My resignation speech

Many of you know that I have been wrestling with health issues for the past couple of years. A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, an auto-immune illness. The severity of my symptoms goes up and down. Stress and lack of sleep make my symptoms worse. Early on, it became clear to me that I could not run for a 6th term next year. Towards the end of this summer, it became clear that I should not complete my term. However, I did want to feel a sense of completion. One project I had been working on for 19 years, the Ardsley drainage project, broke ground in September. Another project I worked on for several years, Upper Dublin’s first Comprehensive Plan, was approved this fall. Our budget for next year was completed tonight. This is a good time to start listening to my body.

I am announcing tonight that I will retire as a commissioner as of January 11, 2011, after 19 years.

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this office. First, it has been an honor to serve the residents of Upper Dublin, in general, and my constituents, in particular. I have been so honored to have consistently received the support of my constituents, always in an amount that exceeded my party’s registration. And you can never know how wonderful that made me feel.

In addition to being honored to represent my constituents, I want to say how honored I have been to serve with the people sitting up here and their predecessors. After working with them, and interacting with state representatives, our state senator, and members of Congress, I can honestly say that I leave office as more of an idealist and less of a cynic than I was when I was first elected.

I have found elected public officials try to do what they think is best for the public. The number of elected officials I have known who seem to have had a motive other than the public good I can count on one hand with several fingers left over. That is not to say that we always agree on what is best. We have had some pretty heated arguments on this Board. But one thing I could be sure of – commissioners were looking to do what was best for the township.

Let me take a moment to send a message to residents. When Commissioners do not do what you want, often we hear that you think there is some ulterior motive or, as was reported in last week’s Ambler Gazette, fraud. You have to realize, as I have as a commissioner, that when a majority does not agree with you, it means that you have not persuaded them that you are correct. The job of an elected official is to use their judgment to do what they think is best for the township. Their job is not to just follow your opinion if they do not agree that it is best for the township.

I also want to say how honored I have been to have the quality of staff we have had in the township. From the average employee, to the manager, Paul Leonard, and including all of our professional contractors and consultants, they have all served the public with the highest professionalism and integrity.

I would like to make a recommendation on my way out. For 19 years I have served as commissioner at a salary of $275 per month. I suggest that in January this Board consider and approve raising the salary of commissioners to what the state says commissioners of townships of this size should be paid beginning in January of 2014.

My wife tells me this speech is too long, but I would be remiss if I did not also thank Ruth for all of her support for, and, yes, sometimes criticism of, my work as commissioner. I have valued and always listened to her advice, even when I did not follow it.

From Yom Kippur services

Two readings I thought express exactly the sentiments our country needs now -

From Kol Haneshamah: Mahzor Leyamim Nora’im
The Reconstructionist Press, Elkins Park, PA © 1999

On page 579:

Prayer for the Country

Sovereign of the universe, mercifully receive our prayer for our land and its government. Let your blessing pour out on this land and on all officials of this country who are occupied, in good faith, with the public needs. Instruct them from your Torah’s laws, enable them to understand your principles of justice, so that peace and tranquility, happiness and freedom, might never turn away from our land. Please, Wise One, God of the lifebreath of all flesh, waken your spirit within all inhabitants of our land, and plant among the peoples of different nationalities and faiths who dwell here, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship. Uproot from their hearts all hatred and enmity, all jealousy and vying for supremacy. Fulfill the yearning of all the people of our country to speak proudly in its honor. Fulfill their desire to see it become a light to all nations.

Therefore, may it be your will, that our land should be a blessing to all inhabitants of the globe. Cause friendship and freedom to dwell among all peoples. And soon fulfill the vision of your prophet: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Let them learn no longer ways of war.” And let us say: Amen.

On page 580:

What do I desire for my country? How do I vision the land I love?
Let it be a land where knowledge is free,
Where the mind is without fear, and men and women hold their heads high,
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls,
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection,
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way in the dreamy desert sand of dead habit,
Where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action,
Into that heaven of freedom let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore (Adapted)

Alternative to new Firehouse

In July, the Board of Commissioners had a workshop in which we were told of the needs and wants in space and the approximate cost for fire services, library services, and parks and recreation services. It is clear that it would be extremely difficult for us to provide all of the services with a "reasonable" tax increase, even while using the former Bonsell property as a firehouse and possibly including some meeting space.

At the present time, the Fort Washington Fire Company is not always the first to arrive at the scene of a fire in the township because of their location. For instance, Horsham often responds first in Maple Glen and Wissahickon often responds first in the Ambler portion of Upper Dublin.

My thought was that we might want to divide the township into sectors and formally assign first responder status to fire companies that could respond quickest. This would go along with a state senate report of several years ago that suggested we work more regionally on issues such as this.

However, as one person with whom I discussed this idea put it, there is a difference between borrowing a neighbor's tools and deciding the tools are now mine. In other words, there is a difference between having other fire companies sometimes showing up first in UD (until we rectify the situation with a new firehouse) and instead asking them to always be first responders. To do the latter, we would most likely need to contract with them. That would lessen the work that FWFC has to do in Upper Dublin and increase the work of, say, Horsham and Wissahickon. Budgetarily, that would mean that UD would provide less funding to FWFC and more to other companies. It would also mean that we would not have to build a new firehouse and could use the property for other township needs (library? meeting spaces? parks and recreation programs?).

This is not a fully thought out idea but I am putting it out there for any of you to comment on. I would love to hear what you think. Email me at Jules.Mermelstein@gmail.com

Firehouse location petitions

On Friday, July 18^th, I received petitions signed by 182 people objecting to placing a fire station on the former Bonsell property in Fort Washington. With the facts we currently have a majority of the Board of Commissioners believes the Bonsell property is the best location for such a firehouse. However we will be gathering more information in the fall to make sure there are no red flags that indicate we should stop the process and look elsewhere. At Commissioner Damsker’s suggestion, we are holding off the design of the new station until the gathering of information is completed.

