JOIN WITH OTHERS There is so much that needs more
eyeballs, more voices and some "investigation" so residents can
really get the facts. If you would like to meet with others to
work on an issue just
contact us (ie:
accounting skills - take a look at our budget /// Real estate
knowledge - or tired of the over-development - connect with those who
feel the same/// want better candidates to vote for - find others of
like mind ... ) Even if you prefer working alone - we could use
your help an any issue that interests you. Just
contact us
STILL NOT POSTED !!!! After a May 25th, 2023
meeting with residents that barely
scratched the surface of the issues in the Future Land Use
Chapter (Chapter 13 ) of the Comprehensive Plan. The
collected comments from the May meeting were to be collected and
revisited on June 15th. That meeting was postponed. It is now
mid September . And while we still have not had the comments or
the answers to the questions posed, as promised, a new Future Land Use
Chapter has been posted that does not-- at all - represent any of the
feedback we shared. Quite the opposite, in fact. At the
September Board of Commissioners Meeting, Board President Tom Hecker
said the posted comments were coming, but would not elaborate. It
appears that they are planning to bring them out at the moment before
they are ready to approve the whole Comprehensive Plan- again so as to
leave no time for 'dissent". They know it takes time for the
message to get out. They are removing that time now.
Rezoning Township - Wide Via
the Comprehensive PlanManager Manfredi is gifting himself the right to "rezone" your properties in
a complicated and deceptive process that
lays the groundwork via "visions " that will
enable blanket approval of Text and
Map Amendments that meet the "visions" . Quite simply, a "back door" around
your zoning.
THE 2024 BUDGET TO BE PASSED 12-14-24 IS A
MESS Residents
need to be paying attention to this. They are not improving the
Township - they are transferring wealth. The excessive taxation over
2020 to 2022, added to a humongous Covid relief payment has put our
Township in a place where many or most problems can be fixed....
Instead they are planning to increase those problems
1209 Rydal RoadA Senior Facility,
Assisted Living & Memory care unit
Want one of these where you live? Beside or behind you?
Baederwood Shopping Center - Noble Town
Center -
and the
4 acres at Trader Joe's /Raymour Flanigan stripA plan for 297 apartments - one assumes with retail under them on the
ground floor. Will these be
"affordable" units?
Add then to the 244 at the Baederwood and
..... well, that's a lot
1368 Valley Rd - clear cut - with a more than interesting
chain of ownership
Alverthorpe - Open to All ?
Recommended in Comprehensive Parks Plan to be Open to All - not just
Abington Residents. We are told "this Board" won't do that , but the
Plan has not been amended.
Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center
in the Comprehensive Plan Learn
more about the apartments that may come to the parking lot and the
duplexes and triples you might find next door to you if you are
less than a 1/4 mi away from the Shopping Center.
Development (or Overdevelopment?)
Our township is under assault from developers throughout, with the complicity of
the Commissioners, Manager and those we elect and pay with our tax dollars,
doing things that flaunt both ethics and the law to help
them.... while the residents feel they have no say in how their community
is developed because of these tactics.
Willow Grove Mall 365
Apartments.... or far more? After a full year's
worth of meetings (12 ) where the Commissioners helped PREIT keep
the public focused on one building despite an ordinance for far, far more,
they withdrew- waiting for the Comprehensive Plan to pass which
will make doing this easier... and where far more will be allowed.
False figures offered, false testimony given, and Commissioners
complicit in deceiving the public in a dozen ways. But PREIT has
already released press info that they WILL have resiential on the
Willow Grove Mall and around it.
The Economic Development Corporation Your leaders want to use
your taxes, grants & personnel to "become the developers" .....
but through a separate legal entity, distancing them from public opinion and all the normally required rules,
like bidding....
Conflict lines are completely blurred, and it was done in an
underhanded way. It was passed Juy 13, 2023. The same people who
worked to deceive you at the Willow Grove Mall, and in the
Comprehensive Plan will be the ones now having a "development arm"
and using your grant money . How much will end up back in campaign
coffers?
Code Enforcement or Corruption?
