Bridge Envy

You could be forgiven for thinking that founding father and American Revolution-era author Thomas Paine must have been inching along in traffic on a stiflingly hot August day, late for an appointment, when he uttered his famous quote “These are the times that try men’s souls”.

Literary references aside, local traffic jams caused by road construction, paving, sewer line installations, roadside power line upgrades, and numerous bridge replacement projects – all more or less taking place at the same time - are testing motorists’ good will and patience this summer as many LP residents find themselves going nowhere fast when attempting to get to work, shuttle kids to camp and athletic events, get to the doctor or dentist, or run even the smallest of errands.

We’re all used to road projects. It’s for good reason that a running joke is that the Pennsylvania state tree is a traffic cone. We all understand intellectually that road and infrastructure improvements are an inconvenient but necessary part of life. But locally, two major projects taking place simultaneously – the replacement of the Arcola Road Bridge (closed in August 2013) between Lower and Upper Providences, and the completion of the cloverleaf at Trooper Road and 422 - are the primary culprits, and other projects affect the detours and secondary routes we all use to avoid them.

Over in neighboring Chester County, the announcement in April of the commencement of work to the Pickering Creek Dam bridge on Route 23 near where it intersects with Pawlings Road – the main route from the southern end of LPT into Phoenixville and Valley Forge – has only added to the delays and frustration.

So, what’s a community to do when they aren’t fortunate enough to have former county commissioner and new PennDOT chief Leslie Richards embedded in the community as a resident capable of getting a bridge (really two culverts side by side) engineered, rebuilt and reopened in her locale in a mere five months? (detailed here)

The Pickering Dam bridge, like the ARB, is a total teardown and rebuild project (with repairs to the piers, instead of replacing them), but unlike the ARB, it’s cost was approximately $1.7M and is expected to be completed in a mere 6 months (originally scheduled to be completed in April of next year, new performance incentives have accelerated its anticipated completion date by 6 months - story here). 

Despite claims from some of our local officials that the projects aren’t similar at all (although in many ways, they are…they are both similar lengths, widths, square footage, and span), Chester County and state officials, including state Sen. Andy Dinniman, were able to find the funds to reopen and renegotiate the contract with successful bidder J.D. Eckman to build in incentives for each day Eckman improves upon the original project completion date and the Pickering Creek Dam bridge is reopened early. The contractor also agreed to work five ten-hour days per week instead of four.

Naturally, LPT residents are scratching their heads and enviously asking: Why do we have to wait a long three years’ worth of sitting in traffic and detoured routes for OUR bridge (closed in August 2013) to be completed when it is clearly possible to do so faster?

Photo credit: Main Line Media News

While the two projects are similar in some ways, a direct comparison is difficult because in many ways it’s an apples-to-oranges scenario. For starters, Pickering/Route 23 is a state road and 100% state project, versus ARB, which is a Montgomery County-owned bridge. The repairs are being funded partly by the federal government, along with state and county funds. Their design and bid processes are different right out of the gate.

Second, Pickering is a part of a larger state project known as Act 89. Also known as the Transportation Bill, it covers numerous bridge and road improvements across Pennsylvania and was signed into law in 2013 by Governor Tom Corbett. It allocates $2.3 billion in funding for transportation-related projects in Pennsylvania, including road and bridge projects.  PennDOT claims Act 89 “promotes coordinated planning and implementation to ensure greatest return on investment.”

And, the Pickering Dam bridge project was on the state’s radar for the past ten years as needing replacement so some preparation had already been made by the time Act 89 was enacted, whereas several past County administrations had kicked the ARB can down the road until it could no longer be postponed. While design plans had been drawn up some time ago - which called for a side-by-side rebuild while the existing bridge was still open - deterioration and closure of the ARB in August 2013 necessitated scratching that plan and starting over.  Single-source funding under Act 89 made it easier to do incentives on that project.

Third, the ARB required the purchase of a number of easements from private residents, some of which had to be negotiated, and this dragged out the timeline before construction could even begin. The Pickering Dam bridge project did not require acquisition of easements.

Fourth, Pickering Dam Bridge carries approximately 20,000 cars per day whereas ARB carries in the neighborhood of 9000 cars per day, and with 11,000 more pain points over in Phoenixville, clearly Pickering Dam Bridge appears to be a higher priority from a regional perspective.

Photo credit: Mike Vereb

And let’s not forget that there was about a six-week delay in December 2014-January 2015 when workers for successful bidder Allan A. Myers L.P. of Worcester who were tearing down the old ARB bridge discovered the presence of lead-based paint (verified by PennDOT officials), requiring a revamped, nonhazardous demolition strategy. 

