With the Borough coming up on six years since the Student Home Ordinance was approved, this kind of case has become fairly rare. A year ago, there was one case involving another house on S. Walnut Street that was turned down, there were three such cases in 2006 (one of which was approved, but only until the current owner sells), none in 2005 and two in 2004.

DBHCE records paint an ugly picture of 206 S. Walnut Street during Spaziani's tenure. The file is fat with complaints about the condition of the property, noise violations, tenants cited for disorderly conduct, failure to obtain permits, overcrowding, and an astounding number of trash violations. From the time that Nowak, a 2005 WCU graduate, bought the property last summer, the file shows no activity until the DBHCE officials noticed that the property had been sold and no one had applied for new rental permits. They notified Nowak that he needed to obtain a permits or else confirm that he was no longer using the property as a rental, and when Nowak came to get his rental permit in early November, he asked for a student rental permit. That's when the DBHCE staff stopped him and notified him by certified letter to cease renting to students.

The violation letter granted Nowak thirty days to comply -- enough time for his tenants to finish their semester exams and look for a new place to live. Instead, Nowak waited until the deadline before filing his appeal on December 21, 2007, and then asked for a "temporary variance" to keep his tenants for the spring semester. He blamed the violation on the "misrepresentations of my seller" who told him that the property was "zoned for student housing as a condition of sale" and "in compliance with the zoning regulations of the Borough of West Chester." Nowak provided a copy of the Agreement of Sale signed by Spaziani, which included a handwritten clause that stated "occupancy by up to 4 students allowed in both units."

According to the official WCU calendar, the last day of spring classes is on April 30, final examinations end on May 9, and graduation is on May 10. Nowak is asking to keep his tenants until May 31, which should give them plenty of time to finish up and move out. On Monday February 11, the Zoning Hearing Board will decide whether they will get it.

Postscript: The Zoning Hearing Board granted Nowak permission to keep his student tenants under the end of the spring 2008 semester.

Ritzman delivered his remarks at a training session for newly elected municipal officials offered by the Pennsylvania League of Cities & Municipalities in Harrisburg this past weekend. Four members of Borough Council attended: Cassandra Jones (Dem, Ward 2) and Jim Jones (Dem, Ward 6), both of whom joined Council in January, and Susan Bayne (Dem, Ward 4) and Chuck Christy (Dem, Ward 3), newly elected president and vice president of Borough Council, respectively. Ritzman delivered the bad news during a session that introduced Council members to representatives of the departments of Conservation & Natural Resources, General Services, Environmental Protection, and Local Government Services.

That leads WJCIM to wonder if the same thing is occurring right now in the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf. Although a place like Abu Dhabi can construct highways, hotels and shopping malls equipped with the world's finest air-conditioning, that kind of "progress" will only remain viable as long as the oil keeps flowing. Like Pennsylvania's coal industry, the oil industry will not last forever, and when it starts to fail, another region will be left with infrastructure that it can't afford to maintain.

Don't try this without high-speed Internet access, however. When WCJIM first heard about it several months ago, he took a look with his dial-up connection and saw something that looked interesting, but he didn't really get the full effect. Fortunately, a neighbor with a huge flat screen monitor, high- speed connection and gourmet coffeemaker provided a demonstration the other day, and the results were worth writing about.

First, you go to Google Maps. You know you're in the right place when you see the words "Explore neighborhoods at street level -- virtually." Next, click on the button that reads "Go to Street View" and type in "West Chester" in the "Search Maps" address bar. If you want, you can put in a specific street address, like "411 W. Miner Street" and the software will head there. Otherwise, you'll get a map of West Chester with controls that allow you to shift in all four directions or to zoom in and out.

You'll notice two icons on the map. One is a green triangle which pinpoints your chosen location. The other, a little orange figure, will appear if a "Street View" is available. To see which streets offer "Street View," click on the button by the same name and notice with streets have blue borders. If you click on the orange figure, a new window will open up that offers a photograph of the property.

Here's where it gets interesting. You can "drag" the photo left, right, up or down to "look" around. If you look down, you'll see the roof of the black automobile on which a specialized camera was mounted and used to collect the image data that makes up "Street View." Apparently, Google mounted a multi- lens camera on the roof of a car and paid someone to drive it around the streets and alleys on the west side of the Borough.

