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Chester County Press

Connors and London Grove board deceiving residents

07/17/2014 03:03PM ● By Acl

By Uncle Irvin


Supervisor David Connors and the present London Grove Board of Supervisors have continued to deceive their resident taxpayers about the financial status of the Inniscrone Golf Course.

Presently leased to Heathland, a for-profit golf club management corporation, the operation continues to bleed red ink. This comes after the complete fiasco with Lori Van Sickle and the first management team hired by the supervisors. That turned into a huge loss, paid for by taxpayers, that resulted with the township losing its own lawsuit against Van Sickle, and paying large sums of money for her improper termination.

According to London Grove Township Manager Steven Brown, bank loans for Inniscrone are $1.6 million, with $1.5 million already invested and $100,000 in reserve. The amortization of the loan is being paid by Heathland in monthly installments.

Now, after two and a half years of operation, it was disclosed that Heathland lost $38,000 in 2012 and allegedly made a $19,000 profit (subject to audit) in 2013. Heathland wants the township to reimburse it for the operating loss and has “blackmailed” the supervisors into providing reimbursements for all future annual losses.

That means that London Grove taxpayers are looking at millage increases for the golf club losses, plus all other costs of running the township. The Chester County Press has learned that London Grove supervisors are sending township-paid maintenance men to work on the golf course for no reimbursement.

Inniscrone has become a “black hole” the details of which have never been publicly disclosed at a public meeting.

A year ago, Uncle Irvin advised Mr. Connors personally to attempt to sell this albatross to get the township out of a $1.6 million debt before it started to snowball. Connors told me that he was “highly confident” that London Grove would make money from the golf course. That was before the Van Sickle loss and the 2012 operations loss.

When the prior board bought Inniscrone in 2009, Uncle Irvin wrote that the purchase was a huge mistake. This board, or any board of supervisors, should never, never invest taxpayer money in businesses. That's not their job.

Taxpayers should demand that the supervisors sell the golf course and go back to running the township before this financial morass gets any worse.

Connors may be a successful landscape contractor, but he's in over his head with Inniscrone.