Montgomery County is the conduit through which PennDOT bid the job, negotiated the final construction contract, and payments to the contractor are being made. Despite the fact that the lowest bid for the ARB project was almost $2.5M less than the amount budgeted for the project, the July 5, 2016 timeline was built into the contract and, unlike the Route 23/Pickering project – for who knows what reason – there were no performance incentives included in the deal to encourage them to get it done faster. In addition, there are, as far as I can tell, no terms that require a certain number of hours to be worked per day or a particular number of employees to be dedicated to the ARB project.

By comparison, the Pickering Dam bridge contract specifies working hours of 9 am to 3 pm (to avoid rush hours) and allows for the possibility of overnight work. The newly negotiated agreement does not note a total cost for the incentives but notes “Cost has been negotiated and agreed with Department representatives. Acceleration has been started with extended work hours, overtime, and extra Friday work shifts.” A cover letter accompanying PennDOT’s response to my Right to Know request states that “ While PennDOT has agreed to pay a lump sum to accelerate delivery of the project to November 26, 2015 (as evidenced by the enclosed Contract Work Authorization) it has not yet reduced to writing its agreement in principle with the contractor relative to an incentive payment. Subject to change, the parties have conceptually agreed that if the contractor completes the project early, it will receive $3,000 for each day in advance of the November 26, 2015 date.” (more info here)

Residents driving by the Arcola Road Bridge project regularly report via Facebook seeing no, or only one or two, workers during normal working hours. Progress appears to be moving at a snail’s pace, and whatever is getting accomplished down there seems to be happening far too slowly for most residents. However, Upper Providence Township supervisor John Pearson, who lives along the UPT side of the bridge and whose home looks down upon the creek bed, told us at a July 30 public meeting held by state Rep. Mike Vereb at the LP Township building in response to complaints voiced at the “Living in Lower Providence” Facebook page, that workers are indeed there every day, often begin work at 6 am, and that it can be difficult to see from road height just what is happening.

So, don’t blame the contractor, Allan Myers.When the Montco commissioners/PennDOT bid the ARB job, more than $7 million was budgeted, but the lowest responsible bidder (Myers) came in at $5.3M. Thus, there is additional money available to reopen and renegotiate the contract to provide performance incentives for Allan Myers (which various sources familiar with this and similar projects have suggested would run in the neighborhood of $200,000-$300,000).



photo credit: Times Herald Oct 2014

So – why haven’t our local officials tried to do the same thing for our bridge project? Why can’t we, too, renegotiate the contract to build in some financial incentives to the contractor to speed up completion and reopening?  Fact is, they have raised the subject, but so far it’s fallen on deaf ears with the Montco commissioners.

According to Charles Metzger, PennDOT Community Relations Coordinator, told me that it was easier to do incentives on the Pickering Dam bridge project because as an Act 89 project which funds numerous other highway/transportation projects across the Commonwealth, it was easier to move money under that funding umbrella from another, less-critical project to this one to provide the incentives.

As to ARB, while Vereb initially (and, as it turns out, erroneously) stated at the July 30 meeting that contracts like ARB that are largely federally funded could not have incentives, I’ve learned that’s not exactly the case. Not only are they permitted, but the federal government actually prefers to build incentives into their agreements wherever possible.

As of 8-31-15. Photo credit: Susan Wozniak

Since Montgomery County has the least amount of skin in the game – 5% versus 15% from the State and 80% from the feds - and it IS their bridge, I’m not sure I understand why something can’t be done, particularly since the County negotiated and awarded the contract in the first place.

Considering that Montco commissioner’s chair Josh Shapiro has been quoted in the press recently boasting about their financial prowess and how they are sitting on enough reserve cash to float numerous social service agencies in the area for several months during the prolonged state budget standoff, surely their alleged financial acumen could be applied to ponying up some incentive money to get the ARB completed much faster than July 2016, especially given that the bid award was substantially less than that budgeted for the project.

LP’s traffic engineer, Casey Moore, from the firm McMahon Associates, told me that “contractors like Allan Myers are always looking for performance incentives because they have an ability to meet them and make some money”, and that they’d thus likely be very open to the possibility.

I also spoke to Seth Myers, Vice President of Business Development at Allan Myers, who reiterated that the speed and pace of construction is out of their control, noting that “We are given specs and a schedule to follow” post-bid award, and allocate their resources accordingly. The firm was, until recently, unaware of all the Facebook chatter directing blame for the slow construction pace and alleged inactivity on the project firmly in their direction, and told me “We appreciate people’s frustration in not being able to use the bridge, but we will deliver the completed bridge on time”. The company manages over 450 projects statewide and has allocated its resources and paced work according to contractual requirements for each – including the ARB.
 

Allan Myers has compelling reasons to deliver on time: there are Road User Liquidated Damages of $27,009 built into the ARB agreement to be assessed for every day or portion of a day after July 5, 2016 that the ARB is not open to unrestricted traffic on all lanes, and another $27,009 assessment for each day or portion of a day that the detour is not removed on or after July 5, 2016.
 

