SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY
Dave is dedicated to the needs of the community.
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This past Christmas week, Dave and his two sons traveled by bus to Biloxi, Mississippi, where they helped in a church-sponsored project to rebuild houses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Dave also worked as a fund raiser for Hurricane Katrina relief organizations as well as Tsunami relief organizations.
Closer to home, he has volunteered with Volunteer Home Care, transporting seniors to and from medical care and he also takes seniors to Reading Phillies baseball games. He has also served the Salvation Army for 19 years, Boy Scouts of America, and the Oley Youth League. He was a member of the Salem U.C.C. Consistery for 10 years, and he served for eight years as a board member of the Pike Oley District Preservation Coalition.
Dave has worked tirelessly for last 13 years as a township supervisor and 15 years as a member of the Planning Commission to make Oley Township a better place to live. Among his accomplishments in municipal government:
- Dave has been instrumental in preserving over 10,000 acres of
farmland/open space in Oley.
- When a large Philadelphia developer sought to develop 190 acres
of mostly prime farmland in Oley, Dave successfully negotiated an
agreement which limits the developer to clustering senior residences on
30 acres and dedicates the remaining 160 acres to the township as
open space. The agreement not only preserves a substantial area of
open space for uses such as farming, but it significantly increases tax
revenues for the township without increasing property taxes of existing
residents to cover additional school costs.
- Dave negotiated an agreement with the owner of an 80 acre parcel,
restricting development to 12 houses on 12 acres, saving 68 acres for open
space.
- Dave helped to spearhead a grass roots effort to void permits issued by the State and the Delaware River Basin Authority to the Wissahickon
Water Company. Wissahickon intended to extract 288,000 gallons of
water a day from a spring adjacent to an exceptional value stream in the
Oley Valley, a project which threatened the ground water supply of local
residents as well as the environment. Dave helped to raise over
$200,000 and spent countless hours of his time to protect the ground
water. This effort was ultimately successful—without the assistance of
state government—in preventing the bottled water company from taking
this region’s water for corporate gain.
- Oley Township is seeking to expanded the sewage system to existing
homes. Dave visited seniors and low income families to help them
complete forms to qualify for a county grant to pay 100% of the tap in
fees to connect with the Oley sewage system. Without his effort,
Oley would not have qualified for a $355,000.00 the grant.
- When township residents asked for a municipal police force, a costly
addition to local government services, Dave joined with his fellow
supervisors to create a highly efficient and effective municipal police
force, and, to make every effort to minimize the resultant increase in
foregoing yearly salaries.
Township supervisor and planning commissioner are not, of course, full time jobs, but Dave works on township issues as though they were. He believes that a public office is a public trust, and, as such, requires nothing less than complete dedication. And he believes that the position of state representative demands equal dedication.
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