Who would want a 25-foot cell pole in their yard?

Not Ed Bendzlowicz, Beth-Ann Wolfson, Janet Swenson, or several other Bucks County residents who are surprised and shocked that the black metal poles are about to be erected along their plush, green lawns.

They are demanding answers and warning unsuspecting homeowners that they could be next. Not just in Northampton Township, but around the Philadelphia area and across the state.

“This should concern everyone in Pennsylvania,” says Bendzlowicz, one of the leaders of hundreds of Northampton residents opposing the poles. “You have absolutely no say.”

The state Public Utility Commission, backed by a Bucks judge, have paved the way for a Boston-based company to install 12 metal poles in the manicured neighborhoods where above-ground utilities are prohibited.  

So, while contractors for the telecommunications company are laying 30 miles of fiberoptic cable and preparing to raise the black poles, Bendzlowicz’s hastily formed group is looking for a lawyer to seek an injunction.

“We want to get the work stopped while we see what our options are,” he said Thursday.

They may have few options, if any.

The township fought the company’s plans in Bucks County Court and lost. And the poles will stand in the 10-foot-wide, township-owned easement along the homeowners’ yards, not on their land.   

The residents are frustrated because they did not get advance notice of the plans. 

“I knew nothing about this till 10 days ago,” Wolfson said Monday. “I was simply told they would be working in the area, installing communications towers.”

And they’re baffled because they live in established developments with electric, cable and all other utility lines and pipes buried in the easement – not a pole or street light in sight. Some of them disregarded notices of the work because their deeds provide for underground utilities.

“It beats me how they’re going to put poles in a residential neighborhood when we have underground utilities,” said Swenson, who lives in the Willow Green South development.

The company, ATC Outdoor DAS, gained the rights from the PUC in 2008, when it was certified as a “competitive access provider.”

The PUC has jurisdiction over ATC as a wholesale service provider to other utilities, spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said. But it does not have jurisdiction over how the company provides the service, such as where it installs cell poles.

As of June 30, there were 93 companies like ATC providing wholesale services in the state, each with a “certificate of public convenience,” Kocher said. The certificates do not have an expiration date, but can be reviewed for complaints about service.

The certificate “gave ATC the same rights as PECO and Verizon to occupy the easements without paying rent and without being subject to local zoning laws,” Northampton manager Robert Pellegrino said Friday.

ATC presented its plans to the township and requested permits in March 2011, and was told to go before the zoning hearing board, Pellegrino said.  Instead, the company took the township to court, contending the PUC certificate exempted it from local zoning laws.

“We were the only township that challenged them,” Pellegrino said. “Warminster, Middletown, and Newtown issued the permits.”

On Jan. 5, county Judge Wallace H. Bateman ruled for ATC. Northampton’s lawyers advised that they probably would lose an appeal, and the township could be held liable for damages, so they accepted a $100,000 payment from ATC, Pellegrino said.

An ATC spokesman did not respond to phone and e-mail messages.

Meanwhile, the residents knew nothing about ATC’s plans or the lawsuit. Residents affected by zoning cases normally are notified about hearings, but there was no hearing for this project.

“They never appealed” the judge’s ruling, “and they never notified residents,” Bendzlowicz said about township officials. “There was no alternate solution. I’m concerned that the township kept it hidden.”

Swenson said she found out about the cell pole planned for her corner from a Verizon worker.

“There were lines spray painted on our lawns marking utility lines, and the township said they didn’t know why,” she said. “A Verizon worker who was in the neighborhood pointed to a white circle and told me, ‘You’re getting a pole.”

Swenson did receive ATC’s certified letter and a notice on her doorknob, both of which referred to underground work and pole installation. There was no specific mention of a pole next to her yard, she said.

Now, she is spreading the word about the poles about to be installed in her development and nearby neighborhoods.

Residents have posted signs on their lawns and comments on a Facebook page, NoCellTowers. About 100 attended a quickly organized meeting last Sunday, joined by Republican state Rep. Scott Petri.

They have contacted township officials, U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, the PUC and the Federal Communications Commission.

