I took up the gauntlet.

Since starting this campaign almost two years ago, more than a few people have asked why I don’t just run for Borough Council. A few, such as our neighbor Daniel Gans, have all-but-dared me to do it. I never had any political ambitions and had no desire to run for office at any level. We all know people who we’d describe as natural politicians. I’m not one of those.

However, the call to fill two open seats on the Council in my ward with the resignations of Justin Mixon and Laurie Durkin proved too tempting to resist. Last Friday, I sat before a select group of Councilors that included Jay Conners, Deborra Sines-Pancoe, Michael Golden, Chuck Whitney, and Rick Bunker to express my reasons for consideration.

For the most part, I faced what seemed like a welcoming group, and the questions focused on my reasons for applying. The members also seemed concerned about what they saw as my contentious nature. For the record, I explained, I came before the council in 2015 expressing to them that not only did we believe the sidewalk ordinance produced awful sidewalks, even if they didn’t, it presents financial hardship for us and many of our neighbors. We came before council all-but-pleading for help. Council’s answer was to remove what we saw as our last resort — a lien against our house to pay for the work.

We would discover while at a court hearing from Borough Manager George Locke last spring that Council had in fact struck that option a few months before. So now, for those of us facing hardship, it’s pay up or go to jail and likely lose your house in the process.

I became contentious, I explained, because the Borough had backed us into a corner on that one single issue. I challenge anyone faced with the same threat not to react similarly.

On other issues, I have certainly voiced my opinions, but my personal history is one of collaboration, which my record backs up. I have a long history of involvement in small-town preservation and revival and associations with some leading figures in the field.

Rick Bunker, however, went on the offensive, asking me why I saw myself as a “threat” to Council. I don’t know, Rick. You tell me. I present what I believe is a well-researched, reasonable proposal to the Borough, and Rick Bunker won’t even discuss it. What seems like an otherwise intelligent guy goes all Trumpian on the subject of sidewalks.

Of course, we have already disproven every single assertion of Rick’s opposition to our proposals — every one — so one might think that maybe he has something to conceal, a relationship to hide, a deal to protect. Maybe not, but when you meet up with that kind of bellicosity, what else does one assume?

Most telling was this: When I ended an answer to a question with, “…should I be lucky enough to serve on this board,” Rick responded audibly, “That’s unlikely.” Ms. Sines-Pancoe then cut off further questioning.

No matter. Politics, as I understand it, is a rough-and-tumble occupation, and those with skins too thin to take a whack or two have no business in that arena. From where I stand, my little experiment exposing the subtle hostilities of Jenkintonian civics has proven a rousing success.

Aside from all that, this was also a Machiavellian blunder for Council. Isn’t it best to bring your enemies under your tent to keep an eye on them? For me, the exercise was a win-win. I tried. I got rejected. I get a good story to tell.

I sincerely wish the new Council members the best of luck, and I will welcome any opportunity to work with them on any issue confronting our community.

Rick Bunker will surely claim I am unqualified for the position. If the primary qualification of a representative is to listen to, engage with, and help the voter, then Rick Bunker has failed us every in every regard.

Jenkintown budgets $14,000 each year to remove nutrients from your yard

Rick Bunker’s pompous bloviating aside, you do not own the sidewalk in front of your house, but Jenkintown Borough requires you to fix it. You do own all the leaves that fall on your property, and yet Jenkintown Borough will come and collect them — for free. All you need do is rake or blow them into the street, and the borough will come around with its $60,000 leaf mulching machine, manned by at least three employees, and take it all away. This makes sense… how?

Jenkintown’s program for leaf collection costs us $14,000 per year according to the latest budget, up from $12,000 last year (all nice round numbers, incidentally).

I grew up raking leaves and stuffing them into bags, so I know the drudgery of this particular chore all-too-well. In those years, I would have welcomed the opportunity to dispose of leaves that way.

As I learned more about organic gardening, I learned also that leaf disposal not only wastes of time and money, it deprives the land of the nutrients it needed most. Unlike wood mulch, leaf mulch actually helps the soil, yet, we pay the Borough to cart it away.

Here’s all you need to do with your leaves, folks: Mow them. Most of us seem to have gas-powered lawn mowers. Most of those do a pretty good job mulching the leaf material into small enough pieces so you can spread them on your gardens or put them into your compost piles.

I have Mike McGrath to thank for this information. Mike hosts the “You Bet Your Garden” program on WHYY, and he gives out great advice for nurturing your gardens and yards in the healthiest manner possible. Mike writes:

…at this autumnal time of year, the material inside those bags tends to be mostly leaves, which are THE priceless resource for organic gardeners. Shred them up and pour or rake them into a pile or a bin, and those leaves will become fabulous rich, black compost—the backbone of any organic landscape. And shredded leaves alone make a superb natural mulch—preventing weeds, retaining soil moisture and encouraging earthworms to improve the soil underneath.

That’s why most organic gardeners are furiously shredding all the leaves they can gather at this time of year; you never get to August wishing you had made less compost or saved fewer leaves. And, when all of our own leaves have been shredded, mulched, piled or binned, many of us look with longing on those long rows of brown treasure chests sitting out at the curb. Discarded! Like trash!

If you’d like to learn more, visit Mike McGrath’s website and read this article. and this one too.

We have so far reviewed more than 150 permit applications out of about 250, and there are a few immediate take-aways:

Some residents may have gotten badly fleeced. We’ve found several instances where contractors — often the same one — provided vastly different estimates for roughly the same work.

Almost everyone paid more — sometimes significantly more — than what George Locke called “PennDOT’s going rate.” Costanzo is so far the worst. D&D was the best, but D&D abandoned the borough this year, which was unfortunate since almost all of their estimates matched PennDOT’s rate.

The Beaver Hill condo complex also submitted an application for a sizable sidewalk and curb project, and they paid about half the PennDOT rate.

The borough used no fewer than four different forms for this permit, each one with a different set of entry fields. This does not make things easy for the Borough to provide any kind of accurate accounting of this work, should they decide to do so.

At about 250 permits (so far), the borough earned at least $6,250 on applications alone.