Talk Host, Fans Take on PASD

The acquisition of the Meadowbrook Golf Club by eminent domain has more than the family, members and fans of the nine hole course tee'd off.  It has Philadelphia-based talk host Dom Giordano taking a verbal nine iron to the heads of the Phoenixille Area School District.

Giordano brought his 1210 WPHT Talk Radio show to the Meadowbrook Golf Club for three live hours on Friday morning.  Throughout the show, Giordano took swings at District administrators and school board members, especially  Superintendent Dr. Alan Fegley and Executive Director of Operations Stan Johnson.

Giordano spent much of  the first hour of his show on the topic, not only focusing on Meadowbrook but on the wider issue of municipal governments, school districts and states using eminent domain to take property out from underneath land owners.  Giordano also spent the first segments of each of the second two hours of the show on the topic.  In each segment he invited Fegley to come on the show, offering to silence himself "with the portable straight jacket if needed" so that Fegley could speak his peace and respond to charges from the public and club supporters.  Amon the allegations is that the district took the land without conferring with Meadowbrook Manager and Co-owner Bruce Campbell or his family. 

While the superintendent  and other members of the district administration declined the invitation to be on the show, a district spokesperson did provide the following statement to Patch following the broadcast:

"On November 14th, the PASD School Board of Directors voted to acquire the Meadow Brook Golf Course property via eminent domain.  This vote followed a full year of extensive property search and evaluation of 95 different potential properties in the District.  

Meadow Brook Golf Course Owners approached the District in May 2013 expressing an interest in selling their property to the District.  The location, size, and developable nature of the property make Meadow Brook an ideal site.  The District obtained a highest and best use appraisal of the Meadow Brook property to determine a fair market value of the property.  

The appraisal valued the property at $3.725 million.  During numerous negotiations both in person and writing, the Owners remained firm on their asking price of $8 million.  The District negotiated in good faith, and offered $5 million, significantly more than the appraised value, which the Owners declined in a letter dated October 24, 2013. In that letter, they restated their desire to sell to the District.  

With an impasse in negotiations, and recognizing their fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers to not overpay for a property, the Board voted for eminent domain as a means to determine a fair market value for the property.  With our elementary schools already bursting at the seams, and a steady increase in enrollment predicted over the next several years, it is crucial to move forward with the much needed process of building a new early learning center and elementary school for the District. 

The District is committed to a fair outcome for all involved—the Meadow Brook Owners, the taxpayers, and the students of PASD."

Both on the air, in public statements and in multiple interviews with Patch Bruce Campbell and other members of the family have strongly denied ever expressing an interest in selling the 55 acre property to the school district.  In fact, Campbell says he expressly had told the district that he is not interested in selling the land or retiring from the business.

Giordano pledged to stay on top of the story and urged the crowd to keep pushing back on the school district board who voted unanimously to take the land by eminent domain.