The petitions list five reasons for opposition to the Bonsell site. If I had been presented with this petition and had not been working on the fire station issue for years, and the Bonsell site specifically for the past ten months, I probably would have signed it as well. In fact, when first presented with the idea of the Bonsell site, my gut reaction was the same as those objecting to it – opposition based on perceived congestion and danger. After further research, I have come to the conclusion that instead of being an undesirable site, this is in fact a most desirable site for a new fire station. Residents interested in learning more of the facts should check out http://www.upperdublin.net/fire/firehouse.aspx. In addition to general information on that page, there is a link to frequently asked questions about the firehouse issue. In this article, I will respond to each of the five objections listed in the petitions.

1. “It is across the street from the UD High School, the area that has the highest concentration of inexperienced teen drivers in the Township.” -- That is a very true statement. That will continue to be true whether or not a fire station is placed on the Bonsell property. Firefighters are trained in how to drive in an emergency and must obey school zone speed limits when driving through such a zone (by the way, if the Bonsell site is designed as envisioned, the fire trucks will be leaving the site outside of, but close to, the school zone). To imply that it would be more dangerous to have a fire station near the high concentration of teen drivers rather than, say, a library or a convenience store, is to imply that our firefighters are not as safe at driving as are average drivers who might be coming to the site. The fire station would provide less traffic than other uses. Although there are many municipalities who have fire stations in school zones (with some near high schools), in the last ten years there have not been any accidents in the country involving a fire truck inside a school zone. We spoke with someone from a company that insures two-thirds of all fire trucks in the country and they have zero accidents in their database forever of a fire truck in a school zone. I believe this is because of the skill of firefighters. Having a large number of inexperienced drivers at one location may or may not be a danger. If it is a danger, it will not be any more or less of a danger with a firehouse located across the street.

2. “Firefighters driving to the fire station will be forced to obey 15 MPH speed limits on their way to the fire station. They will also have to go through one of the busiest and most congested areas of the Township, which will slow their response time to fires.” -- Firefighters must always drive safely. The 15 MPH restriction is only during the opening and closing of school each day, not all the time. Our estimate, based on experience, is that there will be two fire calls per week during the hours that the 15 MPH flashing lights are activated. Furthermore, those of us who drive in the township, including in that area, at various times of the day and not just before or after school is in session, know that this is NOT one of the busiest and most congested areas of the Township. Susquehanna Road, Limekiln Pike, Welsh Road, and Pennsylvania Avenue (just to name the most obvious) have much more congestion and tend to slow traffic more than the school areas on Fort Washington. Having said that, however, the township is currently in the process of trying to determine what effect, if any, this location will have on response time. The current station is located near the border of the township. So, for most fires inside Upper Dublin, the firefighters must travel on Fort Washington or a parallel road to get there. Many firefighters have to drive through the school zone to get to the station. At the Bonsell site, we believe that fewer firefighters will have to drive through the school zone to get to the station. Many of the firefighters live and work closer to Bonsell than to the Summit Station, so the time it takes them to get to the fire station will be reduced. We know that the fire trucks leaving the Bonsell site to fight a fire inside Upper Dublin will be much less likely to have to drive through the school zone than they are now. We also know that in the rare event they have to fight a fire inside Upper Dublin in the direction of the school zone, traveling throughout the school zone at 15 mph instead of 35 would add 47 seconds to their response time. However, keep in mind that a fire truck starting from a dead stop takes a while to get to 35 mph, so the delay is actually much less than 47 seconds. Overall, our research indicates that firefighters will be able to get apparatus into operation faster from the Bonsell site than from the Summit Avenue station.

3. “Other sites in the Township are currently available for a third station which could provide the coverage needed by UD Township.” -- That is true. There are also sites for a fourth, fifth or sixth station. One could argue that six stations would provide even better coverage. However, there are two problems with having three or more stations. First is that the station on Summit Avenue does not meet current standards for safety. In point 4 I will discuss why it is impracticable for us to make that station meet those standards. Consequently, to have three stations, we would have to build two new stations. The cost of that would be enormous and is not needed for our fire company to provide the standard of care we have adopted. The second reason that a third station is not practicable is that we do not have enough volunteer firefighters available to respond to three different stations. Even with only two stations we sometimes have to contact other area fire companies to ask them to respond because we have not had enough firefighters respond quickly enough to send a truck. This is definitely not a knock on our fire company. It is just the way things are.

4. “Repairs to the existing Summit Avenue station are estimated at $250,000. The cost of a new station will be over $5,000,000.” -- I have no quarrel with the second sentence as that is more than likely correct. However, $250,000 for repairs to the existing station is a drop in the bucket. This figure does not include the required structural improvements and expansion. We would have to condemn several neighbors’ properties in the area to expand the physical plant. That alone, without making any repairs, would greatly exceed the $250,000 cited in the petition. In addition, in our standard of coverage study, we found that the Summit Avenue location is not the optimum location for covering the township. If we are spending a great deal of taxpayer money to create a safe fire station, we should place it in the optimum location.

5. “Moving the Summit Avenue station to Fort Washington Avenue will mean moving the fire station FARTHER AWAY from the areas of highest risk.” – Actually, the Bonsell site is more centrally located in relation to the residential properties that this station must protect. The current location of the fire station is near the border of the township.

I thank all of the petition-signers for showing an interest in the actions of our municipal government. I hope this helps answer your concerns.

Anyone who has any further questions, feel free to email me at Jules.Mermelstein@gmail.com.