Bristol Council President to School Board: ‘We’ll See You In Arbitration’

Tensions rose last week at a meeting following the standard agenda meeting of the Bristol Borough Council.

The meeting between members of the Bristol Borough School Board and members of the Bristol Borough Council started calmly, but elevated as the meeting parties did not see eye to eye.

The groups came together to discuss an agreement made previously, but was never signed by the school board involving the property originally owned by the Grundy Foundation involving  a 2006 land swap, which the  foundation owned donated and has have final approval over in terms of what the governmental bodies do with the property.  

As part of the agreement signed the  bodies involving the foundation, the borough signed over the land where Snyder-Girotti Elementary School sits. In exchange, the school district granted a 20-year option to the borough for  four acres of land near the high school track.

Recently, the borough had  moved to exercise that part of the agreement. The borough would like to subdivide the land that was already promised to the school district.  “The school district wanted to retain a small area (less than an acre) for a greenhouse that would be used for the benefit of our student body, and an expanded curriculum in horticulture,” said Charles Groff, the president of the the Bristol Borough School Board, said after the meeting.

The original deal saw the borough council give the school board two acres in which to build a school. The school board was supposed to pay back four acres, according to the original agreement.

The attempted resolution to the ownership of the land began in November 2013, when the borough council made motions to act upon the agreement that was originally signed in June of 2006, according to an email sent to Ralph DiGuiseppe III, who was the president of the Bristol Borough school board at the time, from the borough manager James Dillon.

Despite being asked to bring the issue up in the next school board meeting, the issue was missing from the November 21, 2013 agenda, according to documents.

The issue appeared to be solved to the new school board, which believed that the previous school board had ended the issue, Groff said. The school board became aware of the lingering issue in March, 2014, when borough manager, James Dillon, e-mailed Groff and DiGuiseppe III about the unsigned agreement which would give the borough four acres of land.

During the months between the attempted resolution and the reminding email, Gilmore and Associates engineering firm completed a subdivision investigation for the borough council.

What followed was multiple months of attempting to meet the school board and borough council together in order to discuss the issue. The two boards nearly reached an agreement on an appropriate meeting time, but, according to email exchanges between DiGuiseppe and Groff, fell through due to a lack of meeting advertisement.

The groups came together to discuss the agreement made in 2006 at the most recent meeting on August 11.

“The School District wanted to retain a small area (less than an acre) for a greenhouse that would be used for the benefit of our student body, and an expanded curriculum in horticulture,” said Charles Groff, the President of the the Bristol borough school board, after the meeting.

President of the council, DiGuiseppe noted to the representatives from the school board, as well as their solicitor that he thought. “You [the school board] have no basis to not sign the agreement.”

Although starting civil, the “special meeting” to discuss the land transfer quickly entered hostile territory.

“The hostility and unwillingness to discuss compromise, shown by the council president, was shocking, appalling, and a disservice to the Community,” said Groff.

“I’m done, We’ll see you in arbitration,” DiGuiseppe said to the representatives as he stood up signaling the end of his participation in the special meeting.

No ground was gained by either side during the meeting, and it appears that arbitration will occur, based on statements given by DiGuisseppe at the end of the meeting.