Noted in the Northwest

A brief look at news in Chestnut Hill and surrounding neighborhoods

Black Horse agreement approved

The Springfield Township Board of Commissioners voted last week to ratify an operating agreement between the township and the Friends of Historic Bethlehem Pike for the restoration of the Black Horse Inn in Flourtown.

The last-minute addition of the action item by township manager Don Berger at the commissioner’s monthly business meeting on May 11 was a surprise to inn advocates, who had expected to issue to be tabled for another month.

Details of the agreement  — mostly procedural — are yet to be finalized, according to Don Mitchell of the Friends of Historic Bethlehem Pike. A timeline for work on the inn will be part of the final agreement, which is contingent on the Friends’ formal incorporation on May 19.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Springfield Township Historical Society will receive all monies raised on the inn’s behalf.

“The Friends is in charge of bringing in the money. The historical society got involved because we needed a tax exempt entity that could receive the money other than the township,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said that $35,000 was promised in a recent “informal” pledge drive. “We were basically trying to show the commissioners that there was support in the community for the effort,” he said.

He said that the group will receive contributions from the township based on fund-raising performance. The commissioners have already promised $109,000 previously set aside for the inn, he said.

The commissioners also voted to support the inn’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places and to add local resident Andrew Glendinning to the Black Horse Advisory Committee. The committee has been one member short since Scott Kreilick resigned from the committee in March when the commissioners asked him to step down as chairman. James Mascaro was voted chairman last month.  

— James Sturdivant

Neighborhoods network for reform

With a focus on election reform, a grassroots political organization founded in part by two Mt. Airy residents will hold its founding conference at the University of Pennsylvania Law School next month.

Neighborhood Networks — comprised of community activists, ward leaders and committeepeople, among others — plans to run issue campaigns, but more importantly hopes to change the dynamics of elections in the city, said Marc Stier, one of the group's leading founders.

Stier, whose term as president of West Mt. Airy Neighbors expires next month, helped build the organization with Stan Shapiro, another Mt. Airy resident.

The current ward-driven system, where endorsements are controlled by contributions from party-backed candidates, leaves little hope for insurgent political hopefuls with progressive agendas, he said.

"It's a sad process," Stier said. "If all the city's wards were run like the 9th Ward, there wouldn't be a need for this organization."

The group, which currently claims representatives from about a third of the city's 66 wards, hopes to give the entrenched Democratic machine some pause by recruiting and endorsing its own candidates.

"Four hundred motivated people can dramatically change the character of elections in Philadelphia," Stier said.

For more information visit: http://www.phillyneighborhoodnetworks.org/

—Michael J. Mishak