EDITORIAL: Opportunity for School Lane Hills Residents

At last month's organizing meeting of the School Lane Hills Neighborhood Association, a lanky, bearded and socially uncomfortable old man stood up and suggested that dues be set higher so that the organization could be represented by an attorney in discussions with John Fry over F&M's desire to move the Norfolk – Southern freight yards to the fringes of their community. In response, the meeting's organizer explained that the best way to deal with Fry was by being unthreatening. Hmm.

Now that same old codger has a proposal to seize the moment and hold Fry to his word that under no circumstance would F&M be party to Baker Field being connected to Wilson Drive. (Words, words, words…)

Wilson Drive ends with a stub connecting Clayton Road with Baker Field. From all appearances, the stub is a dedicated road which is clear testimony that the plan approved some decades ago by Manheim Township intended Wilson Drive to ultimately serve the development of Baker Field, and perhaps continue through to Harrisburg Pike. Of course, this would be ruinous for the livability and the property value of the SLH community where people and children stroll, run and play safely in the streets.

At this moment when nerves are raw over the ram-rodding of the freight yard location, it is time to ask F&M to make good on its promises by encouraging Manheim Township to legally 'abandon' the Wilson Drive stub so that that ownership of half of the right-of-way and roadway reverts to each home owner.

The abandonment of these "stubs" would alter the presumption that Wilson is to be continued to Baker's Field to a new reality that it is not to do so. Future developers and Manheim officials could no longer claim this is what was always intended.

So once again the old fellow has made a suggestion. And this time the Association's leader who encouraged 'making nice' to Fry says he is willing to go along with the suggestion. So now is the moment for SLH residents to get behind this, encourage the relevant home owners to make the request, and, if necessary, provide funds to pay a lawyer to get the work done before the end of the year.

Oh, who will plow the snow on the stub? Theoretically, no longer Manheim Township. But if Fry has security guards to send into School Lane Hills to mug the media, he probably can also send a plow truck.