Funny Business

If you're like most people, every week you go to work, pay your bills, feed your dog, play with your kids, and put out your trash. If you are like most people, that is.

If you are Lower Providence Township supervisor Don Thomas, you undoubtedly do all that, and put your trash out, too, but the difference is, who is picking it up?

G&C trash truck pulling out of Thomas' driveway on trash day

As I'm sure most everyone knows, like many other communities on the East Coast and in Pennsylvania, our community has one company, J.P. Mascaro, under contract to remove residents' trash. Unless you can  prove you are eligible for an exemption or, in rare instances, grandfathered from compliance by having another contractor in place prior to 1990,  the current contracted hauler must pick up your trash.

One such exemption is that if you own a business, you can use whatever company hauls your business trash away in lieu of the Township trash hauler. Supervisor Thomas claims that he owns and runs a valid business, Earl Thomas Heating Oil,  out of his home address and is thus exempted from compliance with the Township ordinance, a claim he substantiated by taking out a business license with the Township in that name. Accordingly, he is having HIS family's trash picked up by a private hauler, G & C Waste Services of East Norriton (see photos).   

While it is true that at in the past, there WAS a family business - Earl F. Thomas Heating Oil Inc.  - being operated out of  Don's home address, that business was sold to competitor Jay Gress, Inc. approximately three years ago, according to a principal at Gress. My understanding is that a condition of the sale was that Mr. Thomas was to be given a desk job at Jay Gress, and my sources confirm that not only does Mr. Thomas work there in a full-time capacity as a dispatcher, but that he "shows up for work every day and apparently only ever leaves the office to eat lunch..." Really? So when, exactly, is he running this business of his? Why would he even have another job if he was running his own business?

I suspect Jay Gress, Inc. would be very interested to know that a company they acquired and presumably paid good money for is allegedly still operating, particularly if there is a non-compete provision in the agreement of sale.

A Gress source told me that as a typical rule, whenver Jay Gress has acquired a business, it keeps the old entity name open, but the business address is changed to Gress' corporate address in Conshohocken to facilitate the transition from the old business's customers to Jay Gress. So, although the business name may still be active (and per the State Corporation Commission, it is), it is no longer owned or operated by the Thomas family and as such, the business license taken out by Don Thomas in their former company's name could potentially be considered fraudulent and taken out in an effort to evade compliance with the ordinance and payment of the contracted trash fees - fees that the rest of us must pay. 

G&C trash container awaiting pickup at the Thomas residence

Whether or not you agree with the issue of a single hauler or not, it is the current law of the land, and it's only fair that if residents are subject to it, supervisors should be too unless there is a legitimate exception.  

As an elected official, supervisors take an oath to "serve with fidelity", which Webster's defines as "strict observance of promises and duties".  One would presume compliance with the Township's own ordinances would fall into that category, and that our elected officials would not try to get away with any 'funny business', as it's no laughing matter to the rest of us.

Picking Up The Check

Unless you are living under a rock, or are independently wealthy, it should be obvious to everyone that we are in the midst of the severest recession since the Great Depression. I don't know anyone, myself included, who has not had to cut back somewhere and do more with less.

Senior citizens are feeling the pinch especially hard, since their income is fixed, and they received no COLA increase this year as their expenses continued to rise.  Many of us still in the workforce and fortunate enough to remain gainfully employed have had to forego annual raises, bonuses and other compensation that had become as expected and certain as Spring's melting of winter snowfalls.

As I drove around the Township this gorgeous weekend, I passed numerous projects for new businesses that, largely due to the economy, have stalled or evaporated. They're projects that, as proposed, would have brought much needed jobs and tax revenue to our community.

There was the proposed Turkey Hill gas station and quicki-mart that would have gone in opposite Brother Paul's. There was the new WaWa that was going to go on the former Norristown Ford property. There have been a couple of proposals for use of the Collegeville Inn property.  There was the strip shopping center that would have gone on the corner of Egypt and Pinetown Roads, and there were also several projects proposed down in the Corporate Center.

And, of course, the American Revolution Center museum project, which, while driven out more by a vocal special interest group than the economy, would have brought in the neighborhood of a million a year in revenue to the community as well as several hundred jobs.  Ouch! I think we're going to miss that.

And that's not counting some of the businesses that were viable but have closed and gone away, like K-mart, or the Hullabaloo party store.  I'm hearing that Blockbuster is nearing bankruptcy, so I guess that building may be empty soon, too.

To be sure, we've had a few new businesses locate here, but by and large, they are small, mom-and-pop type stores like the Morning Mug, Keystone Grill and the Collegeville Bakery, which don't add large-scale revenue or employment.