There is an additional cost to the contractor (Construction Engineer Liquidated Damages) of $3,325 for each day that any physical work remains uncompleted after the Required Completion Date, to be deducted from money due or to become due. Thus, for each day that this project remains incomplete after July 5, 2016, it will cost Allan Myers $57,343.
 

At the July 30 meeting, Rep. Vereb reiterated that we shaved about 14 months off the beginning phase of the project because they got the plan designed, approved, bid and awarded in 13 months instead of the 24 months it could have taken, as well as doing a number of things concurrently that normally are done consecutively, such as DEP review, utility relocation plan, traffic impact study, stormwater plan, environmental study, etc. Each normally has a 60-90 day review period, and we saved 6-7 months right there. He also indicated that originally it was hoped that the new bridge could be built side-by-side with the old one while it was still open, but having to shut it down as unsafe rendered that impossible.


But Upper Providence Township supervisor and chairman Lisa Mossie recently weighed in on Facebook, taking issue with the Montco commissioners: "County knew they were going to close this bridge months before they actually did, yet they had no engineered plans in place and it costs us months on the design work. Leslie's [PennDOT chief Richards] Plymouth Road Bridge was closed completely unexpectedly because of sinkholes, and not only did they get it fixed in five short months with no engineering in place, but they filled two developing sinkholes and re-routed a stream. All in less time than it took them to just get started on Arcola."


By all accounts, officials for both townships, Rep. Vereb's office, and State Sen. John Rafferty's office have been relentless in trying to coordinate activities with the county and contractor and push for forward movement. Vereb particularly called out LPT manager Richard Gestrich as being very vocal and tenacious in getting answers and action.
 

Vereb indicated that in all likelihood, if we have a mild winter, the project will be completed early, in mid-spring 2016, and they won’t hold up the opening for esthetics like landscaping and minor finishing touches. However, don’t start your engines just yet: In an August 16, 2015 Associated Press article, Farmers’ Almanac editor Janice Stillman says the Northeast will see a winter of heavy snowfall and below-normal, frigid temperatures.
 

Unfortunately for us, it may be that the contractual maneuverings are just water under the bridge at this point and all we can do is wait for whichever happens first – a performance incentive from the county commissioners (all of whom are running for re-election or, in Castor's case, hoping to be elected back to the DA's office), or spring thaw.

 

Photo credit: CBS Philly

The Real Deal

It isn't always easy finding the right people to run for positions as public servants, folks willing to spend hours of their time campaigning and, if successfully elected, sitting in meetings, balancing budgets and listening to angry residents. It also takes someone who doesn’t mind being stopped at the gas station, WaWa or grocery store when a resident has an urgent sewer line question or a traffic issue about which they urgently need to vent.

These are the positions that form the backbone of our Republic, the local political equivalent of first responders to so many of our basic issues such as property taxes, trash collection, zoning, infrastructure improvements, and public recreational facilities.

Some communities struggle to find such individuals. While that’s seldom, if ever, been an issue in Lower Providence, one thankless position in particular can be a challenge, where a significant number of the office’s dealings with the public may not be pleasant and some may be downright hostile. That is the post of tax collector. 

Lower Providence and Methacton School District have had good fortune in that tax collector Kirsten Deal fulfills those duties for us. Deal, the first and only Democrat elected here in many years, was first elected in 2005, beating Republican Doug Hager, and was unopposed in her re-election bids in 2009 and 2013.  She succeeded a longtime Republican who’d held the post for the preceding 48 years, Republican Robert Love (Love just passed away this past May).

In an unusual twist, in the 2005 race for tax collector, Love endorsed Deal over the endorsed Republican candidate as his replacement.

Deal, a 14-year Lower Providence resident with more than thirty years’ experience in the appraisal, real estate and financial services sectors, has modernized and streamlined the post since her election. And while she makes it look easy, the mechanics of separating tax receivables from taxpayers isn’t simple. Mistakes made by tax collectors have the potential to cost landowners within the jurisdiction their property rights, so the stakes are high.
The job is more complicated and time consuming than you’d think, involving issuing tax notices (bills) for three entities: the local municipality (Lower Providence), Methacton School District, and Montgomery County. A fair number of duplicate bills are also requested for those whose mortgage companies pay residents’ taxes out of escrowed funds and for whom the tax invoice never was forwarded by the resident.

It also involves making the deposits of monies received, posting payments to the proper accounts, reconciliations, and a fair amount of reporting – monthly to Montgomery County, LP and Methacton, and annually with the County. Funds are usually remitted to each taxing authority on a biweekly basis.

In addition, tax collectors are responsible for notifying the county sheriff of any unpaid taxes outstanding against any property advertised for sheriff’s sale, and providing certifications for real estate sales settlements.

