Around the same time, I had the fortune -- or misfortune -- of being Magnolia's "tank man," in connection with the commercial development of Somerdale's Lion's Head Plaza strip mall.
Lion's Head Plaza really had little to do with Magnolia Borough. The developers had one problem, however -- between planned Lion's Head Plaza and the all-important White Horse Pike was a strip of Magnolia between 150 to 250 feet wide, depending on where they placed their access road -- now Coopertowne Boulevard -- from the White Horse Pike to Lion's Head Plaza.
Beginning in January, 1987, I was the Magnolia Councilman in charge of Building & Ordinance -- which made me the Councilman on the Planning and Zoning Boards.
So, I convened a meeting of the Planning Board, the Police Department, the Code Enforcement Official, the Fire Department, and the developers' attorney and engineer, to discuss that access road from the White Horse Pike across Magnolia to the Somerdale Borough border and then to Lion's Head Plaza.
Various issues were discussed. The Police and the Fire Departments recommended a traffic light at the confluence of the White Horse Pike and the access road to avoid daily auto accidents. The Lion's Head developers did not, at that time, appreciate the loss of time which the applications to the county and to the state which such a change would require. So, they settled for no left hand turns from the access road to the Pike with a directionalized island and a "No Left Turn" sign to force traffic from the access road to the Pike to go right, only -- north, only -- onto the White Horse Pike.
Another problem arose from the fact that originally the lay of the land along the border between Magnolia and Somerdale Boroughs was actually a small mountain of what geologists refer to as an "Upland Gravel deposit," about 40 feet high -- actually a sandbar laid down thousands of years ago when what we now call "the Cooper River" was a much-more-massive waterway fed by melting glaciers. See
There you will see three pastel purple masses in the upper right hand quarter of the map with the legend "Tg" inscribed in each. The center pastel purple mass was the 40 foot tall sand-and-gravel "Magnolia mountain barrier" between the White Horse Pike and the Lion's Head development in Somerdale.
The Fire Chief said, "When do fires occur? In the winter, when the air is dry! When are roads slick with ice? In the Winter, after a snow storm, or after freezing rain. So, there's a respectable chance that Magnolia's fire trucks are going to be called upon to save lives and douse a fire when that access road is a sheet of ice. If the apse of that hill is no more than 6 feet higher than the White Horse Pike, our fire trucks can make it up that hill, even if it is covered by ice. Any higher, our fire trucks are going to have difficulty getting to the fire. People will die as a result."
The Fire Chief said, "When do fires occur? In the winter, when the air is dry! When are roads slick with ice? In the Winter, after a snow storm, or after freezing rain. So, there's a respectable chance that Magnolia's fire trucks are going to be called upon to save lives and douse a fire when that access road is a sheet of ice. If the apse of that hill is no more than 6 feet higher than the White Horse Pike, our fire trucks can make it up that hill, even if it is covered by ice. Any higher, our fire trucks are going to have difficulty getting to the fire. People will die as a result."
So, as the developer's attorney and engineer stood silent, Magnolia's Planning Board voted to implicitly require removal of enough earth from the 40 foot high sand-and-gravel mountain to permit an access road to Lion's Head maxing-out at no higher than 6 feet above the level of the White Horse Pike.
I figured that carving-up a 40 foot high mountain of sand and gravel was going to cost a lot of money, so I decided to keep an eye on the developer -- especially on his engineering company's representative, who I'll refer to by his first name only, here, "Earl" -- who struck me as "slick."
So, every day, I drove by on the White Horse Pike, waiting for the developer to begin carting-away the sand-and-gravel mountain.
Finally, they had bulldozers, front-end loaders and dump trucks on site, carving a roadway -- what at first appeared to be a mere construction road, to get vehicles to the top of the sand-and-gravel mountain to start "shaving it down to size."
But -- surprise, surprise -- the developer's contractor started laying down forms for curbs up to the current elevation, less about 10 feet of material off the top of the hill, so that, at the top, there were 10 foot high slopes off to the left and right of the road at the highest point, leaving an uphill grade ending about 25 feet higher than the level of the White Horse Pike.
I thought, "I'll be damned! They're simply flaunting the Planning Board Plan!"
So, on my way to court one day, I pulled up the dirt road between the new curbing forms for pouring concrete curbs, pulled-over, jumped out of my car, and yelled, "EARL!!!"
