Jenkintown Council Meeting Notes

Highlights from from the October 22, 2024 Council meeting:

After several residents stood up to voice their opposition to Council’s vote of support for Chief Tom Scott, President Jay Conners quickly moved the motion up the agenda to the first item. Before recording a unanimous tally, Council’s queen of hyperbole Alex Khalil actually described the Chief as, “…one of the best things that’s ever happened to Jenkintown“, which sets a pretty low bar for our beleaguered community. Then the heated discussion continued after the meeting, where Jay belligerently greeted an attendee who waited to talk to him with “Who the fuck are you?”

Fox29 showed up to cover the vote, likely tipped off by the Borough hoping to score some free PR. Jenkintown Matters’ own Taylor Casey captured ample airtime arguing against the whole concept of the vote, but the Chief himself garnered the most screen time to express that leaders sometimes have to make hard decisions.

When is an executive session not an executive session? When Council says it isn’t, of course. After Jay adjourned the meeting, members stayed in their seats behind locked doors for what they said was NOT an executive session, where they are restricted to discussing matters of litigation and personnel.

Council voted to commence repairs of the fire department’s 30-year-old pumper, allocating the $15,000 deposit against an estimate of $45,000. For perspective, the Borough will spend over $200,000 on the Chief’s brand new Ford F-250 “Multi-Use” vehicle over the term of its lease. Should the pumper break down again, it’ll take three-to-four years to replace it. Be sure to keep your smoke detector batteries fresh.

Is the EAC and the Borough coming after your fire pit? Maybe. After an incident where multiple units rushed to respond to a conflagration within a fire pit behind 303 Runnymede, Alex Khalil has asked the EAC and Council to revisit ordinances regulating back yard fire pits. How far will they go? Remember that the EAC previously recommended Council ban plastic shopping bags, even though they themselves said it won’t make much difference.

View the meeting video in its entirety here.