Radnor Township will hold a public town hall on Tuesday, Sept. 22, to update residents on the search for a permanent home for Magisterial District Court 32-2-43.
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Radnorshire Room of the Radnor Township Building, 301 Iven Ave., Wayne. The township's announcement said residents can ask questions and offer feedback on the courthouse effort.
The town hall comes three weeks after the Board of Commissioners scrapped a plan to buy a former veterinary clinic at 405 W. Wayne Ave. for $1.45 million and convert it into a courthouse. Delaware County would have leased the building from the township to house the court.
The board announced the cancellation Sept. 3, citing neighbor concerns about traffic, neighborhood compatibility and structural and financial problems with the building, according to the Delco Times.
No replacement site has been publicly identified.
District Court 32-2-43, presided over by District Judge Sloane Walker, serves Radnor Township exclusively. Yet it sits outside township lines at 4655 West Chester Pike in Newtown Square, where Delaware County relocated it in 2013.
Commissioner Jack Larkin explained the arrangement in July, as reported by the Delco Times.
"It kind of boils down to the fact that the county, which is the group that pays for the courts, does not want to pay Radnor real estate rates," Larkin said.
Township officials have argued for years that the Newtown Square location costs Radnor in police overtime and driving time, since officers must travel there for hearings. Larkin also warned in July that if the court stays outside the township long enough, the state Supreme Court could eventually reassign the judgeship to another district.
At Board of Commissioners meetings in August, residents near the West Wayne Avenue site pushed back. Attorney and Radnor resident Jason Bologna said at the Aug. 23 meeting that he had never seen a magisterial district court placed in a residential neighborhood, as reported by Mainline Media News. Resident Diane Edbril called the proposal "an idiotic solution" at the same meeting.
The board said in its Sept. 3 statement that educating residents about the court's function will help identify a better site. The Sept. 22 town hall will cover what a district court does, its day-to-day operations and why having one inside Radnor matters, according to the Delco Times.
Residents can attend the meeting at the Radnor Township Building, 301 Iven Ave., Wayne, starting at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22.
