According to Johnstone, a company called Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) has expressed interest in building a mixture of commercial, office and residential space on the site -- perhaps 100,000 square feet of office space, the same amount of commercial space, and "hundreds of condominiums," all served by as many as three parking garages. According to recent news reports, PREIT owns shopping malls in fourteen states including the Exton Square Mall, Main Street at Exton, and the Echelon Mall in ou region, and has proposed a new "town-center" development for New Garden Township. [Daily Local News 2/7/2004, 5/16/2005, 4/7/2007 & Philadelphia Inquirer 7/13/2005] Johnstone said that PREIT could extend the Wyeth project across Bolmar Street into West Goshen if it can acquire land, and that it have to redesign roads in the area to handle the increased traffic.

The second proposal for the site has been offered by West Chester mayor Dick Yoder on behalf of another group that is interested in constructing a minor league baseball stadium. The stadium would occupy about eight of the 32 acres and serve a "High A" team (below AA and AAA) for one of the major league teams. Johnstone explained that a baseball stadium could pay for itself, but would be unlikely to generate additional revenue for the Borough directly through income, business or property taxes. Instead, the benefit to the Borough would come from the stadium's role as an additional (WCJIM: hopefully non-alcoholic) way to attract people to West Chester.

According to Johnstone, the two proposals are not mutually exclusive: i.e. a stadium on part of the site would still allow the rest of the site to be developed for other uses like those proposed by PREIT. He also said that the purpose of his presentation was not to promote either proposal, but instead to get Borough residents to start thinking about the future of the site.

Although it was not discussed at the meeting, there is one other entity with an interest in using part of the property -- the Borough itself. Last March, Council approved a feasibility study to examine the needs of the Public Works Department for, among other things, more space. With 32 acres of open space on the verge of redevelopment, it is a sure bet that Public Works Director Bob Wilpizeski has given some thought to what his department could do with a piece of that property.

Every year, West Chester hosts its share of walking tours, and 2007 will be no different. A dozen local history experts have created tours for the 13th Annual "Summer Town Tours and Village Walks," which kicks off in West Chester on Thursday, June 7 at 6pm from the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church at High & Union Streets. This year's tour is sponsored by the County Department of Parks and Recreation, the Borough Historical and Architectural Review Board, and the Historic South Walnut Neighborhood Association.

The tours will cover the "South High Street Corridor" which extends for about two blocks to either side of High Street south of Market. It includes a major road with colonial-era roots, the Borough's first major housing development (the 1830 Everhart tract), the railroad corridor, and some of West Chester's most elegant residential architecture. The dozen guides includes current HARB, Zoning Hearing Board and Recreation Commission members, plus several former members. They include land planners, professors, and professional archivists, plus a number of enthusiastic and highly skilled "amateurs."

One title looks especially interesting to local historians: Mary Sprout's "Mr. Rodebaugh's West Chester." Sprout was a close friend and collaborator of Paul Rodebaugh, West Chester's most celebrated local historian. Rodebaugh lived most of sixty one years in a house on Sharpless Street across from the University, and became known as a writer, speaker and collector of local historic artifacts -- mostly books, but also plenty of other objects. Sprout accompanied him on walking tours and road trips, and aided him with his research thanks to her position in the Chester County Archives. Her tour will offer a unique insight into the man who taught Chester County much of its history.

To hear more about West Chester's "Town Tour and Village Walk," listen to WCJIM's interview with Jane Dorchester on "Talk About West Chester" this Thursday, May 24, between 8-10am.

Bicycling in an urban environment is quite different from touring the countryside. Obviously, there are more people and other vehicles to contend with, but there are also physical obstacles that require some additional skills. For instance, the paved walkways of West Chester University provide an excellent surface for cycling (except when classes are changing), but they also feature curbs and stairways. Strong legs may permit a rider to go around stairways, but riding over curbs is a sure way to break wheel spokes. The alternative is a maneuver called "dismount/remount" in which the cyclist hops off of the bike, grabs it with one hand, carries it over the obstacle and then hops back on again. With only a little practice, a dismount/remount can be accomplished with the loss of only a few seconds -- less time than it takes to find a curb cut.

