Downingtown Borough and the developers of the Kardon Ponds project won a victory in Orphans Court last month when Judge Platt – the same judge who ruled against the sale of a part of the Kardon Park land a year ago – quickly agreed with the Borough that no Orphans Court approval was needed for the development of the Borough’s 7 acre compost and trash recycling property in East Caln township. Judge Platt stated that constructing new trails and public parking and pond improvements on the adjacent Kardon Park site as part of the development did not constitute a “sale” of the ground as Mrs. Feldman was trying to assert.
Unfortunately Ann Feldman, using her pro bono attorney immediately appealed the Orphan’s Court ruling to Commonwealth Court. Despite the fact that her appeal is unlikely to be successful and that the project is outside of Kardon Park and has little opposition, Mrs. Feldman once again felt the need to play an obstructionist role, depriving Downingtown and East Caln tax payers of much needed revenue in these exceedingly trying economic times.
Mrs. Feldman’s latest appeal follows her appeal last summer of Judge Nagle’s decision affirming East Caln’s approval of the Millrace development. After more than two years of planning, East Caln township supervisors voted to approve the 70 home Millrace project on land owned by the Borough adjacent to Kardon Park. Ann Feldman appealed the East Caln approval to Chester County Common Pleas court. Judge Nagel denied her appeal las June, issuing a strongly worded opinion in favor of the Borough and East Caln township. Nevertheless, Mrs. Feldman decided to appeal Judge Nagle’s decision to Commonwealth Court.
Despite these legal decisions confirming the Borough’s right to sell this 7 acre parcel, Mrs. Feldman appears to be desperately scrambling for more roadblocks she can erect to proposed park improvements and the sale of any ground that will provide relief to the taxpayers. This week, Ann Feldman filed yet another lawsuit – this time challenging the Borough’s entering into a revised Agreement of Sale for the Kardon property. The Borough Council decided it had to re-do the agreement of sale with the developers in part to correct a minor administrative error in the original version. If that minor mistake had been left uncorrected, the Borough would have been vulnerable to another lawsuit by Mrs. Feldman in the future -- after all other legal battles had been exhausted.
The revised Agreement of Sale reduces the purchase price for the Kardon lands by approximately 15%. The reduction is directly attributable to the costs incurred by the developer in the 4+ years of litigation and delays caused by Mrs. Feldman’s obstructionism as well as future costs anticipated to defend all of her law suits. That she would now decry the proposed purchase price reduction of $830,000 as unfairly costing Borough taxpayers seems hypocritical by any measure. Borough taxpayers need look no farther than Ann Feldman herself for the loss of these future dollars.
Without a doubt, Ann Feldman has cost the taxpayers millions of additional dollars. Here are just some of the costs and losses to Downingtown Borough tax payers that are directly attributable to Mrs. Feldman’s obstructionism:
- The Borough lost a nearly $1 million State clean up grant due to Mrs. Feldman’s lawsuits which caused the Borough to miss the deadline for use of the funds.
- The Borough lost a roughly $250,000 community revitalization grant from the County to extend the Struble trail into the center of Downingtown. Another Borough won the grant instead of Downingtown for a project their community appeared to want.
- Borough Council had to raise Borough property taxes twice (about $140 average per tax payer) due to insufficient revenues. These tax increases could have been avoided had the Kardon Park development gone through.
- The Borough has been forced to issue a bond to cover its operations and capital projects, which means future interest costs to tax payers. This would have been avoided had the Kardon development gone through.
- The Borough did not receive $2.3 million in land purchase price to fund the construction of the new Minquas fire station – see need for bond issue above.
- Because the new Minquas fire station was not built, the Molly Maguires restaurant did not yet come to Downingtown, costing the Borough tax payers thousands of dollars of lost revenue from patrons of the restaurant.
- Borough tax payers lost nearly $1.3 million in fees and tax revenues (income tax, property tax and transfer tax) from 60 new homes that did not happen over the past 2 years due to Mrs. Feldman’s delays.
- Approximately $400,000 in additional land purchase price was foregone in addition to the lost $2.3 million mentioned above.
- The Kardon Park contamination resulting from the historic dumping on the property was not remediated by the developers at no cost to tax payers.
- The extensive park improvements such as new trails, new parking, fresh water pond improvements, and wetlands plantings did not take place by the developer at no cost to taxpayers.
- The substantial traffic improvements on Pennsylvania Avenue did not take place by the developers which would have alleviated traffic congestion at no cost to tax payers.
- Over 185 jobs did not get created due to project’s failure to start.
- More than $80,000 in net revenues was lost to the Downingtown school district which is already suffering under the present climate of cut backs and reduced tax revenue.
- The County lost approximately $160,000 in tax revenue after expenses.
And what is the price tag on the wasted manpower and resources that could have been better spent attracting new businesses to Downingtown and growing the tax base?
Please send a personal request to Mrs. Feldman to stop using the legal system to take your tax dollars at afeldman@downingtown.org or 610-518-0964. As a member of Borough Council, it is her responsibility to represent your best interests above her own. Please make her aware of that. Please copy idealdowningtown@gmail.com.