And they have gathered more than 500 signatures on petitions asking ATC to change the pole locations, the township to fund any legal action, and the PUC to change its ruling because it violates the deed requirement for underground utilities.

The township supervisors, meanwhile, have scheduled a special meeting 7 p. m., Tuesday, at Richboro Middle School, to present information about ATC’s system. A telecommunications lawyer will explain the complicated issues, and there will be public comment, but ATC officials declined an invitation, Pellegrino said.   

Wolfson, who has lived in the Deerfield development for 32 years, will be there.

“The minute they start digging, I won’t be able to show my house,” she said. “Who would buy it.”             

Neshaminy teachers, working under the terms of an expired contract for four years, voted Wednesday to lift their controversial "work-to-contract" job action and to authorize their second strike of the school year.

There has been no decision on whether the 633 members of the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers will go on strike, union President Louise Boyd said in a written statement Thursday. Members authorized the NFT Executive Committee to call a strike "when and under the circumstances the committee decides are appropriate."

The teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and nurses staged an eight-day strike in January because of the longest current contract impasse in the state. They are allowed by state law to strike again so long as the 180-day school year is completed by June 30.

School board president Ritchie Webb said a strike would "inconvenience families, disrupt children’s education and prolong the school year."

The union is required to give the district 48 hours’ notice of a strike, he said.

The contract talks have been suspended since January, first for the strike and then for a nonbinding arbitration. The impartial arbitrator issued her findings last week, which the school board rejected, 9-0, on Tuesday, and NFT members accepted with reservations on Wednesday.

The arbitrator’s recommended seven-year contract included back pay, contributions for health care, continued retirement bonuses, and raises for the final four years. The contract, from July 2008 through June 2015, would cost the district about $20 million, Webb said at Tuesday’s public meeting.

For back pay, the "award" calls for 50 percent of missed raises and credits for service and education from July 2008, when the contract expired, through June 2012. The recommendation would cost the district $9.2 million, Webb said, with payments spread over three years, but only to current union members.

The union had proposed 80 percent of back pay, while the district ruled out any back pay except for educational credits.

For health care, the arbitrator recommended NFT members pay 10 percent of their premium starting July 1, 11 percent for the 2013-14 school year, and 12 percent the following year. The union offered 8 percent, while the school board proposed 15 percent.

The finding would retain the retirement incentive, lowering it from $27,500 after 10 years to $20,000 after 20 years, with an additional $1,000 a year to $25,000.

NFT members would get raises of 1 percent for the 2011-12 school year, followed by 1.5 percent, 2 percent and 2.25 percent per year. The lowest base salary in the expired contract is about $42,500.

The district lost on proposals to eliminate payment to NFT members who opt out of health care coverage, to allow for drug testing, and to set student-teacher ratios without NFT approval. It won on extending the work day from seven to 7 ½ hours and the work year from 188.5 days to 190.5 days, and reducing the number of personal days from six to three.

While Webb criticized the arbitrator’s finding as "capitulation" to the NFT’s demands, Boyd said it "is not a clear victory for either side."

The arbitration was conducted by impartial arbitrator Rochelle K. Kaplan and a lawyer for each side. They conducted four hearings in February and March, with each side able to present testimony and evidence, to cross examine witnesses, and "offer arguments in support of their respective final best offers."

To get back to the bargaining table, the union dropped its "work-to-contract" job action, Boyd said. In the past two years, members were told to refrain from taking work home, arriving early or staying late. They skipped Back to School nights and graduations and declined to write letters of recommendation.

Webb said he is in favor of resuming talks, but none are scheduled.

This story is by Inquirer staff writer Peter Mucha:

A man suspected of making three pipe bombs was arrested late this morning in Solebury Township.

John Grzyminski, 50, was taken into custody after a Solesbury police officer spotted his black pickup truck.

Grzyminski was charged with multiple counts each of risking catastrophe and unlawful possession or manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, and other charges.

Wednesday afternoon, his mother called authorities after finding a pipe bomb in the kitchen of her home in the 1800 block of Saddle Drive in Warrington.