The timing of when tax bills must be printed and mailed, and funds remitted, means Deal works a lot of dates most folks consider holidays or prime time for vacations, and sometimes on weekends or until late at night. “Accuracy and timeliness are the most important parts of this job so that those [taxing] institutions can get their money in on time and pay their bills”, said Deal. Some locally elected tax collectors collect their fees and outsource the work to a third party, but Deal is one of a few who still does all the work herself (sometimes assisted by her husband).

The only local taxes for which collection is outsourced to a private third party is the Earned Income Tax (EIC, or ‘occupation tax’), charged at 1% on income – half for the township and half to the school district); the per capita tax ($15/yr, $5 to LPT and $10 to Methacton); and the ‘local services’ tax ($52 per person/yr) which Berkheimer Associates of Berks County collects.
  

According to the Tax Collector’s Manual published by the PA Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Pennsylvania tax collectors' salaries are based on a percentage of the total dollar amount of the bills they process, and the pay can range from $1,200 to $100,000, depending upon the size of the municipality and school district. In our area, Deal is paid a dollar amount per invoice issued ($3 each from both LPT and Methacton for approximately 7500 households and 500 businesses – with lesser amounts for subsequent delinquent tax bills) so what Deal earns to process our tax work is firmly in the middle of that range. The County also pays a fee per invoice.

The post comes with no health benefits or retirement plan. Tax collectors have to find other ways to cover those costs out of their earnings.

The compensation (fees and expenses) local tax collectors are paid can only be charged if their municipalities enact an ordinance authorizing them to do so and cannot exceed 5% of invoices issued. This amount is to include reimbursement for all billing expenses of the tax collector other than bonding, printing, postage and envelopes. LPT has authorized up to $1500 per year for printing and envelopes upon receipt of proof of the actual expenditure for these items. There is a separate reimbursement for the costs of bonding and postage upon receipt of the actual expense for those items. By law tax collectors must maintain performance (surety) bonds, so that if they don’t perform, the entity owed tax monies can collect against it. The cost of the bond premium is paid by the taxing districts in an amount proportionate to their share of the total annual tax bills.

While the need to tap a bond is rare, this has become necessary in neighboring Upper Providence Township, where their former tax collector, Beverly Noll, appears to have failed to fulfill her duties due to illness. While she’s since been replaced in the 2013 election, Spring-Ford School District and Montgomery County (Upper Providence itself has no township tax) are trying to clean up the mess, and the County has seized Noll’s records to figure out if there was any improper disposition of funds, determine who has paid versus who has not, and help reconcile those who claim they’ve paid with a stack of undeposited checks found in Noll’s office (more here and here). 

Since she was first elected, Deal has introduced improvements to the function, adding Saturday hours at her desk at First Niagara Bank in Audubon, keeping extended hours during tax deadline dates, purchasing an updated Windows-based tax program which utilizes bar codes on invoices to automate and speed up tax processing, and purchasing bulk postage instead of using postage stamps. She even swapped out an ancient dot-matrix printer she inherited in the job for a state-of-the-art laser printer. She says she is proud that she’s delivering more service for less money. Her website is www.lowerprovidencetaxcollector.com.

Overall, Deal enjoys the job, although her greatest frustrations include not hearing from people until there is a serious problem, people coming into the bank to pay taxes outside of her published hours of availability, and calling her office when there is really an issue with their banking institution or mortgage holder. All in all, though, she enjoys providing such a critical service despite the occasional headaches. I think she’s doing a phenomenal job in keeping a reliable cash flow coming in to Lower Providence’s and Methacton’s coffers. At the end of the day, residents in LPT and Methacton really are getting the best ‘Deal’ possible.

 

Fields Of Gold

FOR THE MOST RECENT INFORMATION ABOUT THE SALE OF PARKHOUSE AND 200 ACRES OF OPEN SPACE,PLEASE SEE WWW.SAVEPARKHOUSE.BLOGSPOT.COM

Imagine a scenario in which gorgeous, undisturbed open space located in your community, but owned by Montgomery County, is quietly, inexplicably and suddenly targeted for sale and rushed to closing.  

Think it couldn’t happen? We have county-owned open space at the Audubon Recreation Association fields, at Mill Grove, at the Shannondell Golf Course, even surrounding the prison in Eagleville. Most of that is under long term lease, but leases, like any other contract, can be terminated early for a variety of reasons unless otherwise protected by legal instruments.

As if that is not bad enough, imagine that all the details surrounding the proposals and contract award of the sale of land in your community – which you might even live close to - is done with next to no transparency. You have no idea what could be happening there in a few short months. Still think this couldn’t happen?

Folks, all of this IS happening just one township over from us. If you have any relatives or friends who are residents or employees of Parkhouse, Montgomery County’s geriatric and rehabilitation complex in Upper Providence Township, you especially want to be paying attention. Parkhouse consists of a 467-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility, a senior daycare and fifteen rental apartments for seniors.