:
The Colonade Whistle Blower LawsuitViolations of our
Trust and of the Law. Grand Jury results still withheld or
sealed - but thanks to the Whistleblower case
we have a lot of info that would otherwise have been difficult to
get ...or was made difficult by Josh Shapiro. The case settled with disturbing revelations......
did our manager, who gave you
the highest, and the most unnecessary tax hikes the Township has ever
known, claim he was brought here to save the taxpayers money? Oh my. Despite his actions at the
Colonade/ now 100 York Apartments, Steve Kline was
appointed to Zoning Hearing Board in 2022
- and in 2023 the public has had a front row seat to the health and
safety crisis that the Landlord - and the Township are turning a
blind eye to. As fast as they move out, new victims move in. Oh my... And
now they want to put apartments everywhere in Abington, because ....
well because ... well... working with wealthy Landlords must have some
"hidden benefits" the rest of us can't see. Hundreds of lives
impacted on a daily basis. Oh my.
Public Comment It has been changed 4 or 5 or more times since Richard
Manfredi arrived - not one of those was for the benefit of the public.Each time are
rights are reduced further - til they are nearly literally
removed, while calling it an
expansion. They fixed NONE of the things we told them were
problematic and they regularly are violating law and policy.
This is all being done in conjuction with their efforts to
pass zoning changes that are known to be unwanted and that will
change our Township forever.
The 2022 BudgetHomelessness They
got $19 million dollars for free in Covid relief funds - SIX
times what the tax increase would bring - and they levied the tax
increase anyway . 30 % spread over 2 of the last 3 years,
while families battle Covid losses and inflation. The budget was
withheld from the public and proper speaking rights not granted...
You don't have to do things like that when you're operating in
good faith. An 856 page budget with teeny, tiny print,
so paper copies are useless. John's Spiegelmans long saga of
why your taxes had to go up missed the mark by a mile - missing
the actual reasons that your taxes had to go up. A lack of
transparency and integrity.
https://abingtoncitizens.com/aaISSUES/Budget/WhereTheMoneyGoes.htm
Development :1209 Rydal Road A Senior facility
w/Memory care & Independents Living Facility proposed
May of 2023 ( after Townhouses etc. failed) but shenanigans by
Township & Comr Hecker Development :
St Basil's Academy Toll Brothers
150"Carriage homes approved
Development :770 Jenkintown Rd - Florist and greenhouses to 13 Commercial Condos?
Development :Medical Mission Sisters
- 549 Units on Pine along Shady Lane - part is in Abington at 70 Shady La
Development :365
Cedar Rd Ended up with 7
- still too many
Develoment :
The Roslyn Wawa
- in the Roslyn Shopping Center - Grand opening was
August 2023
Development :Old York and Susquehanna
Not much Intersection Improvement ... but big benefit to a
developer --- and other property owners at taxpayer expense.
Development :Baederwood Shopping Center -
Noble Town Center - Trader Joe's
/Raymour Flanigan : 244 apartments on 8 steeply sloped acres
lacking fire access on one whole side at Baederwood and
297 apts anticipated at Noble Town Center and Trader Joe's.
Development :Former YMCA Property is now CHOP - Huge improvement from the
BET senior apts monstrosity-
but what else was simultaneously re-zoned?
Public
Safety :
Massage Parlors
- some legit - some not. What is being done to eliminate
what we believe are known establishments still participating in
improper or illegal activities - Human Trafficking should not be
happening in our town. Who will help?
Parks Travesty :
The Boy Scout Preserve in Meadowbrook -
went down to the mud.... a 13 acre wildlife refuge at the outset of winter-
when wildlife needs refuge . Dead
trees left standing . Live ones removed. Proposal again to poison every living thing...
Parks Recreation:Manor Woods -
back on the front burner with the Football Field Option still in the plan.
Were $120K (?) in 2021 Covid Funds allotted
to create trails and a parking lot when those exist right
across the street ?
Abington Township, with John Spiegelman in charge, revamped the entire Township website at the end of 2015
and broke all the links to the information we had archived on this site for you.
In 2017, Manager Richard Manfredi arrived and assigned someone not qualified to redo the entire website again.
They not only broke all archived links we had reinstated, but made everything as impossible to find as they could.
Nearly all of our comments and recommedations to fix the Township website have been wholly ignored.
So we do need volunteers to work together helping the Township create a site that is functional and accessible.
We will be reinstating links as we find them....if the data is still available.
So... please let us know if you find a broken link. Send us the URL of the link
and the name of the page it is on, and if we can, we'll reinstate it.
Thanks for the help.
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