Aiello, Ross Cowper top vote-getters in CHCA election
State of community address, awards presentation highlight annual meeting.
Election Results
by JAMES STURDIVANT
Stewart Graham reads the Chestnut Hill Award citation as winner David Contosta looks on.
Last month’s primaries may have been predictable, but Chestnut Hill’s home-grown race for the board of directors of the CHCA held all the drama of an old-school party convention, with last-minute ballot submissions, late night tallying and, when the dust finally settled early Friday morning, results that took more than a few by surprise.
All of the incumbents were reelected to the board, with longtime Chestnut Hill activist Mary Anna Ross Cowper receiving the most votes of any sitting board member, followed by Jane Becker, Tia Burke, Walter J. Sullivan, Dina Hitchcock and Lawrence Walsh, all of whom were reelected to three-year terms. Current CHCA president Maxine Dornemann, Mark Keintz and Mitchell Melton were reelected to one-year terms.
The top vote-getter overall was Louis Aiello, who will be returning to the board — where in years past he has served on the executive committee and as operations division vice president — after a three-year absence. Also returning to the board are former CHCA president Janine Dwyer, Ann Ward Spaeth and Virginia Mallery (the latter for a one-year term). Elected for the first time were Jeremy Heep, Tom Hemphill and Janice Manzi, all for three-year terms, and Ron Recko, Cecile Mihalick, Tom Kessler, Pam Waters, Caroline King and Joshua Klein, for one year.
Mary Anna Ross Cowper accepts her Distinguished Service award from CHCA award committee co-chair Dick Becker.
Last years’ bylaws changes instituted three-year terms for board members. Only the top 12 vote-getters are elected to a full term while the board fully transitions from a two- to three-year election cycle.
The new board, which will be officially installed later this month, includes several who have publicly criticized procedural decisions and financial and real estate proposals made by the CHCA over the past few months. At recent meetings, audience members including Spaeth, Recko and Dwyer have confronted the board with questions about the Hiram Lodge proposal, community fund management and recent bylaws changes.
Neither tension nor criticism was evident at last Thursday’s annual meeting of the community association, however, held at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Wyndmoor. After a social hour of drinks and hors d’ouveres catered by Rollers and staffed by volunteers from Teenagers, Inc. under the supervision of Marianne Dwyer, attendees gathered in the Institute’s ornate assembly room for a “state of the community” speech from Dornemann, updates on the Local and Community Fund, and award presentations.
Meritorious Award winner Stewart Treitel accepts his plaque from Stewart Graham and awards committee co-chair Jane Becker. (Photos by James Sturdivant)
Counting of election ballots by assigned judges Armand Dellaporta, Sherry Nottingham and Linda Littlejohn began as the meeting got underway, but a planned announcement of election results had to be called off due to the number of ballots. Vote tallying continued until 12:30 a.m., according to CHCA executive committee member Stewart Graham, and was only completed when six additional judges — board members Tolis Vardakis, Jane Piotrowski, Marianne Dwyer and Graham, as well as former board member Marilyn Monaco and the Institute’s Kathy Knell — were called in at 10:30 p.m. to help.
Positive achievements
Dornemann’s speech focused on the importance of volunteer service and the achievements of the board of directors over the past year. Drawing themes from 2005 Chestnut Hill Award recipient David Contosta’s history of Chestnut Hill, Suburb in the City, Dornemann painted a picture of a community ready and able to tackle any challenge.
Quoting Contosta, Dornemann noted that postwar Chestnut Hill was a place where residents saw themselves as “talented and capable individuals who could employ reason, persistence, common sense and local organization to solve problems in the community.”
“I am reminded of the talented and capable people who comprise the CHCA board of directors,” she said.
Dornemann highlighted as “problems solved” by the current board a “need to come together” met by the Black and White Gala, improvements to the Pastorius Park concert series, a reconstituted traffic and transportation committee, recent membership initiatives that have added several hundred people to the association’s rolls, the Hiram Lodge proposal as a way to secure adequate meeting space, the proposal to operate the Water Tower Recreation Center, last year’s wine tasting event (as an “opportunity for fellowship”) and the commitment of volunteers at the Chestnut Hill Senior Center and Teenagers, Inc.
“I am in awe of what they do, what they have done,” Dornemann said of CHCA volunteers.
“But this year has also been about learning to dialogue … [to] put yourself in another person’s place. A genuine dialectic strives to keep all parties at the table. No one is outside this conversation. Everyone is invited, and everyone is received respectfully,” Dornemann said.
Awards ceremony
The meeting’s highlight was the presentation of Chestnut Hill’s four annual awards honoring exceptional service or other work on behalf of the community. The Chestnut Hill Award, the Distinguished Service Award, the Meritorious Award and the Benefactor’s Award were presented by members of the awards committee in a ceremony overseen be Stewart Graham.
In accepting the Chestnut Hill Award, the community’s highest honor, author and historian David Contosta recalled the first time he saw Chestnut Hill, soon after being hired as a professor of history at Chestnut Hill College in February 1974.
“I realized what a beautiful place Chestnut Hill was, even in the snow,” he said.
Saying he was “flattered and deeply honored” by the award, Contosta thanked his parents, his family, past CHCA members Joseph Pennington Strauss and Mary Wickam Bond and the late Marie Jones, long-time Local editor.
Accepting the Distinguished Service Award, Mary Anna Ross Cowper said that her interest has always been in “making Chestnut Hill a better place for all of us.”
“This is the last thing that I ever thought would happen … I’ve always been on the political side of the CHCA. As my son said, I’ve always been controversial,” she quipped.
Meritorious Award recipient Stewart Treitel said that his award was the result of a community effort comprising “friends, volunteers and neighbors,” all of whom help to ensure that monthly recycling and the activities of Teenagers Inc., with which he has been involved for many years, can go forward.
Accepting the Benefactor’s Award on behalf of Laurel Hill Gardens owner Joe Ascenzi, who could not be present, was awards committee co-chair Jane Becker.
