1 RE: ZONING APPLICATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, BY ITS DEPARTMENTS OF GENERAL SERVICES, 2 CORRECTIONS, AND HUMAN SERVICES TAX PARCEL #51435602777365 3 VOL. 1 4 ____________________________________________________ 5 6 7 BEFORE THE SOUTH HEIDELBERG ZONING HEARING BOARD: 8 Burl Werner, Chairman Richard Lawry, Member 9 Kai Pedersen, Member 10 ______________________________________________________ 11 12 13 DATE AND TIME: Monday, April 29, 2019 at 6:05 p.m. 14 15 LOCATION: South Heidelberg Municipal Building 555A Mountain Home Road 16 Sinking Spring, PA 17 18 19 ______________________________________________________ 20 21 22 BERKS COURT REPORTING SERVICE 23 By: Lori A. Dilks PA Court Reporter 24 10 Fox Glen Drive Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania 19608 25 (610) 678-9984 [email protected] 1 1 APPEARANCES: 2 BRUMBACH MANCUSO & FEGLEY 3 By: Mark J. Merolla, Esquire 11 East Lancaster Avenue 4 Shillington, PA 19607 5 Representing South Heidelberg Township Zoning Hearing Board 6 7 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 8 DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL SERVICES OFFICE OF CHIEF COUNSEL 9 By: David Narkiewicz, Esquire, Assistant Chief Counsel, Litigation Unit 10 603 North Office Building Harrisburg, PA 17125 11 Representing the Applicant 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 I N D E X 2 WITNESS EXAMINED BY PAGE 3 Shirley Sowizral Mr. Narkiewicz 8 4 Mr. McKee 48 Mr. Worley 56 5 Mr. Behling 58 Ms. Barth 61 6 Mr. Behling 66 Mr. Wargo 68 7 Ms. Worley 68 Mr. Narkiewicz 69 8 Mr. Pedersen 69 Mr. McKee 70 9 Ms. Deinnocentiis 73 Philip Mader 10 Mr. Narkiewicz 75 Mr. Werner 97 11 Mr. Pedersen 98 Mr. Narkiewicz 99 12 Mr. McKee 101 Mr. Merolla 111 13 Mr. Franco 114 Ms. Niculcea 117 14 Ms. Barth 119 Mr. Byrne 122 15 Mr. Stone 129 Mr. Behling 130 16 17 EXHIBITS 18 NUMBER DESCRIPTION PAGE 19 Board 1 Application 4 20 Board 2 Proof of Publication 4 21 Board 3 Certificate of Mailing 4 22 Board 4 Affidavit of Posting 4 23 24 25 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (Whereupon, the Reporter marked the 3 following exhibits for identification: Board 1, 4 Application; Board 2, Proof of Publication; Board 3, 5 Certificate of Mailing; and Board 4, Affidavit of 6 Posting.) 7 MR. MEROLLA: Good morning [sic], we'll 8 call to order this hearing of the South Heidelberg 9 Township Zoning Hearing Board. It's about 6:05, 10 April 29th, 2019, in the Municipal Building. This is 11 the time and place scheduled for the hearing on the 12 Application of the Commonwealth. 13 For the record, my name is Mark Merolla, 14 Solicitor to the Board. We have the Board President, 15 Mr. Lawry, Mr. Werner and Mr. Pedersen, and we have a 16 Stenographer here. We do have kind of a large crowd, 17 so we'll go through some instructions on how this will 18 take place this evening. 19 The Applicant is the Commonwealth. Do 20 you want to state your name for the record? 21 MR. NARKIEWICZ: Sure. David Narkiewicz 22 from the Pennsylvania Department of General Services. 23 I'll be the lawyer representing the Department of 24 General Services, the Department of Corrections and 25 the Department of Human Services. 4 1 MR. MEROLLA: Thank you. For the record, 2 I'll note the following: The Application of the 3 Commonwealth was received on March 1st of this year 4 and within the Application the Commonwealth sought 5 relief, which was advertised and posted, and the 6 relief is, one, a determination of the Applicant's use 7 of the property as permitted as of right pursuant to 8 Section 420.2 of the Ordinance or an appeal from the 9 determination of the Zoning Hearing Officer that the 10 Applicant was using the property in violation of the 11 Southwestern Berks County Zoning Ordinance of 2004 as 12 amended. 13 Three, a determination that provisions of 14 the Southwestern Berks County Zoning Ordinance of 2004 15 is pre-empted by state law and, therefore, invalid. 16 Four, a variance pursuant to Section 17 902.4 of the Southwestern Berks County Zoning 18 Ordinance of 2004. Or No. 5, special relief pursuant 19 to Sections 420.3 and 902.5 of the Southwestern Berks 20 County Zoning Ordinance as amended. 