A far greater danger, according to the police, is that of bicycle theft. Since the beginning of 2007, the Borough has received reports of 21 stolen bicycles, and each year both the Borough and University police departments hold sales to dispose of recovered bikes whose owners could not be identified. Some bikes are never recovered, although a group of volunteers retrieved several from Goose Creek at E. Nields Street during the Earth Day community clean-up.

Local agencies have made efforts to promote bicycle riding by installing secure racks at a number of locations. West Chester University has the largest selection but both the Court House and Borough Hall are also equipped. Various streetscape projects introduced racks along Gay Street, and there is a good assortment of sturdy street lamps and poles to which a bike can be secured. Here's a request, however: Do not lock your bike to any of the Borough's street trees -- choose a metal or wooden pole instead.

Along the Struble Trail

For riding at high speeds, you have to get out of the Borough (o else take your chances with the traffic on E. Market Street -- not recommended). The West Chester Cycle Club organizes weekly group bike rides and offers a variety of trip plans on their web site. For people who prefer to get out of traffic, there are dedicated bicycle trails in Downingtown, Uwchlan and Valley Forge.

For a short ride, head to Kerdon Park on the east side of Downingtown where the four-mile Struble Bike Trail follows the old East Brandywine & Waynesburg Railroad right-of=way north to Dorlan Road at the far end of Dowlin Forge Park. From there, if your legs are up to it, you can climb the hill to Marsh Creek State Park, but if they're not, you can return to the south end of Dowling Forge Park and take a side trip along the Uwchlan Township Trail.

For a longer ride, head to Valley Forge, cross the Schuylkill River on US422 and take the first exit for Trooper Road. Instead of following the traffic to the right, turn left at the top of the ramp and follow the signs to the boat landing at Betzwood. The parking lot is only a few feet away from a railroad line that has been converted into a bicycle path that runs from northern Montgomery county to Philadelphia. Heading east towards Norristown provides an interesting mix of industrial and urban landscapes, while heading west takes you along the Schuylkill River to the Perkiomen Creek and some fairly spectacular southeastern Pennsylvania scenery.

How to hang on to your bike: If you can't store your bicycle inside, use a case-hardened steel lock (cable locks can be cut easily). It doesn't hurt to take the bike's front wheel with you when you park the bike. But before you do anything else, write down the make, model, color and serial number of your bicycle and store that information in a safe place along with something that proves you own the bicycle (the sales receipt is best), The police need that before they can return your bike, if its ever stolen and recovered.

They were all there to support a good cause. The VEP organizes volunteer tutors who assist recent immigrants with English lessons as well as with "acculturation" -- the process of becoming familiar with attitudes and behaviors in the United States. For example, some cultures treat direct eye contact as a threatening act, but in order to interview for a job in this country, eye contact is a plus. Information like that is difficult to come by, but VEP tutors and their students develop personal relationships that enable them to exchange information that goes beyond grammar and vocabulary.

According to VEP President Lalicker, program volunteers donated more than 11,000 hours of their time last year to over 200 students from forty different countries. One of those students, Alex Loboda, spoke to the crowd about his experience as an immigrant from the Ukraine where he worked as a endocrinologist at a hospital that treated, among other people who were injured by the Chernobyl disaster. He explained how, besides improving his English, his tutor helped him learn the behaviors he needed to interact successfully with patients and colleagues in an American hospital.

There were three messages from the event that are worth sharing on this web page. First, at a time when zealots in the immigration debate have tried to make the word "immigrant" inseparable from "illegal," it is important to remember that there are thousands of legal immigrants in the United States (24,000 in Chester County alone). Second, the Volunteer English Program needs more tutors. Third, even though the Program receives some funding from the PA Department of Education and the United Way, it relies heavily on private donations.

To learn more about the Volunteer English Program, visit their web site at volunteerenglish.org. To volunteer, call Linda Grosse at 610-918-8222 or send her an email or a fax at 610-918-8223. To send a donation, make out a check payable to "Volunteer English Program in Chester County" and send it to VEP at 790 E. Market Street, Suite 215, West Chester, PA 19382.

