By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

New Garden Township Supervisor Ted Gallivan will assume the duties as board chairman for the five-member group in 2025, it was announced at the supervisors’ meeting on Jan. 6.

He will take over for supervisor David Unger, who served as chairman during 2024. Long-time supervisor Stephen Allaband will serve the board as vice chairman.

Gallivan, a former auditor and now a chief financial officer in an accounting firm, campaigned for supervisor with his neighbor Troy Wildrick in the fall of 2021 and together, they defeated incumbent Michale Loftus and fellow Republican Dinamarie Vanover in an election held on Nov. 2, 2021. Gallivan’s six-year term on the board will end on Jan. 1, 2028.

Gallivan will head a board that is expected to address several projects that have dominated the township’s discussion over the past few years. Expected to be on the board’s to-do list in 2025 will be the continued recreational and sustainable development of New Garden Hills, the 137-acre property formerly known as Saint Anthony in the Hills that the township purchased in 2018; balancing long-range plans for the commercial and residential development of the Route 41 corridor with conservation and open space initiatives; continuing the conversion of the Smedley Preserve, formerly the Loch Nairn Golf Club and purchased by the Township in January 2023 to a 105-acre passive-recreation preserve; and implementing several components included on the township’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan.

The board also approved the appointments of Jeffrey Hazelwood to a four-year term on the Planning Commission, and Thomas Brodowski to a three-year term on the Zoning Hearing Board.

In other township business, the board approved a declaration of emergency that recognizes the recent outbreak of the phorid fly that have been emanating from local mushroom growing facilities and invading homes and businesses in southern Chester County as a “true public health and economic emergency.” The declaration comes on the heels of Kennett Square Borough’s issuance of an emergency declaration in December that called for “a comprehensive, multi-agency approach to eliminate the phorid fly infestation” that includes enacting several initiatives that include pursuing additional state funding for research mitigation; providing education tools for mushroom growers; enacting state regulations for safe pest controls; fast-tracking the review of mitigation controls; establishing a multi-agency task force; and providing education and information to local residents.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].