If you look down the middle of the street, you'll see a yellow line with arrow heads that let you "move" in either direction along the street by clicking on them. By following the yellow line to an intersection, and turning left or right, you can "drive" around the Borough.

Everhart Park, viewed from S. Brandywine St.

You can also zoom in on things along either side of the street as you go along. Thus, you can clearly see individual houses and zoom in on details like house numbers, bicycles laying next to the house, names on commercial vehicles parked along the street. In a few cases, you may even recognize someone walking along the street, although based on the foliage, the images were made last summer, so they are long gone by now. In other words, you will be able to see a 360-degree snapshot of the Borough as it appeared last summer, not a real-time view of how it looks today.

Who's that jogging past Everhart Park?

Knowing how concerned most of us our about our privacy, WCJIM tried to zoom in on his own house to see if Google would grant a peek inside the house. The answer was "no" and the reason is simple: in an outdoor photograph taken on a bright summer day, the interior of a house is too dark to show any detail.

What use is all of this, other than to enhance the Google brand name? Real estate agents are probably adding it to their on-line listings as you read this, since they've been using 360- degree interior views for a number of years already. But last night, WCJIM found a use for it after he got a phone call from a friend in another country. Instead of trying to explain how he gets to work, WCJIM sent directions in an email and told his friend to use "Street View" to follow the route. That was a lot easier than emailing a video of the route over a dial-up connection, and it means WCJIM can delay his purchase of high- speed Internet access a while longer.

McKee, a Business Management student from Newtown (near Quakertown), and Savitski, a Criminal Justice major from Coal Township (north of Harrisburg), are both scheduled to graduate from the University in May. They have incorporated a "transportation and engineering company" in Chester County called Paradise Transit, Inc. and presented copies of a business plan to offer transit services in and around the Borough.

Council members asked questions about the route and funding sources. McKee and Savitski admitted that they had not yet worked out the details of the route, but acknowledged the problems associated with late night bus stops in residential neighborhoods, and promised to avoid some of the problems that led residents to complain about an earlier attempt by WCU to operate something called the "Safety Shuttle." They offered more ideas about potential sources for funding including state and federal grants, the University, and a fee structure that offered passengers monthly or single-night passes.

Council took no action since none was requested, and for the moment, McKee and Savitski are in a holding pattern while the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission considers their application for an operating license. This discussion led smoothly into a conversation about the recommendations of the University Area Neighborhood Task Force. The Committee identified those that can be addressed by Borough Council and assigned most of them to the Public Safety Committee for discussions on how to implement them. Some items, like modification of the Town-Gown Committee, will be left to West Chester University to implement, and one item, "supporting the recommendations of the Pennsylvania Economy League Study" (regarding the financial impact of hosting a university) will be assigned to the Borough's Finance Committee.

In other Public Safety Committee action, the members recommended that Council approve an agreement made by neighbors concerning E. Evans Street between E. Chestnut and N. Franklin Streets. Neighbors agreed to leave the direction of travel from east to west unchanged, and to continue to allow parking along both sides of the street. The Public Works department will add a stop sign that they requested.

Another item concerned the Growers Market which operates on Saturday mornings from March to November on the northeast corner of W. Chestnut and N. Church Streets. Last November, the Market's director asked Council to close Patton Alley on market days in order to reduce the risk of an accident involving pedestrians and motor vehicles. Council delayed action until they could notify neighboring property owners and residents, and last night David Yarnall, owner of four houses on N. Church Street, showed up to oppose the closing. He pointed out that his tenants would lose access to their parking if the alley was closed, and claimed that they are already inconvenienced by market-goers who park illegally. The committee noted that the problem would disappear if the market was held on the parking lot located immediately to the east of the current site, and decided to ask Growers Market officials if they would consider moving.

The only other item on the agenda was the approval of a long list of parade and special event permits. Most (10) were Borough Recreation Department events like Swinging Summer Thursday, the May Day Festival, and the Restaurant Festival. The other two were the Rotary Club's "Chili Cook-Off" on Sunday, October 5, and a 5K Run sponsored by the Knights of Columbus on Saturday, April 19. The committee recommended approval of all of the dates, and will receive further input from the Police Department on street closings and other measures as the dates get closer.