West Chester is home to two district courts: #15-1-01 on the west side and #15-1-04 on the east (Chester County is #15 in the state; the Borough is in district #1, and our courts are #1 and #4, respectively). Until 2004, there was only a single court, but the workload in that court was so great that the state authorized its division into two separate districts. Even so, both remain tops in the County in terms of numbers of cases, even though they cover the smallest area of any district court in the country. Both are under a square mile, compared to Kennett Square (#15-3-04), which covers roughly sixty square miles, or West Goshen (#15-2-03), which covers more than twenty-five square miles.

Most of the difference in cases heard between the two West Chester courts came from traffic offenses. The West side led the county with 14,302, while the East side was second with 12,615. The East side led the County in other categories -- non-traffic and miscellaneous filings -- and came in fifth for criminal filings behind Downingtown's court #15-2-06. The Borough's West side court came in fourth, seventh and tenth in those categories.

Measuring performance : In an ideal world, the best way to measure the performance of a district court would be to examine its "recidivism rate" -- the percentage of people found guilty who commit another offense -- and a low recidivism rate would be evidence of success. Unfortunately there is no good way to cross-reference convictions from our district courts with those of other counties and states. Another useful measure would be overall crime rate within a court's jurisdiction, but since so many other factors affect that, a change cannot be attributed to the district court alone.

The Borough does track the amount of revenue collected by district courts to cover fines and court costs. State law specifically prohibits municipalities from relying on fines to meet their budget needs, but fines are an important source of revenue, they force defendants to make some sort of restitution to the community, and many people believe they discourage offenders from committing further criminal acts (despite the evidence, available to anyone who drives on US Route 202, that speeding tickets do not reduce speeding). On the other hand, there are ways for district justices to increase court revenue without affecting the amount of crime, so revenue is at best an imperfect measure of performance.

Statistics from the Borough Treasurer's office for 2006 show that the Borough's two district courts perform about the same when it comes to generating revenue. The majority comes from parking and traffic offenses, and with a slight advantage in those types of cases, the West side court generated just under $401,000 with 15,675 cases in 2006, compared to slightly less than $374,000 for 14,691 cases in the East side court. That works out to an average of $25.58 per case on the West side and $25.44 on the East side. (These totals exclude cases that generated no revenue for the Borough.)

Why are Borough courts so busy? One is the number of liquor licenses in town -- 65% of the non-criminal cases on the East side involved alcohol. Another is the Borough's relatively young population -- nearly 40 percent is between 18 and 24, according to the 2000 US Census -- which is associated with a high rate of non-violent crime. A third factor is the large number of people who visit the Borough by automobile, coupled with population density that creates crowded streets and leaves parking in short supply. Population density probably provides a fourth explanation -- even though their jurisdiction are small, they contain a lot of people and are augmented by the West Chester University population for nine months of each year.

To learn more about what goes on in the Borough's district courts, try to visit the West side court (720 E. Market St.) on Tuesday morning or the East side court (530 E. Union St.) on Friday morning, which each holds its respective "Criminal Day" (they are staggered so that police officers can appear at either court). There is also a website for the East side court at www.judgeknapp.com.

One other feature of the plan is unusual -- the complete absence of any commercial or other "pedestrian-friendly" space on the ground floor. Instead, there is a small lobby in the southeast corner nearest Market Street and Potter Alley that provides access to the office space which begins on the second floor, but otherwise there will be only parking spaces which will be screened from the view of passersby. Since the "conditional use standards" for the height overlay district prohibit using the "first floor/ground floor" exclusively for parking and/or offices, and instead require "a continuation and continuity of shop fronts and stores," this aspect of the plan will probably require some marketing when Council hears the application. [See Code of the Borough of West Chester, Chapter 112-33.1(B)(2) for details.]

There is another way to look at it, however, and it is supported by state law. That's the view that an earlier Borough Council agreed that buildings up to 180 feet were acceptable, so until the new height ordinance is enacted, that standard remains in effect. By submitting his application before Council could complete the height revision, Kahn preserved the opportunity to build according to the earlier standard. Council can hold him to the conditions prescribed by that standard, but it cannot deny the project based on a standard that is not yet law. The only forces that can persuade Kahn to comply with the new, lower standard are real estate economics, public opinion, and his own conscience.