The neighborhood was evacuated, as local police got assistance from the Philadelphia Police bomb squad and agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said AFT spokesman Special Agent Steven Bartholomew.

Two more “assembled devices” were found, and all three were remotely defused by the bomb squad, Bartholomew said.

Investigators were treating the case as an “isolated incident ... not terrorism-related,” he said.

The mother and her son apparently had some kind of ongoing disagreement, but the ATF agent could not confirm a report that she had been trying to legally evict her son.

Firearms and other evidence were also removed from the house, Bartholomew said.

The remnants of the pipe bombs were shipped to an ATF laboratory in Washington for examination.

Additional evidence may have been recovered from the truck, which was carefully inspected at the arrest scene with an “explosive-detection canine,” Bartholomew said.

Investigators hope to determine where the components were obtained, how the suspect acquired bomb-making knowledge, and why the bombs were created. Additional federal charges could be added.

Bucks County’s museums are bringing in traveling exhibits, its historic sites are publicizing events, and other attractions are getting much-needed funding, thanks to a tourism grant program that has surpassed the $1 million mark.

The Mercer Museum, for example, will use its Spring grant of $15,000 “for the fees for the Apron Chronicles Exhibit, and for promotion inside and beyond Bucks County,” executive vice president Molly W. Lowell said Tuesday.

And the Friends of Washington Crossing will spend its $30,000 grant “to market our showcase events, such as the Christmas Crossing,” said John Godzieba, who plays George Washington for the annual reenactment that draws thousands. “It’s not just a regional event, but a national event.”

The grant program, which started in 2008, is funded by the county’s 3 percent hotel tax. The tax raises about $2.2 million a year, with about $400,000 used for grants.

With the 23 grants awarded Tuesday, ranging from $1,000 for the Actors Net to $30,000 for Washington Crossing, the program’s total reached $1.27 million, said Jerry Lepping, executive director of Visit Bucks County.

Over the years, the grants have been used for redesigning websites, marketing, producing promotional videos and capital improvements, he said. The top five recipients are the James A. Michener Art Museum, $185,000; Friends of Washington Crossing, $120,000; Mercer Museum, $115,000; Bucks County Wine Trail, $95,000; and the Pearl S. Buck House, $70,500.   

Tourism is the second largest industry in the county and the state, Lepping said, generating $814 million in revenue and supporting more than 11,000 jobs in Bucks each year.

In the past 12 months, occupancy at the county’s motels, hotels and B&Bs was up 2.8 percent, and total revenue was up 4.1 percent, he said.

The increased business benefitted grant recipients such as Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve outside New Hope, which received a Spring grant of $17,500.

“We’ll use it to build an Audubon birding trail with interpretive panels identifying birds, so people understand the role plants play in keeping birds healthy,” said Miles Arnott, executive director of the preserve.

“We’ll also use it for marketing,” he said, “to spread the word to birders and attract them to the county.”        

The Rev. George Cadwallader, who most recently was assigned to St. Vincent de Paul Church in Richboro, was one of the five priests removed from the ministry Friday by Archbishop Charles Chaput.

Richard Janowski of Joshua Drive in Richboro said Cadwallader "never impressed me. I don't know -- there was something wrong with him. The pastor, Father Joseph McLaughlin, is the opposite, very intelligent, very devout."

Janowski, who helps with the parish collections once a month and has been a parishioner for about 25 years, said Cadwallader was at the parish for about a year. One of the priest’s jobs was training altar boys and girls, Janowski said.

Jeff Schuck, 48, of Joshua Drive, did not know Cadwallader or that the priest had been removed from the parish during the archdiocese’s investigation. But, "it is very disheartening the way the church is going,” he said. “I worry about the kids -- can you leave them alone? I don't think I will."

The only parish activities Schuck's children, ages 7, 16  and 20, have participated in is CCD, "and moms are always with them," he said.

Parishioners were told about a year ago, when the investigation was announced, that Cadwallader would not return regardless of the finding, said Ed McFillin, 64, of Joshua Drive.

