VNA Senior Center
The   request has apparently been withdrawn.
                  Score one for the residents


    September 28, 2015 - Public Affairs Meeting -
     Commissioner Spiegelman did not alert any residents that we know of to come to the September Public Affairs meeting - especially those that live directly across form the  park setting that he is considering donating to what might become a parking lot . He was aware in advance,  the Visiting Nurses Association (VNA ) lawyer ( Mr Morrow?)  was coming to ask for a donation of the triangle "park" land  that was a former pumping station next to their building.  This outright donation of our precious little greenspace  would be  a dangerous precendent to set . We already have other non-profits asking for parkland to be donated for $1 per year while they build their non-profit owned building on it. Our park land and greenspace should not be for sale - or given away to non-profits  in such a way .  And should all residents - especially those MOST imminently impacted be alerted  and deserve a full vetting of the pros and cons. Also:
any buildings on Township lands should be owned by the Township -in effect by  the taxpayers who bought the land and elected the officials to serve in their interest . The taxpayers  should always have a say in how these publicly bought resources are used and maintained. And I doubt any would bequeath these assets that they paid for to  other entities.
     The VNA proposes to use the land for parking and/or storm water retention. They propose to build up  and to possibly build out in the back in order to expand.  
         Our home values and quality of life are affected  by these actions. They affect the beauty, absorbancy factors, the cleanliness of our  air and the  over all desirability of our Township to outsiders.   We have many vacant and available buildings which could accommodate a senior center. This is about nothing more than $.  If they can get your elected officials to give your assets away they will have more of it.  Doesn't a Senior Center provide a service. Yes it does. And it can also provide  another of the far too many catch alls that is the black hole where your public dollars are funded - through a non-profit.  The Township can afford seniors access to any number of spaces that they own and control --- and these spaces can provide programs throughout the Township - because that's where our seniors come from....all over the Township. I would wager that there would be few to none of the Taxpayers that would approve if they understood the whole situation.
  
   At the presentation on 9-28-15  the lawyer for the VNA says he does not want to spend any money until he knows the Commissioners  are inclined to  donate the land. So instead of him and his organization being required to make a full presentation for the residents  and all to see ---- instead of him and his organization spending money to make a proposal, which the residents would have an opportunity to view in it's entirety --- instead of those proper channels a new "method" is beginning to take hold in Abington,  where someone proposes only a concept and asks that it be approved before they spend any $.  In fact , our $ will be spent instead, as Commissioner Spiegelman agreed that our Solicitor  should  aid in the preparation of options for the donation of the land.   Why would that be?  And ..........can you imagine our solicitor preparing something that the Board would be turning down?   That would be a waste of $.  On top of this  if you watch the video you will see Commissioner Spiegelman say that the Public Affairs Committee  seems to be all in favor of this --- but he made no effort whatsoever to garner their approval. He was a one man show.

      Knowing that this has been done in this manner, knowing that his residents  were not notified that the land in front of their homes might become a parking lot puts Commissioner Spiegelman once again at odds with the platform of transparency and inclusion that he prefers to promote as his hallmarks.

 

  We welcome your comments  to share either anonymously or with your name attached with your  fellow Abington residents.   Send  any updated information, comments or questions  to: lel@abingtoncitizens.com

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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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