Politics & Government

Spring City to Hold National Night Out

Event set for August 7, 2012

Spring City will participate in this year's National Night Out on August 7, 2012, after the Spring City Borough Council approved a proclamation to that effect at its meeting Monday night.

The event will run from 5:00-8:00pm at the Brown Street Park.

Dubbed "America's Night Out Against Crime," National Night Out is sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch and is an event to promote "neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships," according to the official NNO website. 

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Councilman James Burns said that Spring City Lions Club is the local sponsor, and that the Spring City Masonic Lodge will be helping to provide free child identification kits.

The kits offer identification, fingerprints, and a DNA sample kit for parents. 

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Burns asked Spring City police chief Anthony Kuklinski, who was present in the audience, if the police would help with the fingerprinting and Kuklinski said yes. 

Kuklinski also said that the police would have a visible presence in Spring City that evening, patrolling and meeting people in the community. 

Animal ordinance and other news

Borough Council also continues working on an ordinance that will regulate the type and number of animals that a resident will be allowed to have on their property. 

The ordinance would prevent certain species of animals, generally those considered farm animals (cows, chickens, pigs, goats and the like), from being raised on residential properties. 

Council president Louis DiGuiseppe said, "I think people raising food is a good thing, but I don't think we need chickens running around loose."

Councilman Eugene Sweeney said he felt the ordinance was too restrictive. "Chickens in a coop should be okay," he said. 

Other members of council offered suggestions on parts of the ordinance that they felt still needed work, such as defining household pets vs. farm animals and clarifying sections of the ordinance dealing with enforcement.

"Most of this will be enforced because a neighbor complains," said Councilman Donald Shaner.

DiGuiseppe agreed. "This lets us go in and check [a problem] out. We won't have a pet officer driving around." 

Council agreed to send the ordinance back to the finance and ordinance committee for more work and come back to it at the August meeting.

Council also discussed a possible fee that the Chester County commissioners might implement to help pay for emergency services. 

Borough manager Dennis Rittenhouse said that the fee, which hasn't been implemented since 1995, would be set at $5.20 per capita, totaling $17,279.60. 

Rittenhouse said that the fee would have to be addressed in the budget if it was implemented. 

The Chester County commissioners discussed the fee at a recent meeting, and Rittenhouse said that about 25-30 people spoke out in opposition to the fee.

Rittenhouse said that East Vincent Township and officials in other local townships are working on an acceptable solution that they would present to Chester County's commissioners.


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