Warrington GOP begins series of roadside cleanups

Everyone knows litter blights the roadsides of virtually all cities and suburbs, even generally clean ones like Warrington Township. But just a brief walk along even the comeliest woods, fields, or parklands reveals defilement much bigger than people see as they zip by in their cars. Garbage is everywhere.

Warrington’s public works staff, like that of most comparable communities, makes a dent in the problem, but they’re up against too many thoughtless heels who throw rubbish on the ground. So Saturday morning, the township’s Republican Committee members and candidates grabbed pickers and bags and headed to Eureka Quarry Ball Field at the corner of Street and Lower State roads to pick up as much nearby junk as possible in two intermittently rainy hours.

Township Supervisor Brian Kelly said the event, at which an estimated 1,100 pounds of litter were collected, marks the first of several this year. He anticipates the Warrington Republican Committee will perform road cleanings at least monthly. The nine participants last weekend included supervisor candidate Michele DeBlasio and Central Bucks School Board hopeful Roman Szewczuk as well as Supervisors Chair Mike Diorka and Vice Chair Vanessa Maurer. 

“We were sitting around with Roman and Michele and they said, ‘We need to do things for the township to keep it clean,’” Kelly said. “They noticed the trash on the roads and so we decided we’re going to do a road cleanup.”

The eighth-grade science teacher, retired policeman, and eighteen-month municipal legislator had his sights on one eyesore especially: a brown — perhaps once white — pillow that had lied amid woodside brush along Lower State Road for a spell he reckoned was at least five years. 

“I got dibs on it!” Kelly smilingly joshed his compatriots. “I’m gonna pick that thing up…. You guys do whatever you want [collecting other] trash, but I want that pillow!” 

Minutes later, clad in an orange safety vest, the supervisor hiked down the road, grabbed the unsightly headrest, tossed it into a trash bag, and pressed on to rid the streets of more unwelcome items. 

Kelly said he wants the Warrington Republicans’ efforts to regenerate interest in litter removal. The activity became increasingly popular among businesses and nonprofits when Pennsylvania and other jurisdictions implemented Adopt-a-Highway programs in the late 80s and early 90s. 

According to the state Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania’s own program cleaned 9,260 miles of road with the help of 4,339 volunteers over the last 35 years. But Kelly lamented a recent decline he observed in such activities.

“I don’t see [many road-beautification sponsors] anymore, so we’re trying to resurrect that,” he said.

When they’re not with their families, at work, or out on cleanup routes, Szewczuk and DeBlasio will of course spend much of the next five months hiking the proverbial campaign trail. While preparing for their cleaning tasks, the candidates took a few minutes to discuss their respective priorities with The Independence. 

Szewczuk raised concern with Central Bucks School District’s heightening property taxes at the same time its reputation ebbs. The education-review site Niche recently lowered CBSD’s ranking among all Bucks school districts from one to three. Across Pennsylvania, the district fell from seventeen to 40.

“Where’s all this money being spent?” said Szewczuk, a Temple University business professor who is running with Betty Santoro to seek a four-year term representing CBSD’s Region Three (Warrington, Chalfont, and New Britain). “Academic outcomes are not there [to show for] the money being spent.” 

DeBlasio, who worked in financial analysis and business development for the pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb before retiring, counted land use and fiscal management among her focal points as she seeks to join Warrington’s Republican supervisors’ majority. While that majority has improved the township’s fiscal health in its year-and-a-half existence, she said, township officials are still working to restore budgetary transparency after previous Democratic control. She said work remains to be done to clarify expenditures the municipality made after selling its sewer system to the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority in 2019. 

“I think we need to be a little bit more mindful of how we’re spending taxpayer money,” she averred.

DeBlasio’s Democratic opponent is incumbent Supervisor Ruth Schemm. The Independence emailed Warrington’s Democratic Party seeking comment from its leadership or Schemm herself but received no reply. Central Bucks Neighbors United, the committee representing incumbent Democratic School Director Daniel Kimicata and his Region Three running mate Katrina Filiatrault, also did not answer an inquiry. 

The way Szewczuk sees it, he, DeBlasio, and their slate are waging their campaigns for the same reason they came out on a drizzly weekend to clean up roads.

“To actually make a difference,” he said.

Bradley Vasoli is the senior editor of The Independence.