Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 157, No. 10
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
$1.50
Oxford Area Historical Association plans to purchase former Union School building By Betsy Brewer Brantner for over 25 years. He was Contributing Writer also a driving force in building the local Democratic Oxford Borough Council Party. He had a beautiful started their meeting on voice that many heard at Feb. 27 with a moment of various events and functions silence for James Garland at the Oxford Presbyterian Owen Sumner, Jr. who was Church. His passing leaves a well known and beloved huge hole in the community. in the Oxford community. Borough Council members Sumner served on Borough expressed their deepest conCouncil and the Oxford dolences to his wife, large School Board, tutored and extended family, and many mentored students at the friends. Oxford schools, was a trustIn other council business, ee at Lincoln University and Executive Director Krys delivered Meals on Wheels Sipple and board member
Carolyn Hess spoke on behalf of the Oxford Area Historical Association (OAHA) to the Oxford Borough Council about plans for a new home for the organization. OAHA had previously written to the borough to ask for a distribution of ARPA funds in order to purchase the old Union School Building at S. Fifth and Hodgson Streets in town—this is the old school district administration building. OAHA has outgrown the space they are currently in, and they have been look-
ing for new space for several years. The Union School building has already been renovated to include an accessible entrance ramp, handicapped bathrooms, a full-building HVAC system Continued on page 2A Courtesy photo
The Oxford Area Historical Association plans to purchase the Union School Building at the intersection of Hodgson and S. Fifth Street for their new location.
INSIDE
FROM OUR LENS
EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Michael & Nancy Pia Foundation to partner with The Garage on new maker space...4A
Kennett Square Borough plans strategic planning session
Hearing from the constituency
Kennett Square Borough will host a strategic planning session for the public on Monday, March 13. The session will start at 6 p.m at Borough Hall. During this session, residents will have the opportunity to share their thoughts, priorities, and vision for the borough’s future in a collaborative format. All residents are welcome and encouraged to participate.
Stroud Center hosts World Water Day celebration
Unionville falls to Radnor in district finals...1B
Stroud Water Research Center will be hosting an outdoor, family-friendly event in celebration of World Water Day on March 22. The event along the scenic banks of the White Clay Creek at Stroud Water Research Center (970 Spencer Road) in Avondale takes place from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. that day. Activities will include the discovery of live stream bugs (aquatic macroinvertebrates) at the Watershed
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© 2007 The Chester County Press
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
Rep. Christina Sappey and her staff hosted an open house on March 3 at her Kennett Square office for her constituents in the 158th District that included Susan and Henry Fisher. Rep. Sappey will be hosting “Walk, Learn and Play: Streams in the 158th,” on April 22, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Stroud Water Research Center on 970 Spencer Road in Avondale. The nature walk will give those who attend an opportunity to learn about the value of protecting stream habitats throughout the district. To register, e-mail RepSappey@ pahouse.net or call 484-200-8264.
Finance team has implemented ‘controls and transparency’
Kennett Township’s books receive high praise from auditor By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer When the accounting firm of Maillie LLP was first appointed as the auditor for Kennett Township in 2019, the township was embroiled in the big muddy of a scandal that threatened to permanently tear down
the governing walls of an entire municipality. Nearly from the time she was promoted to township manager in 2010, Lisa Moore had oversight and access to virtually all of the township’s financial operations. For nearly eight years, Moore engaged in several clandestine, multi-
pronged schemes to steal money from the township. Moore’s accounting methods were hard to track, and because she was the keeper of the keys to the township’s entire accounting system, there were no checks and balances to monitor the personal shell game she was playing with
the township’s money. Following a monthslong investigation by the Chester County District Attorney’s Office and a thorough scrubbing of the township’s accounting methods by a forensic auditor, Moore was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, and on October 4, 2021 in a
West Chester courtroom, she was taken into custody on five counts stemming from her embezzlement of more than $3.2 million from the township beginning in 2013 and ending in 2019. As she was being led out of the courtroom in Continued on page 6A
Avondale puts out a call for historical relics By Chris Barber Contributing Writer Avondale Mayor Susan Rzucidlo is asking area residents to submit historical relics for display. She added that she hopes to set aside the walls, nooks, crannies and floors of the borough building on Pomeroy Avenue to show objects that give meaning to Avondale’s past. That process is in fact already underway, she said. It will pick up steam
when the weather warms as she and volunteers are more comfortable rooting through the borough’s unheated storage areas to find what else lies there. “Once it gets warm, we’ll begin pulling things out,” she said. Rzucidlo is enthusiastic about the project. She said that since she took her post as mayor in January 2022, she has become even more aware that Avondale has much to showcase historically. She’s eager to get
that history accessible to the public. “Avondale is more than just a place you drive through on the way to the beach,” she said. Avondale has connections to the Underground Railroad, a longtime fire company, the roots of the mushroom industry and the Lenni Lenape Indigenous People, among other things, she said. In his 130-page book Images of America Avondale local author Bob
Photo by Chris Barber
Avondale Borough has obtained a very old $20 bill issued by a bank in Avondale and signed by a person named Pusey – a prominent Avondale family to this day.
Cleveland also mentions granite company, meat blacksmith shops, lime markets, schools, churches kilns, an iron foundry, a and banks. Continued on page 3A lumber mill, a marble and