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Tag: Haverford

  • Lower Merion may raise parking meter rates for the first time since 1999

    Lower Merion may raise parking meter rates for the first time since 1999

    Lower Merion’s board of commissioners is set to put multiple new ordinances on the books next month, including policies raising parking meter rates for the first time since 1999, lowering the speed limit on parts of Lancaster Avenue, and regulating where smoke and vape shops can open in the township.

    The smoke and vape shop regulation moved ahead last month, and the commissioners advanced the parking meter and speed limit changes Wednesday evening. Lower Merion’s assistant township manager, Brandon Ford, said the commissioners are poised to formally vote on all three proposals in December. Here’s everything you need to know.

    Parking meter rate may go up

    Commissioners on Wednesday moved forward an ordinance that would raise parking meter rates across Lower Merion for the first time in more than 25 years.

    Under the proposed ordinance, parking would increase from 50 cents per hour to $1 per hour across the township, with the exception of six locations in Ardmore. Parking would go up to $1.50 per hour at Rittenhouse Place, Cricket Avenue, Cricket Terrace, and township-owned parking lots five (Cricket Terrace) and six (Schauffele Plaza). The Cricket Avenue Parking Garage would stay at 50 cents per hour.

    Township staff say the proposed meter rate increase would generate around $900,000 annually and would likely drive quicker turnover in Lower Merion’s commercial corridor, generating more economic activity for local businesses.

    “The rates that we are charging have not kept up with the overall cost for maintaining those parking meters, as well as our overall parking services program,” Ford said during a Nov. 5 meeting.

    The ordinance, if passed, would not change how parking meter fees are collected. The township collects parking fees through meters, kiosks, and a mobile app.

    Commissioner Scott Zelov, who represents Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Gladwyne, said: “It certainly is time to do this.”

    Anderson Avenue near Suburban Square on June 8. A proposed Lower Merion ordinance would increase parking meter rates across the township in hopes of raising revenue and spurring economic activity in places like downtown Ardmore.

    Lancaster Avenue speed limit reduction

    Lower Merion is set to reduce the speed limit on parts of Lancaster Avenue from 40 mph to 35 mph, bringing township code in compliance with an earlier speed limit change by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

    PennDot has already placed 35-mph speed limit signs on the selected strip of Lancaster Avenue. The board’s approval will bring the township in line with the state and allow township police to start enforcing the reduced speed limit. The speed limit change is the latest development in a major redesign of Lancaster Avenue by the state and the township.

    A study conducted by PennDot earlier this year found that, out of nearly 20,000 vehicles traveling on Lancaster Avenue between Wynnewood Road and City Avenue during a 24-hour period, only 57% were driving at or below the 40-mph speed limit. PennDot considers the intersection of Lancaster Avenue and Remington Road to be a “high crash location.”

    The ordinance, approved for advertisement on Wednesday, also bans right turns on red at three intersections: Lancaster Avenue and Remington Road for eastbound traffic, Lancaster Avenue and Haverford Station Road for westbound traffic, and Montgomery Avenue and Airdale Road for east-west traffic.

    The township aims to place automated red-light cameras at all three intersections. The first red-light camera, at Remington Road and Lancaster Avenue, is in the process of being installed. Andy Block, Lower Merion’s superintendent of police, said the camera should be up and running by the end of the year.

    Red-light enforcement cameras set to come to Lower Merion

    Smoke and vape shop zoning

    Following a lengthy discussion that stretched across two meetings, the board of commissioners on Oct. 22 moved forward an ordinance that would decide where tobacco and vape shops can operate in Lower Merion.

    Under the proposed ordinance, if a tobacco or vape shop wanted to open in Lower Merion, it would have to be situated at least 1,000 feet from any other tobacco or vape shop and 1,000 feet from any public or private school. The rule would also apply to hookah lounges.

    Township staff said the 1,000-foot buffer would dramatically decrease the opportunity for smoke shops to operate in Lower Merion. Ford said there are currently around 1,000 properties in Lower Merion where smoke shops could operate. If the buffer ordinance were to be implemented, that number would drop to 300.

    While some commissioners inquired about creating a larger buffer, officials said doing so would likely zone smoke shops out of Lower Merion entirely, which would give smoke shop owners the legal claim to build anywhere in the community.

    During an Oct. 17 discussion of the ordinance, Commissioner Anthony Stevenson, who represents Ardmore and Haverford, said: “We need to avoid the continuation of making our township, and particularly in the Ardmore area, a vape central.”

