The three Montgomery Avenue residents seeking to intervene in a previous court case between Upper Hanover Township and the Upper Perkiomen School District recently filed two appeals related to the proposed construction of a new middle school.

            On July 6, William Chrisman and Len Matthews and David Pico, through attorney Ethan O'Shea, filed an action in the Commonwealth Court appealing a May 17 motion from the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court to strike their motion to intervene in a case involving the school district and the township.

            Six days later, they filed a motion in county court to appeal a recent decision issued by the township's board of supervisors that grants preliminary plan approval to the district to build the new school on Montgomery Avenue.

            The school district and the township have already filed separate motions to quash the residents' appeal in the Commonwealth Court, according to Joseph Bresnan, Upper Hanover's solicitor.

            According to Bresnan, the appeal has no legal merit because the residents were never a party to the agreement.

            O'Shea, an Upper Gwynedd attorney, did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

            Township officials included 12 conditions approved in a contractual agreement into the preliminary land development approval granted last month, according to Bresnan.

            In its county appeal the applicants argue that the inclusion of the 12^th condition, which serves as the basis of the conclusion of previous litigation between the township and district, is improper. Further, the appellants argue that the stipulation is invalid and may not be incorporated by reference as a condition to preliminary land use approval.

            Bresnan said the applicants' appeal to the Commonwealth Court requests that an earlier appeal denying a request to strike the settlement and void a county judge's order to approve the agreement between the township and the district be overturned.

            On April 20, the township's supervisors approved a stipulation settlement that requires school officials to install a sidewalk and bike path from Walt Road to Eighth Street on the southern side of Montgomery Avenue, as well as a sidewalk on the northern side of the street from Eight Street to Sixth Street. The settlement resolves conditional use issues for the district to proceed with constructing a new middle school.

            Montgomery County Senior Judge Bernard A. Moore approved the agreement on April 21, which appeared to the end the district's legal challenge against the township. The conditional use appeal also included four parties seeking to intervene in the process.

            However, on April 27, Moore revoked the settlement order. According to M. Joseph Clement, a lawyer with the Whitpain firm that represents the school district, Moore should not have been the judge to sign off on the agreement. The mistake was caused by a clerical error, Clement said.

            Rather than seek settlement approval from the correct judge – President Judge Thomas Del Ricci – the district's attorney filed paperwork to settle, discontinue and end the case on May 2. According to Joe Bresnan, the solicitor for Upper Hanover, a judge's signature on the final agreement would have only included contempt of court penalties if the parties did not comply.

            Legal representatives from the township and the district said that Moore's actions did not invalidate the stipulation settlement between the district and the township related to the proposed middle school on Montgomery Avenue.

            O'Shea argued that the judge's motion revoked the agreement.

            "It is therefore my opinion that we are a back at square one, that there is no settlement agreement," the lawyer told the Upper Hanover planning commission during a May 3 public meeting. "That is not to say the township and the district could not come to terms by some other vehicle later."

            In related news, the district will be offering tours of the current middle school – located at 10 Jefferson St in East Greenville – during the late afternoon and early evening on Aug. 2.

            Officials will show a video of the building when it is in use by students, walk attendees around the facility and answer questions on the current state of the middle school.