"I thought he was a good priest -- a little standoffish in his demeanor, but a good priest.

"He was a typical parochial vicar -- he assisted the pastor.

"I had him to my home for parish visitation," which allows a priest to introduce himself, ask for a donation, and ask whether he can help with the person's faith, said McFillin, who has been a parishioner for 22 years.

"He conducted himself appropriately."

Kristie Ferguson, 33, of Holland, who has a 10-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, said she would like to know Cadwallader's offenses.
"If it was something with a child, I would want to know, just to be an advocate, and to ask [my child], 'Did you see anything specific?' "

Details of the alleged offenses did not need to be in graphic terms, she said.

Cadwallader was Ferguson's father's priest in the Northeast, she said.

Parish business manager Diana Sherman said the church office had no comment about Cadwallader or the archdiocese’s ruling.

Four of the 27 priests investigated by the archdiocese were last assigned to parishes in Bucks County. County District Attorney David Heckler said he had not seen that list but had talked to the archdiocese.

“The matter is under active investigation,” Heckler said, declining to name the priests. “We don’t talk about investigations until the time is right.”

The Washington Saxophone Quartet will perform two concerts and work with students in the Doylestown area this weekend.

On Friday, the quartet, which has toured the world and is heard on National Public Radio, will work with students at Central Bucks High School West, Tohickon Middle School and Kutz Elementary.

On Saturday, WSQ will perform at the recently renovated Mercer Museum from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets are $75, and all proceeds benefit the Community Conservatory and the Delaware Valley College music programs.

The quartet will perform an octet with the Delaware Valley Saxophone Quartet. And there will be the world premiere of Bucks County Symphony Orchestra Music Director Gary Fagin’s saxophone quartet arrangements of two Duke Ellington compositions: “Come Sunday” and “Happy Go-Lucky Local.”

At 3 p.m., Sunday, the quartet will perform Bob Mintzer’s “Rhythm of the Americas” at a free concert with the 65-member Delaware Valley College Concert Band on the campus off East Butler Avenue.

For more information about these events, go to www.weekendofsax.org.

Down-on-their-luck residents of Tent City, a homeless enclave in a wooded area in Bristol Borough, have next to nothing – a few tarps, blankets, and clothes. Some have a heater to warm their shelter and a chair to sit outside.

There’s no electricity, no running water.

By next Monday, they’ll need to pack up their meager belongings and find another place to call home. Their refuge is about to be leveled for a warehouse.

“I have nowhere else to go,” 46-year-old John Haacke said Monday, as eviction loomed. “I get $200 a month from welfare, I’m looking for a job, and I’m living within my means.

“I can’t find any place to rent for that kind of money,” he added. “Nobody wants you – you become a misfit.”

Haacke, a laid-off computer network specialist for IBM, and about 15 other residents did get a one-week, last-minute reprieve.

“You have until May 7, then they’ll start taking stuff down,” Bristol Borough Police Sgt. Joe Morrs announced. “My boss and the owner said you got an extra week.”

A big trash receptacle had been provided for the original deadline, and a handful of residents packed up and moved over the weekend. Some said they were moving last night, while others said they’d wait till the bulldozers arrived.  

The 23-acre site next to Lower Bucks Hospital has housed the homeless – many with physical or mental disabilities – for about 20 years. The numbers fluctuate daily, with some men and women setting up for a few weeks, others for several years.

William Yates, 23, who grew up in foster homes in Trenton, has lived in Tent City for four years, he said. He also has lived behind the nearby former Pathmark, and was planning to move last night to a wooded spot in Bensalem.

The high-school graduate said he’s looking for work – “anything that pays me.”

Yates sat outside a tent with his pit bull, Nayla, and Scott Brookshire, 51, who has been there for six weeks.

“I don’t need medication, I’m not on disability, I get $200 in food stamps a month – that’s it,” Brookshire said.

“You’re told you can look for work, but I have no transportation to get there,” he said. “Give me a bus pass so I can get around.”

