About Us

Who Are We?
“Preserve Our Pennsylvania Towns” is a grass-roots coalition comprised wholly of citizens of Haverford, Marple, Newtown, and Springfield Townships with the purpose of preserving the aesthetic beauty of public spaces within our suburban communities. We strive to accomplish this goal though public awareness and education, mobilization of our fellow citizens, and by working with our elected officials toward this end.

Our current strategic goal is to raise awareness among the residents of Haverford, Marple, Newtown, and Springfield Townships of the intentions of the Bartkowski Investment Group (B.I.G.) to develop a number of large billboards throughout our communities.

We have conducted a number of public awareness events to date, and plan to continue to demonstrate in an orderly and respectful manner at public locations adjacent to the proposed billboard sites.

We oppose the development of this type of outdoor advertising and firmly believe that large billboards are inconsistent with the architecture and scale of the buildings within our townships, pose health and safety hazards to the citizens of our communities and will diminish the economic value of property within our communities.

Goals
Our goals have always been to show the property owners our commitment to our community and inform the residents by staging demonstrations and handing out fliers. Attention from the media is also a goal since it furthers our communication to other residents.

What do we want the people we meet at these events to do?

Attend meetings, sign the petition, attend demonstrations, write letters to property owners, write letters to the newspaper, write letters to commissioners, representative and senators. All directives are on the back of the fliers with links to the website.

Official Positions
Businesses that do not own the property
We have tried to be as fair as possible in these circumstances. We do not try to stop people from entering the business or ask them to boycott the business and our handouts clearly state who DOES own the property. Actually, our fliers act to help the business owner by informing the residents that they do not own the property and also supplies them with the contact information of the landlord.
Awareness Events and picket signs cause a distraction similar to that of a billboard.
Our demonstrations are temporary, only 2 hours long and our signs are well within the ordinance of the townships. We are well within our rights to hold peaceful demonstrations.