The Zoning Hearing Board heard the case on October 9, 2007, and ruled against Griggs after Borough officials presented documents showing that the fifth unit had been occupied by an "older gentleman" for many years" and in particular, at the time of the March 2001 deadline for determining whether a student rental could continue under the new zoning code. [Disclaimer: WCJIM serves on the Zoning Hearing Board and participated in the decision.]

Less than a month later, Griggs appealed the Zoning Hearing Board's decision to the Court of Common Pleas. and Borough Council voted to fight the appeal, leading to a series of hearings and motions in the winter and spring of 2007 that culminated in Judge Robert Shenkin's ruling that the Zoning Hearing Board got it right. Dissatisfied with that ruling, Griggs appealed Shenkin's ruling to the next level -- Pennsylvania Commonealth Court. If that doesn't end it, the last step is an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

A few years ago, the Borough was consumed with the debate over whether owners of student housing should be allowed to convert private homes into off-campus student units without limit. For non-student residents of the Borough's neighborhoods, the continuous expansion of student housing altered their neighbohoods to the point that it became difficult to get a good night's sleep, raise children or leave unsecured objects on outside porches. The problem was not as simple as "student renters=trouble," but the consequences were well-known to long- term residents and amply documented by Borough officials. One result was the passage in April 2001 of the "Student Home Ordinance" -- an addition to the Borough's zoning code which placed limits on the creation of new student rental units in residential neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, another result was the organization of the major student rental landlords into a group called the "West Chester Apartment Housing Association" (WCAHA). After lobbying hard to prevent the zoning change, they continued the battle with lawsuits. Most went down to defeat, but one, which challenged the amount of the Borough's annual rental inspection fee, succeeded and led to a freeze on the fee as well as payouts to about fifty landlords who joined the suit.

After that victory, WCAHA's leaders adopted a lower profile, appearing once or twice a year to challenge Borough Council any time they felt that their interests were threatened.

[Note: The last time WCJIM counted, there were about 800 separate individuals and corporate entities serving as landlords in the Borough, which has the second highest percentage of rental units of any municipality over 15,000 people in the state of Pennsylvania. Only State College has a higher percentage than West Chester.]

On September 17, Shenkin drafted a statement that outlined his reasoning for the Commonwealth Court. Here is the relevant portion:

At the time this article was written, the Commonwealth Court had not yet scheduled a date for the review of Judge Shenkin's decision.

Wilma Ford grew up in West Chester and lived here for much of her life. She is remembered for many things -- her fascination with puppets which led her to perform for the Borough's recreation department, her refusal to accept the demise of her neighborhood which led her to start Civic Action Southeast (the Borough's oldest continuing neighborhood organization), and her involvement with the ward system battle, to name just a few.

At Saturday's rededication, former mayors Clifford DeBaptiste and Craig Milliken, dance instructor Diane Matthews, and members of several fraternal organizations and the East End Neighborhood Association joined Ford at Chestnut Grove Cemetery. After a short performance by Matthews, Ford told the history of Reynolds and described her efforts to preserve his memory. She also displayed a 28-page history that she wrote in honor of Reynolds (copies available at the Historical Society, Melton Center and Henderson High School). With her permission, WCJIM presents "Oliver Reynolds" by Wilma Ford.

The next two items passed unanimously with minimal discussion. The first amended the language of the "Non-Uniformed Pension Plan Document" to meet federal requirements and to include a provision that requires Borough employees to make contributions to the plan. The second was to apply for next year's Chester County Urban Center Revitalization grants (the program that enabled the Borough to upgrade Market Street a few years ago and High Street at the present). There was some discussion about whether the Borough can afford to provide the one-quarter matching funds (i.e. the Borough gets three dollars for every dollar it spends) but once Council members understood that the Borough can refuse a grant if the budget is too tight, opposition disappeared. There was agreement that the highest priority project is to complete the storm sewer system in the vicinity of S. Adams Street between Union and Nields.

There were two contentious items on the agenda. The first was a request for Borough Council to support a "Bottle Bill" that is under consideration by the State Legislature. In brief, in order to discourage throwing bottles in the trash, the bill would require consumers to pay a deposit on each beverage bottle, and provide them with a refund of their deposit when they return the empty. Support for this proposal came from Council members who saw this as a financial incentive to get people to recycle bottles, while opposition came from Council members who feared that removing bottles from the Borough's recycling program would prevent the Borough from benefitting from the state's recycling incentive grant program (i.e. it would reduce the Borough's income). The debate continued for about twenty minutes until Council voted 4-3 to support the bill (Bond, Brown, and Christy opposed).

