Upper Dublin: The Making of a 21st Century Suburb ← All Chapters

Governmental Leaders Who Have Made the Most Difference

On the governmental side of Township, the first of these notable electeds was the “father” of Upper Dublin Township as a First Class Township: Henry Lee Willet, together with his successor, Nathan Bauman, together guided the township from its creation as a First Class Township in 1946 through its formative years, and, later, Samuel Corey. Together they helmed to Board for first three decades it faced as the governing body of a newly organized First Class Township and guided it through the transformation from a water-slogged location of aging industry, country clubs, orchards and flooding to a mixed-use community anchoring the developing the region’s post-World War II era.

Jack Robbins served as president of the Upper Dublin School Board in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He successfully spearheaded the effort to keep Upper Dublin from being placed into a regional school district at the time the Legislature was forcing school district consolidation. Less notably, he stirred controversy by refusing the state’s newly mandated busing for private and parochial school students to transport within a block or two of their schools because the state mandate required nothing more, only to be overruled by the State Attorney General.5

Several decades later, when the local GOP began to be divided between what could be characterized as “low tax” and “good services” camps, Margie Barrett and Joe Chmielewski, both drafted at a local Democratic pre-primary meeting, won a heated election against more ideologically conservative school board members. They continued to serve through many heated board meetings, ultimately becoming leaders of a Democratic-majority school board.

In the same time frame Democrat Ira Tackel emerged as an unlikely winner in a Ward 4 commissioner campaign in which the Republican candidate was running against the incumbent Republican commissioner left to run as an independent, again reflecting that party’s divide between “low tax” and “good services” factions. Together these elections heralded the beginning of emergence of a Democratic majority that has dominated Upper Dublin politics in recent years. Eventually Chmielewski became the first Democrat to serve as president of the School Board, and Tackel became president of the Board of Commissioners.

Defeating a long-term GOP incumbent in 1991, Bob Pesavento served as a five-term Township Commissioner, and president of the Board of Commissioners (and first Democrat to hold the position in what had been a municipality dominated by Republicans), and, since 2016, he helped to create and then has served as chair of the Upper Dublin Municipal Authority, the only one of its kind in Pennsylvania to provide a means of revitalizing the township’s commercial base without burdening residential taxpayers. Tackel, he present president of the Board of Commissioners, is serving his fifth term and has served many years as Board President, facing emerging challenges in development needs as well as the second tornado in modern history to ravage Upper Dublin.

In the early 2000s Michael Paston, as president of the School Board, led the first successful referendum under state law to permit a school district to exceed its borrowing limits by securing approval for a $125 million bond (now paid off) to enable construction of the new Upper Dublin School High building.6

On the staff side, Paul Leonard served as Township Manager (and volunteer firefighter) for twenty-six years. He dealt with some of the greatest Township challenges of flooding, traffic, economic transformation, and, near the end of his tenure, the impact of a devastating tornado in 2021 (a tragedy that the Township hadn’t encountered since 1896).7

Patricia Zaffarano served Upper Dublin (and Ambler) as Magisterial District Justice for 36 years, a tenure unmatched among her contemporaries.

And, among those not holding either in elective public office or as an employee of local government, Robert Danaher, dubbed the “Mayor of Upper Dublin” by some, has been in leadership roles since the early 1980s. He helped start youth soccer, the Junior Athletic Association, the Upper Dublin Education Foundation, the Citizens Advisory Committee on Open Space, the effort to develop the “Field of Dreams” for youth athletics and, most recently, serves as vice-chair of the new Upper Dublin Township Authority.

On the School District side, two are noteworthy for their long service as chief administrators, Drs. Walter Eshelman and Clair Brown, who sequentially led the school administration for almost four decades including the development of its high school, institution of kindergarten and ending racial segregation in its schools, and the challenges of an sometimes explosive growth (and increasingly diverse), and sometimes declining, school enrollment.8

School Board member Art Levinowitz, who uniquely changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic without losing his seat, served six terms on the School Board, served as president of the Pennsylvania School Board Association and numerous other statewide leadership roles involving school district administration, and as president of Montgomery County’s Eastern Center for Arts and Technology for a dozen years.9

Notes

  1. 5.For the last five years location of a needed school busing depot has emerged as a hot button issue in Upper Dublin, stimulating a large petition campaign and the recent defeat of the School Board’s effort to secure a zoning variance to permit a depot adjacent to the Fort Washington Elementary School. Linda Finarelli, Upper Dublin bus depot hearing continues with argument for use variance, WISS.now, Dec. 20, 2024. Linda Finarelli, Upper Dublin School District bus depot proposal shot down by zoning board, Main Line Times & Suburban, Jan. 28, 2025. Denial of the use variance has resulted in appeal filed by the School Board now pending with the Montgomery County Court of Common Plea.. As suburban districts often have dense residential growth near viable school bus depot locations, depot siting has been a heated issue in many districts, most prominently locally in Lower Merion. Marc Garabedian, Lower Merion School District Moving Forward with Expansion of Bus Depot on Matsonford Road, More Than Tthe Curve, Dec. 3, 2014. Nationally, similar controversies are occurring, as evidenced by these in California, Georgia and New Jersey. Isabelle Manders, ‘Please end this stalemate’; Residents Want Answers on Cobb School Bus Depot, Marietta Daily Journal, Nov. 15, 2024; (Marietta, Georgia);; the two-year long dispute in New Jersey: “Jaycee” Miller, Residents’ Concerns: Moorestown public schools pulls decision to move bus depot to Upper Elementary, 70and73.com, Jan. 19, 2025 (Moorestown, New Jersey); and Ann Mata, San Mateo Foster City School District postpones bus depot vote, Daily Journal, Jan. 28, 2025 (Foster City, California). Suburban issues are often not unique.
  2. 6.See ----- supra. Seven years later, in 2014, a second district, State College, secured voter approval, and more than ten years later, in 2025 Abington School District adopted a referendum for the largest debt financing ever approved for a new middle school building. However, other districts have not chosen that route, usually limiting their efforts to rehabbing existing buildings, due at least in part to the fear of losing.
  3. 7.In 2017 Leonard was nominated for the Traeger List, a national list of engaging local government leaders.
  4. 8.Eshelman first served as supervising principal, becoming superintendent only after state legislation permitted school districts to have superintendents (replacing the longstanding county superintendent system). The Upper Dublin School Board authorized construction of a senior high school in May 1946, almost concurrently with the township’s becoming a First Class Township, Senior High School to be Added, The Reporter, May 3, 1946 (high school to open for the 1952-53 term, but in fact its opening was delayed by a year, resulting in a lawsuit by disgruntled parents who wanted their children to complete their education at the neighboring high schools in Abington and Ambler rather than within existing Upper Dublin school buildings).
  5. 9.In an earlier era (when local schools were part of a system overseen by the County Superintendent), William Worman served as a member of the School Board from 1918 to 1942 and as secretary of the board from 1920 to 1945. Since that time, Upper Dublin has seen a much higher rate of turnover of school board members than surrounding school districts, driven in part by frequent heated controversies over school construction, siting and financing issues (but, rarely, over issues involving educational content), making Levinowitz’s lengthy tenure so unique both politically and as an expression of his dedication. The unique cross-filing system permitting candidates to run on more than one party’s ballot may have been intended to encourage longevity, but in Upper Dublin the dominance of local political parties, first Republicans and more recently Democrats, has diminished its significance.