Delco Says No Illegals At Don Guanella — Delaware County (Pa) Council vehemently denied, last night, March 20, the rumors that unused institutional buildings will soon house illegal immigrants.
The latest involves the former Don Guanella building on Sproul Road in Marple.
The building had been used by the Catholic Church to house and teach boys with mental disabilities. It is zoned residential/industrial.
The county acquired it in 2021 as part of a plan to develop a 213 acre park.
Solicitor Jonathan Lichtenstein said the reports that it will house illegal immigrants are false. He repeated the denials that the shuttered Springfield and Delaware County Memorial hospitals will be used likewise.
While it is possible that the county could be out-of-the-loop regarding plans for the privately owned hospitals, the county is either out-and-out lying regarding Don Guanella or one can be confident there are no plans that it will be used as housing.
Lichtenstein also said the county will not be hiring illegals, a subject that came up regarding its ordinance change allowing for out-of-county workers.
The Don Guanella property was rumored to be on the agenda at last night’s Marple Zoning Hearing Board. It was not, though. We have heard that it will go before the township planners, however.
Sanctuary County
Council also took issues with claims made March 6 that Delaware County was a “sanctuary county”.
Councilwoman Christine Reuther said the county has researched the minutes of council meetings going back several years and has not found a declaration that Delco was a sanctuary county.
Ms. Reuther said the source for the claim was Center for Immigration Studies, which was somehow biased or untrustworthy.
She said the claim is based on a policy that the county prison will not house illegals solely due to their immigration status and that this follows federal law.
This was hotly discussed here in 2016.
The discussion ended when Bryan Griffith of Center for Immigration Studies sent us a now-broken link to a Temple University Study from March 2015 that said Community Education Centers, which then ran the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, instituted a policy on Aug. 5, 2014 that it would not hold individuals based solely on ICE detainers.
At least our county officials are getting warmer to the truth. Last meeting, they said it stemmed from Delco agreeing to join the US Department of States Refugee Resettlement Program in January 2020.
Wikipedia also lists Delco as a sanctuary for illegals for what it’s worth.
And former Philly Major Jim Kenney has also called Delco a sanctuary.
Illegals do seem to go free here after committing serious crime. Consider Sharon Devaney’s testimony about how an illegal speeding through an intersection in Haverford nearly killed her and her daughter.
And then was freed by police.
In public comments, Kathy of Haverford asked if the county was going to use NGOs as cover to house illegals
She also took issue with the semantic games being played regarding the use of illegal immigrant vs the virtue-signalling undocumented worker.
Opioid settlement
Council was told that the county has received $10.6 million of the $63 million it is to get over 18 years from the $1.07 billion that Big Pharma Johnson and Johnson has agreed to surrender to Pennsylvania for its destructive opioid pill pushing.
The county can only spend the money on things relating to opioid remediation and must do it in a limited time.
It will be giving $4.1 to various universities, hospitals and non-profits.
Councilman Kevin Madden noted that four people die each week in Delco from an opioid overdose.
Kathy of Haverford asked if any of the money could be used at the prison.
Zencity
Council approved 27 consent items including a one-year, $60,000 professional services agreement with ZenCity Technologies US Inc.
Zencity is an artificial intelligence-based software claimed to give local governments “true knowledge” about what their communities want rather than having to consider points made by people speaking at their meetings.
Carris Kocher of Concord noted the Zencity is a foreign entity with headquarters in London and Tel Aviv and expressed concern about how it would be used.
Public Comments
Carl Bell (phonetic) took issue with proposed changes to elections. He defended Dominion voting machines and said hand recounts would take forever.
Dean Dreibelbis of Edgmont said our election security systems was not certified for current environment.
Kimberly Brown of Colwyn took issue with council’s public comment policy, and the jail oversight board.
Laura Lewis of Radnor noted that the Dominion Voting Systems documents leaked to Sheriff Dar Leaf of Barry County, MI showed that Serbians could remotely access Dominion voting machines.
She also said that France could hand count its election in a day.
Carl McIntyre (phonetic) of Upper Darby thanked council for a grant for his LGBT organization.
Kathy from Haverford asked why County Council no longer allows comments on its Facebook page. She said that this violated a recent Supreme Court decision banning blocking of comments by government leaders.
Councilwoman Reuther said Delco’s cyber security was more robust than required and that Leaf shouldn’t be trusted because he was a Trump supporter or something.
She said County Council can block comments on its Facebook page because it blocks them from everybody. She said people had been putting too much misinformation on the site.
Delco Says No Illegals At Don Guanella Delco Says No Illegals At Don Guanella
Illegal aliens* take back the language.