The other contentious item was a proposal from the company that manages the Borough's parking garages to try a two-week experiment with charging for evening and Saturday parking in the garages. Currently, patrons of businesses that are open in the day time must pay to park in West Chester, while patrons of businesses that operate at night do not (although two banks already charge people to park in their lots in the evening). Since patrons of the "night businesses" (i.e. bars and restaurants) require more police services and trash collection, supporters argued that it would raise money for the Borough and be fairer to "day businesses."

The counter argument came from several directions including Malcolm Johnstone of the Business Improvement District, who said that free parking helped him to promote the town, and from Council members who feared that evening customers would seek free parking in Borough neighborhoods, or that the additional revenue would pay for the staff needed to collect it. In the end, Council members agreed to a compromise --- staff will count the number of cars using the parking garages over a two week period instead of charging them.

One other item passed unanimously -- a motion to deny the owner of 15 North's request to close part of N. Walnut Street on a Saturday night so that he could set up a food tent in conjunction with the 12th anniversary of his establishment. The owner, Mike Dempsey, tried to argue that he was being treated unfairly because the Borough closes streets for the Restaurant Festival, but Carolyn Comitta (Dem, Ward 5) pointed out that the Restaurant Festival ends in the early evening (Dempsey's event would run until "closing" -- at least 2AM) and Holly Brown (Dem, Ward 1) added that the Restaurant Festival serves many businesses at the same time. At that, Dempsey conceded that if his request were granted, Council would face similar requests from other bars in town. Council voted 7-0 to deny his request.

After that, the rest of the meeting was a formality, with the approval of the minutes by a 6-0-1 vote (Brown abstained because she missed the September meeting), approval of the "consent agenda" by a 7-0 vote, and a vote to adjourn at 9:19pm.

WCJIM got involved as well, joining Johnstone for one tour and filling in on another when he had to go out of own. So it was only natural that, as more and more people signed up for this year's tours, he and Johnstone agreed to take out two groups at the same time.

Preparing a ghost tour for West Chester is not as easy as in other places, because for most of the 19th century, the people who wrote about the Borough did not consider ghost stories worth recording. Henry Graham Ashmead's History of Delaware County has an entire section on ghost stories, as does Theodore Bean's History of Montgomery County (both published in 1884), but J. Smith Futhey's 1881 History of Chester County contains none and neither does the 1899 Centennial Souvenir of the Borough. The members of the Society of Friends who first settled here did not believe in them, and the townpeople's pride in their common sense has kept the retelling of ghost stories to a minimum.

Ghosts are the essence of beings whose physical existence ended before their business in this world was completed, and they don't really care what anyone believes. The Borough's history contains stories of many people who died unexpectedly, or who left behind such engaging lives that they must have departed reluctantly. The places that those people frequented are good spots to look for ghosts in the Borough.

Of course, sometimes they come looking for you. During last year's ghost tour, as WCJIM was leading a group past the entrance to the Greentree Apartments on N. High Street, a pedestrian asked what they were doing. When he heard that they were on a ghost tour, he answered, "Well then you ought to come in here. There are weird things in this building all of the time." Near the same corner, employees in one of the Borough's older buildings reported that doors regularly close by themselves, noises emanate from a back stairway, and their photocopier turned on more than once without any human intervention. A participant in last Saturday's ghost tour shared a similar story about her former office.

Ghostly activity in the vicinity of Gay and High Streets can be explained in at least two ways. Right after the Battle of the Brandywine during the Revolutionary War, both English and American soldiers passed through what was then the crossroads village of Turk's Head. Members of both groups died and were buried near the intersection, and it seems unlikely that any of them were happy to be rest so far from wherever they originated. The other explanation is more general -- as the oldest intersection in town, Gay & High Street have seen more traffic jams, disgruntled defendants, soured business deals and other sources of unhappiness than any other place in the Borough. The Greentree Hotel, which stood on the corner where Rite Aid is now located, hosted visitors to the Borough for more than a century. Statistically speaking, some of these people must have departed this earth with unfinished business, and may return to that corner to work things out.

The tours feature other stories that were left out of the orthodox histories of West Chester, like the removal of the town's cemeteries, General Lafayette's sleepless nights, and West Chester's first recorded Mischief Night prank. Although offbeat, the stories are "safe" for children as well as adults, and after you've heard them, you will never view the Borough in quite the same way again.

This Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Oct. 26-27-28), the Historical Society will offer ghost tours for the last time this year, just in time for Halloween. The tours depart from the Historical Society (225 N. High Street) at 8pm, and the $10 ticket price goes entirely to the Society. The tours can sell out, as they did last weekend, but tickets can be reserved by calling 610-692-4800, and more information is available at their web site.

If they had, or if the rest of us had shown up, they would have seen Finance Committee members looking for ways to avoid a 9.75% tax increase. In his annual budget message to Council, Borough Manager Ernie McNeely writes "The draft $16,060,550 General Fund Operating Budget is only $36,632 higher than the 2007 Budget, but requires a 9.75% real estate tax due to the damage caused by the Legislature to the EMST Tax and other flat tax revenues."

EMST is short for "Emergency Municipal Services Tax." In 2004, the state legislature granted local governments the right to collect one dollar per week (i.e. a maximum of $52 per year) from people who worked within their boundaries. West Chester began collecting it in 2005, and expects to collect about $750,000 his year, roughly 5% of its income. Unfortunately for the Borough and other municipalities, this year the state legislature changed the rules (and the name, to "Local Municipal Services Tax"). First, the employers now get to remit the tax in installments at the end of each quarter instead of all at once during the first month of each year. That means that one-fourth of the 2008 tax will not reach the Borough until early 2009. Second, the state now requires local governments to exempt people who earn less than $12,000 per year. The Borough, with its unusually high number of part-time workers in university-related business, expects a drop of over $160,000 during the coming year. That is about one percent of the Borough's annual income.

"Other flat tax revenues" refers to property, earned income, business privilege and amusement taxes; the only taxes that the state legislature allows local governments to collect. The property tax brings in the most, about one third of all Borough revenue, but though property values have risen steadily since the last reassessment in 1996, tax revenue doesn't change unless building takes place that requires a permit. In rural townships, new construction is automatically reassessed, so fields that paid low taxes when they were empty begin to pay a lot more then covered with houses, shopping centers or office parks. It's not all benefit -- they also require roads, sewers and other government-funded infrastructure -- but the net outcome is positive.

Other taxes are stagnant. The Borough's second largest tax revenue producer, the Earned Income Tax levied on the wages of Borough residents, only grows if salaries increase, since there is no room to allow the population to increase. With the slump in real estate sales, the property transfer tax is not likely to make up the difference. Neither is the Amusement Tax (projected to bring in only $1,600 in 2008).

Over on the expense side, the largest increase by any department is twelve percent for the fire companies, while Building & Housing, Recreation and Parking are each asking for about six percent less than they received in 2007. None of this includes hiring more police officers, constructing a baseball stadium, replacing the public works facility, building a recreation center, of any of the other big projects discussed in recent newspaper articles. This is just the money needed to keep things running the way they are.

The biggest cost to the Borough, as it is for most organizations, is salaries and benefits, which make up about 56 percent of the 2007 budget. The Borough has contracts with two unions, one for its police officers and the other for its non- uniformed employees (Public Works, Parking, Recreation, etc.) One negotiated, they can't be changed, and they include pay raises that must be fulfilled. They also provide pension benefits for people who retire, and those costs have risen steadily. The problem is especially acute when police officers take early retirement (permitted by state law after 25 years of service) while in their fifties, and go on to collect pension benefits for decades to come. Although the Borough receives some money from the state to offset pension costs, that assistance has not kept up with costs. A table in the Borough manager's 2008 budget message shows that since 2001, pension costs have increased almost 200% while state assistance has risen only 25%. In dollars, that means the Borough has received about $125,000 from the state to offset almost $800,000 in expenses. The difference can be made up in only two ways -- by cutting budget items or finding new revenue.

That was the main purpose of last week's special Finance Committee meeting: to ask department heads to prioritize their requests and help Council members decide where to cut. According to participants, it was long (more than four hours) and bloody, as Council members and department heads debated the wisdom of various cuts. Some progress was made, as more than $1.6 million worth of capital improvements were tentatively whittled down to less than a half million, but further reductions are needed if a tax increase is to be avoided. One possibility is laying off Borough employees.

Anyone with suggestions on how to close the gap should plan to attend the relevant (i.e. Public Safety for cuts to the police budget, etc.) committee meeting on November 12 or 13 to explain your choices and reasoning. WCJIM will post the agendas on this site as soon as he gets them.