Fire and Parking Dominate Council Meeting

Council Report, February 2025

SPS Fire Impacts Jenkintown

Jenkintown Matters has nothing much to add to the discussion about the fire that destroyed the SPS factory, likely taking along 500 or so jobs along with it. It’s truly the end of an era for our area, as the 100-year-old company is the last major industrial facility in Abington and its surrounding towns. Unfortunately, the complex stored some rather nasty chemicals. Jenkintown residents — especially those from Ward 4 — who took the brunt of the smoke and debris have legitimate concerns about the cleanup.

We would like to express our gratitude to all of the first-responders that successfully kept this tragedy from becoming much, much worse, and we look forward to learning more from an extensive and fully transparent investigation promised by government officials and SPS management. Until then, we consider it irresponsible to spread information not sourced from anyone not on the scene or not involved in that investigation.

Soltysiak to Cedar Street: Stop Wasting My Time.

Once the comments about the fire were out of the way, Council confronted another group of residents from the 400 block of Cedar and from Leedom Street who again asserted their demand that Council reconsider the Chief’s tone-deaf, unnecessary, and onerous parking “solution” to a problem that simply does not exist.

In a rare display of deference to the will of the people, Council did finally vote to table the ordinance until after a meeting with residents. This took twenty-five agonizing minutes of bumbling deliberations, frantically guided by solicitor Hitchens, and where Steven Spindler attempted to change his recorded vote from “yay” to “nay.”

The residents then further had to listen to Christian Soltyziak’s galling statement that tried to take them to task for not coming to meetings. (See video).

Apparently, Ms. Soltyziak hasn’t fully grasped the concept of representative democracy. It means getting away from your keyboard, sitting down with your constituents, and listening to them well-before a vote is even scheduled. It does not mean taking the Chief’s word as gospel. At the risk of stating the obvious, Ms. Soltyziak represents voters, not the Chief of Police. Then again, she does live in Beaver Hill, which provides an abundance of parking for its residents.

We get it. When someone runs for office, they feel they must do something while they serve. Except that any student of management theory understands that doing nothing is always an option, and this is a text-book case for that.

Despite residents repeatedly assuring Council, “We have this figured out! We don’t need ParkMobile!”, Chief Scott seems determined to put more and more of the borough under his administrative thumb. This is classic “man with a hammer” thinking. Enforcement is not the issue he seems to think it is.

Have You Seen Your Rep Lately?

Many of the residents brought up one excellent point: The three council members who represent that ward never once reached out to any of them personally to survey the wants and needs of the residents. Instead, council listened only to Chief Scott.

Finally, Deborra Sines-Pancoe seemed confused about the necessity to advertise their actions in the newspaper. If the meeting is limited to Ward 1 reps and residents, and no vote is taken, no advertisement is required. If and when this meeting happens, we hope ward 1 reps, Spindler, Lewis, and Pancoe, sit and listen and answer questions, and then report back to their colleagues.

Full meeting video here:

Odds and Ends

Though the Borough has upgraded the sound system in chambers, it still needs to upgrade the streaming equipment as the quality of their feed remains poor.

The Chief was not present at this meeting as he was at a conference in Reading, according to Ms. Soltyziak. He did attend via Zoom.

As we post this online, the Borough has yet to post minutes for the December and January meetings on its website.

Jay Conners had to point out his benevolence for allowing additional comments during the deliberations. (See video).