 

Back in June, Montgomery County put Parkhouse up for sale and advertised for proposals for a private entity to purchase and operate it. Part of the assets included in the RFP were 220 acres of open, mostly agricultural, land surrounding Parkhouse. Over the summer, the County set up several meetings with UPT officials, theoretically to discuss their intentions regarding the proposed sale, get UPT’s concerns, and update UPT as to the status.

The County cancelled meeting after meeting, finally finding time to sit down with UPT in July, but not to discuss UPT’s concerns with the sale, but to discuss the COUNTY’S  concerns with UPT’s pending rezoning of the parcel, which was in process prior to the county issuing the RFP. The rezoning involved changing the subject property from R1 Residential with an institutional overlay to OSC (open space with institutional overlay).  They met with UPT staff only once again, in September, again, to discuss THEIR concerns, specifically the granting of a proposed “natural subdivision" sectioning off some of the open space down Route 113.

Since early September, I have submitted a couple of Right to Know requests to try to figure out something about this, and bottom line, the County has been stalling me left and right with what I believe are contrived excuses that are not legitimate under the Open Records Law. This isn't my first trip to the rodeo; I know how this works, so I appealed. I filed the second such request after I became aware that an October 8 meeting was scheduled for the purpose of having the ‘Working Group’ (an all-county-employee board tasked with reviewing proposals) present their findings to the county Commissioners. They did not make the winning bidder’s proposal public, nor did they reveal the names of the other bidders, including the second of the two purported finalists. This Working Group recommended that bidder Mid-Atlantic Health Care from Maryland be awarded the bid, and a few days later, the Commissioners accepted their recommendation and voted to sell the whole shebang to Mid-Atlantic for $39 million.

Some initial research I did revealed some potentially disturbing information about the winning bidder. They’ve accumulated half of their current holdings only since 2011, and took on enormous debt ($106M) to do so, so one wonders how they propose to add to their portfolio another $39M in debt AND an operation that according to the County is losing $2-7M a year and turn it around. I work in pharma; I know how unlikely it is that they will become profitable merely by joining a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) as suggested by Dr. Rifkin, and if that argument had any merit, why didn't the County try that first?

I also found information which suggests that Dr. Scott Rifkin, Mid-Atlantic’s owner, over the past twenty years has led at least one prior business down the road to bankruptcy (several he's been involved are no longer in business today and one them was a creditor to the bankrupt business), also after aggressively and rapidly expanding. Did anyone at County vet Mid-Atlantic’s finances or viability?  Do they really care about the continuity of services and operational excellence at Parkhouse going forward? The employees? The patients and residents???

Also I discovered that Rifkin, despite his claims that he’s ‘not a political guy’, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Maryland state senate in 2006 (here) and his brother is a Washington lobbyist.  I wonder to what degree those facts had anything to do with their introduction to, and selection by, a Democrat-majority Board of Commissioners as the winning bidder. If Rifkin would misrepresent his political background, what else would he misrepresent?

While all this has transpired, citing their desire to close the deal by the end of this year (in an arbitrarily set deadline less than 8 weeks from now) the County on November 4 pushed UPT to grant them a ‘natural subdivision’ without going through Planning Commission review…without knowing what the winning bidder has planned…without knowing, really, anything.

All that is known about this plan is what we have been told by the County. Nobody in the public has, to my knowledge, ever seen the actual proposal. After the bid was awarded in October, after my second Right To Know request received the same response as the first and the County still hadn’t turned over the proposal nor the names of the other bidders, I appealed. Once I filed the appeal with the state, THEN the County turned over the list of bidders, but are still refusing to turn over the actual proposal, even though the bid has been awarded. What are they waiting for? What can't we know until the sale is already a done deal and it can't be undone?

The County’s ‘Working Group” who recommended the sale represented to the Commissioners that they had kept Upper Providence officials informed during the entire process and that UPT was on board with their plans. UPT supervisors deny this is the case, and it’s my understanding the County is very unhappy that UPT isn’t moving this along on the timeline the County desires. 

UPT is concerned that the IN overlay allows the buyer to develop something with an institutional use and their worry is that the new owner could come in, develop a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC – a local example of a CCRC is Shannondell), something Rifkin actually suggested could happen, and then potentially – judging by Rifkin’s apparent track record - go bankrupt soon after, leaving either partially or fully completed structures behind that would then need to be converted into apartments or something else to be viable. That’s in addition to any negative impact on the existing Parkhouse facility.

So the $39 million dollar question is, what does Mid-Atlantic propose to do with the 200 acres surrounding the Parkhouse facility for which the County is aggressively pursuing subdivision? And why can’t anyone know what that is for? For all we know, they want to put a home for sex offenders on the property, or a rehab facility for drug addicts. It could all be paved over and made into parking. We just don’t know.  Despite all the chest-thumping Commissioner Josh Shapiro has been doing about how transparent his administration is, from my viewpoint, they are anything but.