    This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.

  • The wife of Par Funding’s founder was sentenced to one day in prison — the last prosecution of people tied to the fraudulent firm

    The wife of Par Funding’s founder was sentenced to one day in prison — the last prosecution of people tied to the fraudulent firm

    The wife of the founder of Par Funding, a fraudulent and now-defunct Philadelphia-based lending firm, was sentenced Thursday to one day in jail and 60 days of house arrest for dodging about $1.6 million in taxes she should have paid on income derived from the scheme.

    Lisa McElhone apologized for her conduct during a sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney, saying the spectacular implosion of her husband’s business — and the criminal prosecution of people associated with it — was the “most painful and transformative period of my entire life,” causing her to lose her home and her future, and watch her husband get sent to prison.

    “It’s difficult, if not impossible, to express how overwhelming and life-altering this has been,” she said.

    Prosecutors acknowledged that McElhone — the owner of an Old City nail salon — had almost nothing to do with Par’s day-to-day operations. And the crimes she was charged with paled in comparison to those of others associated with the business — particularly her husband, Joseph LaForte, who ran the cash-advance firm as a Mafia-style criminal enterprise that defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and resorted to loan shark-style tactics in efforts to collect on debts.

    Still, Kearney said, McElhone, 46, did bear some responsibility by failing to question aspects of the life she was afforded that she should have known were too good to be true.

    “These things only stop when good people … stop and say, ‘Hey, you’re asking me to go a step too far,’” he said. “That’s the only way these things stop. Because otherwise, if everyone falls in line, everyone goes to jail.”

    Kearney said McElhone’s one-day prison stint would be Thursday. She will then serve a three-year term of supervised release, he said, and her 60 days of house arrest will begin in January 2026.

    McElhone’s sentencing was notable as the final criminal proceeding for about a half-dozen people charged in connection with Par Funding, which prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in Pennsylvania history.

    LaForte received the stiffest sentence: a 15½-year prison term that Kearney imposed earlier this year. LaForte founded Par to offer quick loans at high interest rates to borrowers deemed too risky to secure financing from traditional banks, but lied to investors about the company’s financial health to raise more money, used thuggish tactics to threaten borrowers who fell into default, and hid tens of millions of dollars from the IRS for his personal use.

    Others charged included LaForte’s brother, who also received a lengthy prison term for participating in various aspects of the firm’s crimes. And earlier this week, two financial professionals, Rodney Ermel and Kenneth Bacon, were ordered to serve 2½ years and 6 months, respectively, behind bars for helping devise the fraudulent tax structures connected to the crimes.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Newcomer said it was perhaps fitting that McElhone’s penalty was the last to be imposed, given her limited connection to the business.

    “But I think it does speak to the breadth and severity” of Par’s misdeeds, he said, “that even the least-culpable person is still on the hook for a $1.6 million tax loss.”

    Par was founded in 2012 by LaForte, who was legally barred from selling securities because of previous felony convictions for financial crimes.

    One way he got around that was to list McElhone as Par’s chief executive on official documents. Then, LaForte and others he recruited to work for him — including experienced financial professionals — ran radio ads and staged fancy solicitation events to raise more than $500 million, all as they portrayed the business as legitimate and lucrative.

    In reality, prosecutors said, it was losing tens of millions of dollars a year. But to keep the fraud going, some of Par’s executives lied about the business’ financial health to keep raising money, and others threatened to harm or even kill borrowers who fell into default.

    Still, prosecutors said McElhone was effectively uninvolved in the business, spending her workdays instead running the Old City nail salon Lacquer Lounge.

    That doesn’t mean McElhone did not benefit from her husband’s grift. LaForte and his partners extracted cash from Par and spent it on things like a private jet, boats, paintings, expensive watches and jewelry, and homes in the Philadelphia area, Florida, and the Poconos.

    And in the single count to which McElhone agreed to plead guilty last year, prosecutors said she knowingly signed a tax form claiming she and LaForte were living in Florida — where there is no state income tax — even though they spent most of their time that year in their $2.5 million Haverford home.

    That deception led her to avoid paying about $1.6 million in taxes, prosecutors said, an amount she will now be forced to help repay.

    Kearney, the judge, said that others might have been more responsible for the wide array of Par’s wrongdoing — but that she needed to be held accountable for failing to stop the wrongs that unfolded before her.

    “When you get in a relationship with people,” he said, “make sure you keep your identity. Because you don’t want to be the person going to jail for their crimes.”