Tredyffrin Supervisors Payout to Country Club

The term "country club Republicans" may come back into vogue, at least in Tredyffrin.

In a stealth move at the January 25 meeting, four members of the Board of Supervisors (Kampf, Lamina, Olson and Richter) were able to absolve the St. Davids Golf Club from their obligations under a development agreement with our township Planning Commission allowing expansion at the club, conditional on St. Davids building a sidewalk on their property.

This action took place with no public notification and no item on the published board agenda. Instead, under the "New Matters" section of the agenda, Supervisor Paul Olson introduced a motion to release $25,000 from an escrow account to St. Davids Golf Club which he said would bring the escrow account down to zero.

This is hardly a new matter. St. Davids' obligation is a topic which has received much attention of late. Serious public exception was taken when the recommendations of the township's Budget Advisory Working Group (BAWG) included a revenue item of $50,000 from the St. Davids Golf Club, in exchange for a waiver from their requirement to build a sidewalk on their property. Then, in December, the Planning Commission voted again against releasing St. Davids from their obligation, and the Board of Supervisors passed a budget that did not include the $50,000 item.

One would think those December votes would be the end of special treatment for St. Davids Golf Club. Such a conclusion would underestimate the ingenuity of certain members of the Board of Supervisors in their determination to favor the Club.

The motion Mr. Olson introduced was not on the agenda. However, it became obvious through the ensuing discussion that some select members of the community had advance notice of the topic. Some arrived with typed planned comments to present in opposition to the sidewalks. One supervisor who voted to release the money said after the meeting that she "had been phoning people the whole latter half of the week." One suspects she was picking her calls carefully. People who clearly had not been made aware of the topic were residents of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, nor members of the township's own Sidewalks, Trails and Paths Committee.

Several speakers who happened to be present did raise serious objections to the motion. (They included TTDem Chair Dariel Jamieson. See her subsequent letter to editor.) Watchdog comments included the facts that:
  • There was no written request from St. Davids Golf Club for release of the escrow funds,
  • The motion would totally undermine the credibility of the Planning Commission, and
  • Setting such a precedent would allow other developers with escrow agreements with the Planning Commission to request similar relief.
In the end, the gang of four pushed through the motion with a 4-3 vote.

Residents should note that this new approach does not even provide the $50,000 in revenue to the township included as the hotly-contested item in the BAWG report. Instead, we have a $25,000 payout to the golf club. When the Board of Supervisors is willing to cut funding to the fire companies, libraries, public works and services to seniors, why is such effort expended to effectively make a gift to a country club?

Further, this vote removes the leverage the Township would have to force St. Davids to comply with their obligation, on which they have been in default since 2008. The Township Manager had to point out just before the vote that Mr. Olson’s facts were not correct – the $25,000 release of funds to St. David’s was not the whole escrow account –the account is much larger. $80,000 is the actual amount estimated for St. Davids to build the sidewalks--$80,000 worth of community benefit owed to the taxpayers of this Township, as negotiated by the Planning Commission.

Introducing a special-interest gift as a non-agenda item, on a night when most residents were instead focused on a critical school board meeting, and only notifying people who support your position to come out and comment—this is what passes for democracy in Tredyffrin.