"Hi, Pete!" he said as he climbed out of a little pick-up truck parked nearby, smiling broadly and offering to shake my hand. "How do you like how we lowered the high point of the access road to 6 feet above street level?"
I said, "So, Earl, if I am 6 feet, 1 inch tall -- and, believe me, I am -- you are saying that if I stand on something about 4 inches high, and look east, I'll be able to see over the top of the hill and actually view Somerdale Borough, right?"
"Right!" said the engineering representative.
"Well, Earl, I have a big surprise for you," I countered. "I have a 3 foot high step ladder in the back of my car. I want you to stand on it, look across the high point of your supposedly 6 foot high road, and tell me the color of the car parked on the field on the other side of that hill. Deal?"
"Pete," he said, not taking my dare, because he would have needed a 30 foot step ladder to see over the top of the road, "There's something wrong with your eyes. Our surveyors guaranteed me that that road is no higher than 6 feet above the White Horse Pike. Look at it! It clearly is not higher than 6 feet!"
I bent over and whispered in his ear. "Earl, cut the horse shit. Get rid of these curb forms, cut the mountain down enough to permit a 6 foot high road the way you are supposed to, or I'm going to seek sanctions."
Earl looked at the bulldozer operator and told him, "Go back to work!"
The bulldozer operator hesitated. "Do it NOW, or you are OUTTA here!" the engineer's representative shouted.
I saw that the dozer operator was in the process of filling-in a 3 foot deep gully which erosion from recent rain had cut through their new road over the weekend.
I was ready (except that I was dressed wrong -- I was wearing a three piece suit for court). I went to my car, got a novel I was reading, "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara, went to the ditch in front of the bulldozer, and laid down in it, forcing the bulldozer to stop.
"CALL THE POLICE!" the engineer's representative screamed.
I yelled, "784-1884" to the contractor's employee, the number for the Magnolia Police.
Police Chief Hank Jefferson and one other policeman, I forget who, pulled-up about 10 minutes later and they burst out laughing as soon as they saw that it was me lying in the hole.
"Hi, Pete!" Hank smiled. "What's up?"
"Cute," I answered. "You were at the meeting, Hank. So you know the scoop: The road at the top of that hill is not allowed to be any higher than 6 feet above the White Horse Pike. They say that it's 6 feet right now. I say that it's 30 feet -- or about 25 feet too high. If it remains this high, when Lion's Head burns down on some icy day 30 years from now, people are going to die in it, because Magnolia's fire trucks can't make it up the ice."
Chief Jefferson turned around to the patrolman with him and said, "Get Tony Cutrera out here." He was the Code Enforcement Official. "Also, get the Fire Chief out here."
Chief Jefferson then turned and saw one of the developer's surveyors with a transit about 100 feet away. He turned to Earl and said, "You keep your mouth shut!"
A silhouette illustrating
a surveyor and his transit
He yelled to the surveyor, "Sir, bring your transit over here!"
The surveyor came and said, "What do you want me to shoot with the transit?"
Chief Jefferson said, "I want you to tell me how much higher than the White Horse Pike the high point of that access road is."
Obviously, to make sure that the subcontractor with the transit knew what to say, Earl disobeyed Chief Jefferson's command, yelling, "PETE, I'LL BET YOU A THOUSAND DOLLARS THAT IT'S 6 FEET!"
I thought, "How can he be so childish???!!!"
"It's 21.5 feet higher," the dignified surveyor calmly declared, ignoring the engineer's representative's implicit threat that he'd better say the "right thing." "I shot it yesterday."
Chief Jefferson smiled. "Okay, Pete. I'll take it from here. Nice three piece suit. You've got some mud on your butt, though."
And when Tony Cutrera arrived, he stationed himself at the Lion's Head access road on a folding chair as the developer's prime contractor began the task of carting-away Magnolia and Somerdale's 's 40 foot high Upland Gravel sand-and-gravel mountain.
And that's the true story of how I forced a developer and his contractors to move a mountain, by doing a "tank man" thing in front of a bulldozer.
And when Tony Cutrera arrived, he stationed himself at the Lion's Head access road on a folding chair as the developer's prime contractor began the task of carting-away Magnolia and Somerdale's 's 40 foot high Upland Gravel sand-and-gravel mountain.
And that's the true story of how I forced a developer and his contractors to move a mountain, by doing a "tank man" thing in front of a bulldozer.
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