Most of Tent City’s residents are men, because Bucks County has few shelters for men, Brookshire said.

“If I did drugs, I could find a place. If I was an alcoholic, I could find a place,” he said. “If you’re just on hard times, there’s nowhere to go.”

Looking to help relocate the residents in emergency shelters, Allen Johnson of the Bucks County Department of Mental Health made his way around the site.

“I want to see how many people are interested,” Johnson said.

Some could be helped by the Penndel Mental Health Center or the Lenape Valley Mental Health Center, he said.

The Bucks County Homeless Shelter in Bristol Township has 80 beds and consistently has a waiting list.    

Johnson was a volunteer for the county’s annual “point-in-time” homeless count in January. That survey found 49 individuals and one couple.

The findings included:

• 86 percent, were men;
• 48 percent were ages 31 to 50; 28 percent. 51-60; 14 percent, 18-30; and 10 percent, over 60;
• 88 percent were white; 10 percent, black
• There were 9 reported veterans. 

Jim Sandonato told Johnson he would be interested in a shelter, and his wife, Diane, who has “mental health issues,” could use help.

Sandonato has been at Tent City for two months, and his wife lives there or with her mother. “I couldn’t live with her parents,” he said.

He lost his job as a welder in 2009, after 13 years, and the couple’s three children were put in foster care a year ago. Sandonato  and his wife lost their Levittown apartment in January and lived in his Pontiac Aztek till it broke down.

He lives on $200 a month in food stamps and another $200 for temporary disability – “not physical, not mental; anxiety about everyday life.”

He gets meals and a monthly shower at nearby churches and his mail at the welfare office.

If he doesn’t get a place n a shelter, what will he do at next week’s dealine?

“It’s in God’s hands,” he said.

Just like in It’s a Wonderful Life, a cash mob of about 100 crammed into the Newtown Hardware House on Saturday morning to help bail out the store and its popular owner.

“It’s like George Bailey – everything George did was for everyone in the town,” said Michelle Knobloch, referring to the Frank Capra movie. “This is all for Dave Callahan. He is quietly philanthropic and giving in so many ways.”

Callahan, who has run Bucks County’s oldest hardware store for 27 years, represents “the integrity of this borough,” Knobloch said. “He is George Bailey.”  

Men, women and children gathered outside the store on tree-lined South State Street in the late morning and filed inside as the nearby bank clock struck 11. They packed the narrow aisles and lined up at the worn counter to buy everything from lawn and gardening supplies and stink bug traps to paint scrapers and light bulbs.

“I’ve got an electric screwdriver, a hammer and WD-40 – what else could a girl want,” said Betsey King, who was born and raised in Newtown.

It was a party atmosphere, with friends and neighbors greeting each other and longtime customers chatting with Callahan and his staff.

“”I came to this hardware store when I was a little kid,” Nancy Romanchek told the owner before leaving with sprinklers, gardening gloves and a light bulb. “My dad used to bring me here.”

The store has been a fixture in the close-knit, picturesque borough since 1869, when it started selling carriage bolts and farm equipment.

 “Give me an N, give me an E, give me a W,” shouted John Rasiej of Wrightstown, as he led the crowd in chants spelling “Newtown Hardware.”

“It’s a big event. We want to live it up and create some magic, said Rasiej, who directs plays with the Newtown Arts Company.

Organizing the cash mob to give Callahan and his store a financial boost was local publicist Andy Smith’s idea.

“I’ve seen them popping up around the country for the past year or so,” Smith said. “I knew they [the store’s staff] were holding a campaign to increase business. So I figured it will take 10 minutes for a Facebook thing, and we’ll see what happens.”

The Facebook message said, “Each ‘mobber’ is encouraged to spend about $20, although you can spend more if you wish. With spring here, there has to be $20 of stuff you need for around the house – grass seed, a tool, paint, etc.”

Word of the gathering spread on Facebook and Twitter and by e-mail.

“I got an e-mail from a friend, and it was forwarded to a gajillion people,” Romanchek said.

She also spread the word at the Starbucks down the street as she waited for the appointed time.

