East Caln Taxpayers Must Now Pay Cost of Feldman's Appeal

In October 2009, Anne Feldman and the attorney for the Friends of Kardon Park agreed that they would not oppose the development of the 70 units planned for the Downingtown trash/compost site in East Caln Township. The developers didn’t file their application for “The Millrace” until the Friends agreed not to oppose it to avoid dragging East Caln into the same costly process that Ann Feldman and her friends have put Downingtown Borough through.

Shortly after the developers filed plans with East Caln Township, however, Ann Feldman, who is president of Friends of Kardon Park, decided to oppose the project herself. Despite the fact that Feldman was involved in every step of the Friends agreement, she claimed not to understand that the Mill Race Community’s storm water would be entering 4^th lake when she made that commitment. Feldman was able to gain standing in East Caln due to the fact that her home is adjacent to one of the Kardon Ponds. She argued that the proposed East Caln community would negatively impact the flow of storm water downstream where she lives.

Whether one approves of the community or not, the fact is that the stagnant and algae-clogged ponds will only benefit by the introduction of fresh water into the Mill Race and aerating devices that the development will bring about and pay for. The developers are also proposing to extend a pipe up to a tributary of the Brandywine to bring in fresh water into the millrace and to discharge cleansed stormwater into the water starved ponds. The developers were forced to spend 10 months and 9 legal hearings with a court reporter and numerous expert witnesses documenting every conceivable aspect of the development and its impact. Meanwhile Feldman put forth only her unsupported opinions about storm water, contamination, and the DEP rulings.

While the developer paid the cost of the additional conditional use hearings required to allow Feldman to present her opposition to the proposal, the cost of defending the appeal that she filed against East Caln Township on July 23, 2010, will fall squarely on the taxpayers of East Caln.

Feldman was given ample opportunity to put forth her best argument for denying the approvals of the 70 homes she originally found acceptable during the hearings. Now she and her pro bono attorney, Samuel Stratton of West Chester, are trying to upset the unanimous opinion of the Supervisors of East Caln based on the legal technicalities.

Regardless of whether one believes the ponds and the paths of Kardon Park will be better or worse after the Kardon Ponds community is constructed, Ann Feldman and the Friends have already cost the taxpayers of Downingtown dearly. First, the taxpayers been forced to defend the decision the elected Downingtown Borough Council members made to sell the unusable portions of Kardon Park when faced with the prospect of the EPA declaring the land a Super Fund site in early 1990. Now neighbors in East Caln will be contributing to Feldman’s commitment to defend the view from her back porch in their tax bills as well.

Worse, if the developers of Kardon Ponds are not allowed to start the cleanup of the site by June 2011, Downingtown will lose the nearly $1 million grant funding it received to cap the land and will be forced to clean the park with taxpayer dollars or shut it off from most use.

If Ann Feldman and her Friends made a commitment to stay out of the East Caln process and are now appealing the East Caln Board of Supervisors decision to Court of Common Pleas , what will she do if she loses the Orphan’s Court case on the Downingtown portion of the property? It is one thing to be a sore loser. It is another when that cost of that attitude is visited on everyone in the community.