There are other aspects to this debacle. As has been well documented in the press, Montgomery County has been in financial distress, with a gaping hole in their budget, partly caused by ‘economic development projects’. The County has thrown away approximately $62M in recent years in the name of Norristown revitalization investments which have been abject failures, with no one asking what happened to the money invested…certainly not the local press.

Also, what will happen with the employees? I’m aware that the nurses’ union, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professional Union, is receiving calls from distressed employees at Parkhouse upset about cuts to their benefits and increases in their medical care premiums already, despite Mid-Atlantic’s promises that nothing would change.

However, the worst aspect of all, besides the County trying to bully a convenient solution to their financial problems by ramming it down a local muncipality’s throat , is trying to fix their well-documented budget problems at the expense of our County’s most vulnerable and lowest-income residents that reside at Parkhouse and who rely on the facility for treatment and care.

There is a public meeting of UPT’s Planning Commission scheduled this coming Wednesday evening, November 13 at 7 pm at the UPT building on Black Rock Road. County officials will be making their case for the subdivision request at that time, and if you have any questions or concerns about their plans for this facility and the surrounding open space, you would be well served to attend. It might be your only opportunity to push for answers before Montgomery County finishes their mad sprint to get this done with as few eyeballs on it as possible before the end of the year.

What's happening early next year that's driving this insane deadline to get that $540K budget surplus by the end of the year? If County is dealing in good faith, why won't they turn over a copy of the proposal so we can all see what Dr. Rifkin has proposed?

Art used with permission of Jack Minster

A link with some more detail on this issue than I have room for here can be found here, along with some pertinent questions that should really be asked at next Wednesday's meeting, if you so desire.  And, UPT supervisor Lisa Mossie weighs in with this letter to the editor, here.

However this turns out, if this is how the County feels it's appropriate to deal with local municipalities, how long will it be before the County wants something here in LP that they don't want to deal with us in good faith about?

PS To add insult to injury  At the very meeting where they approved the sale of Parkhouse and 220 acres of open space, the Commissioners received the thanks of the Montgomery County Lands Trust for their financial contribution to…wait for it….preserve a mere 33 acres of greenways in Upper Dublin and Springfield Townships. I guess only open space EAST of Route 422 is worthy of preservation.

Bridge To Nowhere

(updated 8/1/13 @ 10:25 pm to add that a meeting will be held by Montgomery County officials on August 12 at 7 pm at the Arcola Intermediate School to discuss these and other concerns.  My understanding is that all LP supervisors will be in attendance, as well as Sen. Rafferty and Rep. Vereb.

(updated 7/22/13 @ 7:45 pm to add map links)

LP’s bicentennial tagline, and the theme around which they redesigned their emblem back in 2005, was ‘Bridge to the Future”.  However, a landmark bridge over the Perkiomen, near where the Skippack Creek flows into it, referred to as the “Arcola Road bridge”, will soon become a bridge to nowhere, and there’s no easy, fast or inexpensive fix in sight.

It’s one of only two remaining bridges that allow for local automobile passage across the Perkiomen between Lower Providence and other communities. A third, the Yerkes Road Bridge, was destroyed in 1972 when Hurricane Agnes blew through the area, so the demands on the remaining two are higher.

The bridge is heavily travelled between LP, UP and Collegeville and particularly used as alternative to avoid traffic on the Perkiomen Bridge between LP and Collegeville, especially for those employees of the pharmaceutical firms in Upper Providence.

A county-owned bridge originally built in 1869 and replaced in 1931, the 258’ (total length), 20-foot wide bridge (also known as the “Cider Mill Road bridge”) handles more than 8,900 cars a day, according to Leo Bagley, transportation planner and assistant director of the Montgomery County Planning Commission.

Slated last fall for partial closure due to repairs anticipated to take 30 days, Montgomery County originally promised to keep the bridge in place before constructing a new one, keeping it functional by having a single lane closure with travel restrictions such as local traffic only while being worked on, but that’s no longer an option. The County recently discovered that the bridge is far too dilapidated for that and they are just going to have to close and replace it.

Originally engineered to withstand 40 tons of weight, the County's website still lists the Arcola Road Bridge at a 12 ton weight limit. However this past spring, Montgomery County’s Dept. of Roads and Bridges reduced the weight limitations on the Arcola Road Bridge twice, from 12 tons to 6, and then from 6 tons to 3 tons weigh capacity, so it’s now restricted to allow vehicles weighing no more than 3 tons to cross. In 2010 it was given a structural appraisal of ‘structurally deficient” and a deck rating of ‘poor’.

Locals report that there are boards literally hanging down from the bottom of the bridge that can easily be seen when you drive up to it, and that they often hear chunks falling off into the water. 

