultation with the FAA regarding this use. Considering the amount of children and families attracted to large grocery stores and this one would also have gas pumps plus it is adjacent to the airport, why not? The tragedy that recently took the life of prominent local attorney Peter Karoloy, his wife and their pilot happened at an airport just like Braden Airport. God forbid a plane crash like this occurred at a gas station/supermarket!
6. We confirmed tonight that indeed the Forks Police and Fire Department as well as EMS were not asked to submit a report about the impact of this project. Why not? Clearly this large retail center will impact them, and ultimately us as taxpayers.

In the end the decision on this has been postponed till the next Board of Supervisors meeting, which is scheduled for Thursday, February 15th at 7:30pm. Though we believe that the decision to vote NO to this proposal is obvious, we urge you to attend as we must continue to show them that we care and that we are watching.

What will the experts say?

This Tuesday, February 6th at 6:30pm Round 2 of the Weis Markets Conditional Use Hearing will take place at the Forks Municipal Building, located at 1606 Sullivan Trail in Forks Township.

What are the traffic ramifications of this proposed "big bog"/grocery store?

Will there be any storm water run-off ramifications to the neighbors of this proposed "big box"/grocery store?

Will there be any shocking revelations at this Hearing? Remember at the first Hearing we learned that the Township DID in fact have the applicant's traffic study for approximately six months despite prior denials?

There is as much intrique surrounding this meeting as there is anticipation regarding what the experts will have to say!

As they are given limited column space to tell the story, please do not rely solely on the print reporters to keep you fully informed.

Please do your best to attend and tell your friends, neighbors and family.

Hope to see you there!