The majority of the paintings are scenes of musicians and their audience inside Caribbean-style buildings at night. The figures, who are illuminated by combinations of club lighting and the outdoor sky, appear in red, yellow and orange within the buildings painted in brown, purple and dark blue. The use of acrylic paint makes them appear vivid rather than murky, while the articulation of the humans conveys the mood of each painting -- serious jazz, classical flamenco, straight-ahead rock, and frenzied street festival, to name a few. Although a few of the humans are shown in enough detail to be recognizable, most of the figures present the show's theme, music, instead of individual artists.

WCJIM has never been to Costa Rica, but Sanchez's paintings reminded him of other Caribbean destinations that he has visited -- the bars of Bridgetown in Barbados, the nightclubs of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, and especially the French Quarter in New Orleans. At a time of the year when any of these destinations seems warm and friendly, Sanchez's show is vert inviting.

The Sanchezes pose with one of Hugo's paintings

La Fiesta, one of the works at the Knauer Gallery

It is not certain that this will change any time soon, but a flurry of bills introduced in the state legislature recently all address one of two goals -- to give more control to local government, and to distribute the costs of state mandates more fairly. This week, Borough Council adopted resolutions supporting three such bills.

One came from our local state senator, Andy Dinniman (Dem, 19th District), and focuses on problems associated with alcohol consumption. State law currently gives all of the rights and responsibilities for liquor law enforcement to a special division of the state police, but Dinniman's bill would allow local communities with more than the minimum number of liquor licenses to enforce liquor laws themselves, and diverts a portion of an existing tax on alcohol to those communities so they can pay for it. It would also require State System universities like West Chester to provide more information on alcohol violations involving their students, and all colleges and universities to involve the parents of their students (within the limits of federal privacy restrictions).

A second bill was introduced by Rep. Carl Mantz (Rep, Kutztown) that would compensate municipalities that host a State System University for lost property tax revenue by setting aside $3 million and dividing it between the fourteen host communities. There is a precedent for such action, since the state government already provides money to rural townships which contain large amounts of state-owned forest.

A third bill introduced in the state senate would relax the state law that currently requires local governments to rely on their respective county tax claims office to collect back taxes owed on real estate. If approved, the bill would allow local governments the choice of sticking with the county office or hiring a third party collector. According to West Chester's Borough manager, delinquent property taxes are not a particularly large problem in the Borough. In a city like Philadelphia, for example, they are much more common, and if the county tax claim office is overwhelmed, it can take a long time to track down absentee property owners and get them yo pay up.

Last month (January 2008), Council voted to support a fourth bill proposed by Rep. Robert Freeman (Dem, Easton) that would redirect alcohol tax revenue to municipalities with more than 17% of their real estate owned by tax-exempt entities. Since real estate taxes are the primary source of local government funding, and tax exempt properties (some of which, like West Chester University, are owned by the state) receive their status thanks to state law, this bill will help out communities that host non- profit and government services used by neighboring municipalities.

How might all of this affect West Chester? The Borough has far more than its share of liquor licenses -- thirty-eight, compared to six permitted by the state liquor code -- and the Borough has over thirty percent of its property owned by tax exempt entities, well above the limit in the Freeman bill. The Borough is also host to a State System university, whose economic impact was described in one of the case studies in the Pennsylvania Economy League study. Delinquent property taxes are not a big issue -- the 2008 budget projects collections totalling $136,000, compared to over $3.5 million for current property taxes.

Naturally, none of these bills will make one bit of difference unless they are approved by the state legislature and signed by the governor. Governor Rendell is no stranger to the problems of urban centers, having served as the mayor of Philadelphia, so the real question is whether a legislature made of representatives who come mostly from rural areas will agree to shift tax revenues towards urban areas like West Chester. In the past, the answer has always been "no," but this time around, that may change for two reasons. First, concerns about the environment and preserving open space have raised interest in preserving and/or restoring urban centers as a way to stop sprawl. Second, the legislature's "midnight pay raise" of 2005 brought a large group of new people to the legislature who have slowly begun to nudge our state government towards reform (open records, student loans, etc.). It's too soon to tell if this type of reform will succeed, but it is certain that urban problems are getting more attention in the state legislature than at any time in the generation.