Since the bridge will soon be unsafe for traffic of any weight, it’s on an accelerated inspection schedule due to its condition. The plan now is to close it, remove it, and replace it, while running a detour around it. The new bridge will be two lanes (as is now), width to be determined, with a pedestrian sidewalk on at least one side.  The work will involve both deck replacement and structural improvements to the base.

The next inspection is due to take place August 16 or 17, and it is doubtful as to whether it will pass. Either way the odds are substantially against this bridge remaining open until the scheduled replacement time in about a year - best case scenario would be that construction could start in the summer or fall of 2014 – which may not even happen if the funding isn’t in place.

According to Bagley, while all the preconstruction funding is in place and allows for the design work and purchase of required easements, the total costs of $8-$10 million for the actual construction work still need to be allocated. The biggest chunk, about 75%, comes from Federal TIP (transportation improvement program) money; about 15% from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the rest from the County. The County has their portion of the funding in place, having previously done a bond issue to raise the money, and that will roll forward until used.  Bagley stated “It’s a zero sum game...if we get the funding from the state, something else won’t, and vice versa”. Thus, the pressure is on our local elected officials (state Rep. Mike Vereb, and state senators Andrew Dinniman and John Rafferty) to make sure State funding makes it way to this project. Knowing Vereb and Rafferty, I’m sure they’re already working to do what they can to make that happen sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately the County hasn’t been doing a fantastic job of keeping the impacted communities apprised of what’s going on until very recently, although they did permit them to comment on the proposed detour route. Upper Providence has signed off on the portion of the detour that lies within their boundaries. Lower Providence proposed an alternate (here) to that proposed by the County, but no sooner was that submitted for review than PennDOT came back with an alternate version. LP reiterated that they prefer their version.  Ultimately PennDOT has the final say but LP is waiting to hear which way it goes.  

The PennDOT maps (here) are virtually impossible for even transportation experts to make out, but one version for residents south of the bridge involves traffic heading east on Arcola Road, turning right to head south on Eagleville Road, turning right to head south on Park Avenue, right onto Egypt to head west toward Route 422, and then turning right to head north on either Cider Mill Road or Black Rock Road.  From either of those roads, one could turn right to head northeast on Route 29 and then turn right to head south on the upper portion of Arcola Road.

The second version for those north of the bridge directs travelers north on Arcola Road, turning right onto 29 North, and then turning right onto Ridge in Collegeville by Keyser Ford, and proceeding onto either Germantown Pike or further down Ridge depending on their destination.

The main problem I foresee with any official version is that while they illustrate what they hope drivers will do, we all know that motorists will find the fastest and/or shortest paths to follow. In LP's case, I believe many cars will choose to cross over Pinetown Road instead of going down to Egypt, or snake their way north or south on Redtail Road between Arcola Road and Pinetown Road instead of going out to Eagleville Road. If so, it creates additional traffic congestion and safety concerns for residents of those neighborhoods.

As with the regional sewer authority’s middle interceptor, this is another project that straddles both Upper Providence and Lower Providence, with potential impacts for both. The proposed detour route on Cider Mill Road will run right along the same property on the Upper Providence side of the creek as that owned by the Stiefels, the UP couple who would be directly impacted if the middle interceptor is placed on the UP side. This poor couple is literally being sandwiched from front door to back door between major infrastructure improvement projects. Similarly a portion of the detour route in LP runs right by property owned by some of our residents affected by the same project, although they have more land between their actual homes and the proposed projects/detours.

Once the design process and the easement purchases are finalized, the project can be put out to bid. Hopefully, the money will be there when that’s complete so that this bridge doesn’t have to be out of service one more day than absolutely necessary. In the meantime, prepare to wait and allow lots of additional time to traverse in and out of the township into Collegeville and Upper Providence.

 

No Middle Ground: Setting The Record Straight On the Interceptor

A long-awaited voice has weighed in at last. As a result, perhaps some of the he-said, she-said nonsense surrounding the interceptor project will die down.

Last week the six members of the Lower Perkiomen Valley Regional Sewer Authority (LPVRSA) members voted 4-2 to move forward with plans to place the middle interceptor on the Lower Providence (LP) side of the Perkiomen, but not without a lot of last-minute hysteria, noise, and shell games, played out in the local press, from the usual suspects on the LP side.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not unsympathetic to LP’s plight and I respect them for trying to have a voice in the outcome. However, the thing has to go somewhere, and when the line is crossed into misleading the public because your logic and arguments are defective ("LP Contradicts Its Own Case Against Middle Intercepto Placement"), it's a problem.