It was supposed to be a surprise, but Callahan said he “knew something was up this morning, because people were acting funny. They were asking, ‘Is everything OK.’

“It wasn’t my birthday, it wasn’t a surprise party, but it certainly was a surprise,” he said.

Starting last spring, Callahan and his staff gave away 2,000 “Save Newtown Hardware” bumper stickers to boost business, which has been suffering from the weak economy for four years. The red-white-and blue stickers produced a “bump for about two months, but then it died out,” he said.

“Believe me, I can use this,” Callahan said as the cash registers rung up the sales.

An hour after the cash mob arrived, the store was nearly back to normal for a Saturday, when it usually grosses $2,000. Callahan estimated the store took in $1,000 in that hour, and it totaled $3,700 in what he called "a really nice day."

“Keep the faith,” an old friend, Duane Buck, told Newtown's George Bailey.

A Bristol Township construction worker who threatened to kill his wife or himself about 11/2 years ago shot her in the head Thursday night and then committed suicide, according to a police spokesman and court documents.

The shooting occurred about 8 p.m., as the couple’s daughter fled the home with her young son “fearing for their lives,” Police Lt. Terry Hughes said.

Mary Todd, 51, of Hazel Avenue, was listed in critical condition Friday in a medically induced coma at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus, Hughes and a hospital spokeswoman said.

She was shot once in the head at close range with a .380-caliber handgun, Hughes said. A second shot apparently missed her and was lodged in a wall, he said.

Her husband, Edward Todd II, 51, then shot himself, Hughes said. The coroner ruled the cause of death as a suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Hughes said.

The daughter, Brittany Todd, called 911 as she and her son, Joseph, about 2, jumped in their car and drove away, police and a neighbor said.

“The call said that the father had shot the mother in the head and was in the house and was intoxicated,” Hughes said. The daughter heard only two shots, he said.

On Nov. 20, 2010, Edward Todd threatened to kill his wife if she sought a divorce, according to a complaint she filed three weeks later.

Mary Todd told police her husband had ripped off her clothes, pointed a semiautomatic gun at her head, and threatened to kill her, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

He also “pointed the firearm at himself and threatened to commit suicide in front of her so that she would have to suffer living with the guilt,” according to the affidavit.

Brittany Todd returned home to find her mother wresting the gun from her father, according to the affidavit.

Edward Todd was charged with simple assault, making terroristic threats, recklessly endangering another person, and harassment. But at his preliminary hearing on Jan. 11, 2011, Mary Todd recanted her statement, and the charges were dismissed, said Robert James, Bucks County deputy district attorney.

Hughes said he could not say whether the gun allegedly used in the 2010 incident was the same as the one used Thursday. And he could not say whether that gun or the “multiple” weapons in the house were registered.

Police removed only the handgun that had been fired, he said. “There was no need to take the [other] guns out of the house.”

Harry Bose, who lives across the street from the Todd house, said he had talked to the husband that afternoon, and “everything seemed normal.”

“He had just sold his mother’s house, cleaned it out, and was unloading his truck,” Bose said.

Edward Todd did remodeling and construction work, while his wife was a “stay-at-home mom,” Bose said. He owned two motorcycles, and the couple would take evening rides on one of them, Bose said.

“It seemed like they were getting along,” he said. “It was a shock to me.”

The couple’s son, Edward Todd III, who did not live in the house, also was shocked, Bose said.

“He kept saying he couldn’t believe his father did that,” the neighbor said.

Another neighbor, Paula Dean, said the Todds, who have lived on the quiet block for about 25 years, “were a very nice family until about five years ago.”

They used to keep the house and yard nice, said Dean’s daughter, Janet Morelli, who lives behind the Todds’ house, “and then they just let everything go.”

“We kept wondering what happened,” she said.

Their son graduated from high school and moved out about that time, “and that’s when it happened,” Morelli said.

In the close-knit neighborhood, “we watch out for each other,” Bose said.
“You see it [shootings] on TV all the time,” he said, “but you never expect to see it on your own block.”