Limerick Truck Project Approval Gets Political

Those most opposed to the TP Trailer project lives in the homes on the roads off West Cherry Lane.

The expected approval of the controversial truck servicing project on Limerick Center Road came with more than a dash of politics Tuesday night.

The vote was 3-1 with Supervisor Patrick Morroney voting against it and Supervisor Thomas Neafcy absent. Voting in favor were Elaine DeWan, Chairman Ken Sperring Jr. and Supervisor Kara Shuler who said "we follow the law and I will stand up for the law every day of the week."

Last month, the board voted, also by a 3-1 margin, to authorize Township Solicitor Joe McGrory to compose the final site plan resolution they approved last month.

Sperring lashed out at opponents of the project, Amy Walker and Preston Luitweiler, saying the board had no choice but to follow the law or expose taxpayers to an expensive lawsuit the township would lose, and that the two are lying to voters.

Both Walker and Luitweiler are now candidates for township supervisor and will face off against Sperring and Planning Commission Chairman Michael J. McCloskey in November.

DeWan, whose term is also up this year, is not running for reelection.

Sperring said "you two are out campaigning with Sean Kilkenny, and if you win he will probably be the next solicitor because we know the games you play. But he just told another municipality they have to follow the law. You go out and campaign and say all the wrong things because you don't understand how things work."

Kilkenny is a municipal attorney, and the first Democrat to be elected Montgomery County Sheriff.

TP Trailers has a facility along Ridge Pike.

In February, the Montgomery County Democratic Committee endorsed him for reelection.

Sperring was probably referring to an Aug. 30 article in PATCH which reported that Kilkenny had given Norristown, where he is borough solicitor, advice similar to the advice Limerick Township Solicitor Joe McGrory had given.

McGrory told the supervisors that the TP Trailers project complied with township ordinances and voting to reject the final site plan approval would invite a lawsuit Limerick would likely lose.

The Norristown matter has to do with approval of a charter school and the paragraph to which Sperring was evidently referring reads as follows: 

Solicitor Sean Kilkenny warned the council that if they rejected the application, CSMI could take the case to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, where he believes they would win. "They've satisfied all of the legal requirements," he noted. He added that such a court case would likely cost the municipality a few thousand dollars in court fees.

Sperring continued, "I'm tired of this board being bashed for following the law. You yourself Amy told me you would have paid $10 million in taxpayer money to buy the property from Mr. Perkins, or run up thousands in legal bills. Do your research and come in here and tell the truth." 

After the meeting, the sparring continued. After urging a reporter to "quote me accurately," Sperring asked "is spending $10 million of taxpayer money in the public interest? She didn't deny it."

In fact, Walker said afterward, that Sperring's account of their conversation was not entirely accurate.

"Mr. Sperring called me before I announced my candidacy and asked me 'what do you want us to do? Buy the property?' I told him it would be nice if the supervisors spent time on things that enriched the residents' quality of life rather than destroying it. I never said the town should buy it for $10 million."

Preston Luitweiler addresses the Limerick Supervisors in January.

Also after the meeting ended, Sperring told Luitweiler "learn the job before you come in here and tell us not to follow the law."

Luitweiler replied "You didn't listen to what I said. I said there are things the supervisors could have done that are within the law. You keep berating me in public, but it's not going to do you any good." 

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Luitweiler said the township should have required a traffic study to determine the impact of the increased truck traffic on the already busy road.

He said "I hope Mr. Perkins can find a way to make peace with the neighbors," whose property values, he said, would drop as a result of the project's construction.

"You will own the consequences of the vote you take tonight," Luitweiler told the supervisors. "It would have been nice to see some action by this board to ameliorate the impact on the neighbors."

The property, and proposals for it, have a complicated history. For many years, the township’s zoning map indicated the parcel was split, with one part residential and the other office and light industrial.

But as it turns out, the map was wrong because township officials could find no record of a vote by an elected body that changed any part of the parcel over to residential.

Tom Perkins listens to objections at a meeting last year.

Tom Perkins, owner of TP Trailers on Ridge Pike, owns the parcel with his sister and has variously
tried to develop it with 50 townhomes, which was rejected by the township, as well as a business exactly like the one on Ridge Pike, which was also rejected, Sperring said last year.

The reason for the second rejection was that Limerick Center Road is not certified for enough traffic to accommodate sales of vehicles, Mark Kaplin, the lawyer representing Perkins, explained in 2018.

This proposal approved last night is similar to the first, except that vehicle sales are no longer proposed, thus removing the snag that sank the last one.

In the wake of a wave of opposition that surfaced last July and at subsequent planning commission meetings, the developers decided to submit a plan that requires no variances, meets the codes in every way, and requires no waivers but one, Kaplin said.

Now that the project has been approved, only time will tell if its handling has an impact on the supervisors election.

The supervisors undertook some other interesting discussions last night, but they will have to wait for subsequent articles in The Mercury. You can get a sense of those discussions in the Tweets from the meeting below.

Political Overtones to Truck Project Decision