Allow me to shed light on several blatant attempts to mislead readers into supporting LP’s position:

·        A letter from a Fred Kaczor which appeared on April 11, 2013 in both in the print and online versions of the Times Herald (here), and online at LP Patch (here), was particularly interesting. It attempted to portray Mr. Kaczor as an independent, unbiased engineer with no political agenda weighing in on the project and how, in his opinion, the interceptor should be on the UP side of the creek. And, in case you didn’t arrive at that conclusion on your own, a very helpful comment from Cathy Beyer, (she of the hand-wringing, harp-accompanied PowerPoint dog & pony show trotted around to every member municipality ad nauseam about how the interceptor just had to go on the LP side to ‘save the environment’, as if there were no similar environment on the other side of the creek) told you so: “finally an engineer perspective with no political objective, just concern for the environment. Just pure common sense”, she gushed in an online Patch post April 10.

In reality, Mr. Kaczor is anything but unbiased. He is an affected party with land along the LP side of the creek and is the sister-in-law of Cathy Beyer. Together both (with their spouses) were appellant plaintiffs in litigation against LPVRSA (which they lost... http://statecasefiles.justia.com/documents/pennsylvania/commonwealth-court/2681-c-d-2010.pdf?ts=1323908994)

 

No political agenda? Hardly.

·        The LP players hung their hats on their claim that the Army Corps of Engineers sided with them in their belief that the lateral must go on the UP side. Indeed, LP township manager Richard Gestrich, in a March 12, 2013 Letter to the Editor which appeared in the Times Herald (print and online versions, here) stated, in part:

 

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps of Engineers”) indicated that it is not opposed to location of the disputed portion of the new Middle Interceptor in the same right-of-way and same trench as the existing 42” line that it replaces. Not only that, the Corps of Engineers indicated that the location of the new Middle Interceptor line in the same trench as the old line is actually the preferred location for the line…”.  and that “Furthermore, installation in the existing right-of-way and same trench [on the Upper Providence side] will lead to only temporary interference with the creek, a course which the Corps of Engineers recognized as being preferable to the permanent installation of major stream crossings”.  “With that issue resolved…”(emphasis added).

No, Mr. Gestrich, that issue has not been ‘resolved’ by the Army Corps of Engineers. On the contrary, they appear leery of being dragged into the middle of the dispute. An email dated April 15, 2013, from a Mr. Brian Bellacima, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District, Regulatory Branch to all the principal municipalities, legislators, and to LPVRSA contradicts Mr. Gestrich’s assertions. It read, simply:

 

To whom it may concern, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District, Regulatory Branch has made no permit decision on any of the alternatives associated with the project known as The Lower Perkiomen Valley Regional Sewer Authority, middle interceptor.

They could have used the same letter to offer a preference or officially take a position one way or the other, but chose not to.

I wonder when we can expect to see Mr. Gestrich issue a retraction of, or to at least attempt to walk back, the statements in his March 12 letter? If nothing else, Beyer and friends should be furious with Gestrich for appearing to have intentionally misled them on the USACE’s position, as they all now have egg on their faces.  

·        "How could LPVRSA do this when the solution is so obvious?" wailed a faux-confused Ms. Beyer in a post-decision comment on Patch.  Yes, I suppose the solution IS obvious when you are only hearing one side of the story.  If you don’t read the Times Herald, you are only getting one side of the story because Patch, particularly the LP version, has been engaged in some odd goings-on regarding the middle interceptor story.   

Online article comments submitted that did not support LP’s position have inexplicably never seen the light of day despite numerous attempts and several calls to their editor. A Letter to the Editor by UP supervisor Lisa Mossie about the project and why it should not be placed on the UP side of the creek was buried on LP Patch’s “More Blogs” page instead of on their landing page, as Ms. Beyer’s numerous letters and editorials are.   The fact that LPVRSA articles originally posted on LP Patch never made it to PV Patch is also concerning. Normally all these ‘Patches’ in a given locale share stories.

I get it that the Patch model is intended to be community-specific on issues, but if Patch is going to wade hip-deep into a regional dispute, they should be prepared to represent the views of all the affected communities so their readers can arrive at their own informed conclusions instead of being misled that there is only one ‘obvious’ answer.

 

Now that the Army Corps of Engineers actually has weighed in with their non-position, it will be interesting to see if the LP Board of Supervisors (and LP taxpayers) continue to engage in time and money-wasting tactics (legal fees!) to punish the other communities and LPVRSA for not siding with them. Watch for the claims that the Indian artifacts extend beyond where they originally said they did.

In addition, all the woes from the LP camp about alleged raw sewage leaking into the creek are undocumented and unproven; they are most likely untrue but have been used in order to create a sense of urgency to get LPVRSA to make a quick decision in LP’s favor, and/or to convince members of the public of same. Thus, it will be interesting to see how LP squares the circle of the "urgency" of stopping this supposed flow of raw sewage into the creek with any delays they try to impose.

Besides, if it were true, If they care so much about the creek, wouldn’t you think they’d want to ‘take one for the team’??