21 The Application was advertised in the 22 Reading Eagle on April 11th and April 18th as set 23 forth in the Proof of Publication. For the sake of 24 reference, there's four Board exhibits which we had 25 premarked, exhibits we have up here. Exhibit B-1 is 5 1 the Application and the attachments. Exhibit B-2 is a 2 Proof of Publication from the Reading Eagle Company. 3 B-3 is the Certifications of Mail. And 4, B-4 is 4 Certifications of Posting of the property. I'll note 5 the Township Ordinance and map, although not 6 physically marked, are part of the record. 7 The hearing is relatively informal, 8 although we have to do this in an orderly 9 presentation. Please speak one at a time. The 10 Applicant will present their testimony. We have a 11 Court Reporter, so everyone needs to speak one at a 12 time so that we get a clear record. I'll ask the 13 audience not to interrupt or speak up. Obviously, the 14 Court Reporter can't record two people at one time. 15 At the conclusion of each witness's 16 testimony, members of the audience do have the right 17 to ask questions of the witness, however, as I said, 18 you need to speak one at a time. And since there are 19 a number of people here, I would ask that you sort of 20 raise your hand or do something so I can call on you 21 if you're going to ask a question, then please just 22 stand up, state your name and address for the Court 23 Reporter, and then proceed there. 24 We're not at that point looking for 25 testimony or comments, but if you have questions of 6 1 what someone testified about, that would be the time 2 for you to do that. 3 At the conclusion of the testimony, you 4 can make presentations on your own as opposed to 5 asking questions. The same thing, I'll ask you to 6 make a notation or something so I know who's going to 7 speak. Stand up, you can state for the record your 8 name and address and what you have to say. 9 Normally, we do that at the end of the 10 Applicant's case. I don't think we're going to get 11 through the entire case for the Applicant tonight, but 12 if we do, we'll address it at that point. 13 In this case, the Township also has 14 testimony to present. So again, I don't think we'll 15 get through all of it tonight. We'll see how things 16 go. We plan to proceed till about 9 o'clock tonight, 17 and then from there see where we go. If we happen to 18 finish tonight or whenever we finish, again, you'll 19 have time to make a statement if you wish to do so. 20 With that being said, that's the basic 21 procedure. Do you have some witnesses for the 22 Commonwealth? 23 MR. NARKIEWICZ: I do, Mr. Merolla. 24 Before we get to that, we had A, B, C, D, E, F 25 attached to the Application. We were just going to 7 1 keep referring to them by letters. Is that all right? 2 MR. MEROLLA: Exhibits like Exhibit A, B 3 and C? 4 MR. NARKIEWICZ: Exactly. And then we 5 were just going to do the ones we'll start introducing 6 tonight by numbers, if that's all right with you. 7 MR. MEROLLA: Yeah, that's fine. 8 MR. NARKIEWICZ: Okay, excellent. As I 9 stated, my name is David Narkiewicz. I'm an attorney 10 with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and I will be 11 representing the three agencies tonight. 12 Our position is, as Mr. Merolla read, we 13 believe that the Commonwealth is here permissible as 14 of right and, if not, then we have other legal 15 positions. I won't bore anybody with them. He's 16 covered it briefly, as well, and I'll get right to the 17 first witness, which is Shirley Sowizral. 18 SHIRLEY SOWIZRAL 19 was called as a witness and, having been first duly 20 sworn by the Reporter-Notary Public, was examined and 21 testified as follows: 22 BY MR. NARKIEWICZ: 23 Q. Make sure I'm pronouncing it correct, 24 Sowizral? 25 A. Um-hum. 8 1 Q. Ms. Sowizral, can you, for the record, 2 state your position with Wernersville State Hospital? 3 A. I am the current CEO of Wernersville 4 State Hospital. 5 Q. So you're the person that runs the State 6 Hospital here in Wernersville. Is that correct? 7 A. That is correct. 8 Q. Could you briefly give us your 9 educational and experience background? 10 A. I have a Master's degree in nursing. I 11 have been a nurse. Nursing is my background. I've 12 been a nurse for 42 years, and I have worked for the 13 Commonwealth for 36. 14 I started my career at Warren State 15 Hospital as a staff nurse and eventually became a 16 Supervisor.