Keeping all this in mind, and realizing that new residential housing construction starts and the revenue they generate are at practically zero, too ... how are we, as a township and a school district, going to continue to pay the bills this year and in the next couple of years afterward until, hopefully, the economy fully recovers?

Although Lower Providence has enjoyed six years or more without a tax increase to its residents, I think it's realistic to say those days are over. The last Board of Supervisors did a fantastic job of keeping or increasing the levels of service without raising taxes for that period of time, and trying to attract and keep businesses here, but only so much can be done. Grant money has largely dried up and there's more competition for what's out there. Our federal and state governments have less to pass onto us as well.

And don't get me started on Methacton's property tax bills. Everywhere I go, that's the No. 1 complaint I hear about local government.  Yes, it even beats out the trash issue.

In fact many people think that when their tax bill increases, it's the Township's doing. Especially if you are one those folks who never sees your tax bills because they go right to your mortgage holder's escrow company for payment, you may not realize that your school property tax bill and your township tax bill are two different things. One's risen dramatically, the other has not risen at all in recent years.

Here's what I want to know. Considering that local government will have to either cut services or raise taxes, or both, what things do you think should be on the chopping block? What things as a community would we choose to do differently, put on the back burner for now, or do with less of?  And let's assume that raising taxes is not an option, shall we? I don't know anyone who can afford it at this point.

It's going to require some hard decisions, but our local elected officials will begin the budgeting process in six short months...so it's worth thinking about now. Unless, of course, by some miracle we start attracting new business and stop driving out the ones that want to be here, as the current BOS seems to be adept at.

Do we cut back on after-school programs and sports, as some school districts nearby have done?  Do we increase class sizes and reduce staff? Forego all the cutting edge gizmos like smart boards for class instruction?

Do we reduce the size of our police force and forego some level of safety and emergency preparedness, or ask local nearby communities without one to help us share the cost of providing protection to them when called upon to do so?

Do we eliminate donations to worthy institutions like the fire department , ambulance center and library?

I think the Township staff is doing a good job of trying to manage investment revenue smartly, streamline costs, work out sourcing deals, use service vehicles as long as possible, etc. but perhaps more ideas are out there. 

I have no idea what Methacton's administration has been working on in this regard (there are only so many hours in a week, I can't attend every meeting around here), but maybe someone familiar with their efforts in this regard can enlighten us.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I'm sure our elected officials are listening, too.

Trash Talk

Maybe you haven't heard, but trash is the hottest topic in the land these days. And everybody's got an opinion.

It's the system that has served Lower Providence well for almost twenty years, with Mascaro doing the hauling. We were one of the first townships to do contract for volume purchasing power with a single hauler; now the vast majority of municipalities across the state have caught up with us. Mascaro was the winning low bidder in the last six contract cycles dating back to the early 1990's. We were trendsetters in the waste removal arena before it was trendy to be.

The trash removal contract is up for rebid. There's been great debate about whether it should be rebid, and if so, how it should be rebid.

Recently, supervisors Chris DiPaolo and Rick Brown decided that we should get out of the trash business altogether and not put out a bid for one company to do trash removal. I'm sure this recent change of heart has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Chris, and close friends of both he and Rick Brown, were sued by Mascaro recently involving alleged election violations during the primary this past spring. Nah, probably just a coincidence.

The bid package that will be put out for bid will, in addition to a tiered pricing option depending on whether you want once or twice a week pickup, have an 'opt out' provision. The problem is, 3 supervisors think "opt out" means one thing, and 2 think it means something else.

Rick and Chris think 'opt out' means you opt out of the contract hauler option and instead pick your own company to pick up your trash. Piero Sassu, Marie Altieri and Craig Dininny support 'opt out' to mean that you are one of those folks who has some other option to handle your trash. Maybe you own a business, and you dispose of your residential trash there.  You have NO need for trash service here in Lower Providence.

The math associated with this option as interpreted by Rick and Chris is staggering. Here's a little word problem: if you and your neighbors select, between you, six different trash companies, and each of those six picks up one time a week for trash, one time for yard waste, and once for recycleables, how many trucks do you think that is thundering down your road each week?

That's a lot of trucks tearing up all the roads that were just paved...roads that have to last for ten years, until they're paid off. That's a lot of extra vehicles on the roads with the school buses each morning. That's a lot of extra noise.

What do you think makes sense? And for the record, since Election Day is coming up soon, Republican candidates Eckman/Thomas favor multiple haulers, and Democrat candidates Keenan/Heinegg support one contract hauler with tiered pricing based on how many pickups you need a week...a modification of what we have now.

I understand the township will be surveying residents on this issue. However, the survey is a mere two questions long and doesn't fully explain the options. Be sure to let your elected officials know just what you want, whether you respond to the survey, or take the time to email them.