I first wrote about this case in August, and I thought readers might be interested in the follow-up. This appeared on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
WEST CHESTER – A man who had been accused of the kidnapping and rape of a young West Chester area woman in 2003 after DNA tests tied him to the incident four years later entered pleas in the case moments after his trial opened Wednesday.
The combined no contest and guilty pleas will see Alex Villa sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison, according to the terms of his agreement.
The prosecutor in the case had told the jury in his opening statement that the trial would not last long, but even he did not foresee that it would be over in less than an hour.
“I’m glad the victim was spared from testifying,” said Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kelly, who prosecuted the case. “But I didn’t conceded anything for that reason. We were prepared to go forward.”
Villa pleaded no contest to rape, but guilty to charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, kidnapping and robbery of a motor vehicle.
His attorney, Amparito Arriaga, said Villa had always maintained that he had neither raped the woman, nor had he forcibly stolen her car. But she said that as Kelly went to his office to bring the victim to the courtroom after her opening statement -- during which she conceded that he had forced himself into the car and made the woman perform oral sex on him -- he informed her that he wanted to enter the pleas. She said he did not indicate what had changed his mind.
“It was his decision,” Arriaga said. She said she reminded him of the possible prison sentence he could receive if he was found guilty at trial. “That was of great concern. I didn’t offer him any new advice. But I think it was a fair resolution for all involved.”
The victim, who was prepared to testify, left the courtroom while Kelly was reciting the facts of the case to Judge Anthony Sarcione, who was presiding over the abbreviated trial. She made no statement, but indicted she would speak when formal sentencing occurs in 90 days.
Villa also offered no statement to the court or the victim.
The sequence of events began around midnight on May 31, 2003.
According to Kelly in his opening, the then 20-year-old school teacher, who lived in West Goshen at the time, was driving home when she stopped at a red light at High and Market streets in front of the Chester County Courthouse.
“Little did she now she was about to embark on a journey that would forever change her life,” Kelly said in his opening.
She saw a man approach her car, Kelly said, but felt safe because her doors were locked. Unfortunately, her passenger window as rolled down, and the man reached in and unlocked the door and jumped in.
The man, who did not speak English, motioned for her to give him a ride. The woman, whose name is being withheld by the Daily Local News because of the nature of the crime, thought if she drove him someplace he would leave her alone.
But the man became more confrontational and eventually directed her to a cul-de-sac in outside the borough, where he tried to grope and kiss her, Kelly told the jury of five men and seven women. There, she ran form the car, but he grabbed her b the hair and dragged her back into the car.
“She knew this as not going to be good,” Kelly said. “Nothing good was going to come of this.”
The man took the wheel, and while driving around forced her to perform oral sex on him. At some point she was able to call 911 on her cell phone and cry for help, but the man broke the phone and threw it out the window.
He eventually parked the car, pinned her in the passenger seat and raped her, Kelly said.
But when the headlights of an oncoming car distracted him, the woman was able to free herself and run towards the car. The motorist, Dan Vietor of Thornbury, saw her running towards him, half naked, and pulled over to help. The man drove away in her car.
Kelly said the car was found in West Chester a few days later, and police found a cap that belonged to the assailant, as well as part of the broken cell phone.
Police were not able to identify the rapist, however, until a DNA match came in May 207 tying Villa to the case. Villa had been arrested in late 2006 for dealing drugs, and as part of his guilty plea in that matter gave a DNA sample. That matched DA taken from the brim of the cap found inside the car.
In June 2007, West Chester Sgt. Louis Deshullo and Detective Scott Whiteside then traveled to the prison at Camp Hill on June 22, 2007, where, using a court interpreter, they interviewed Villa. Deshullo said Villa acknowledged he had jumped into the woman’s car after drinking beer and wandering around West Chester.
“I asked her if she wanted to have sex,” police said Villa told them during the interview. “She said no and started hitting me.” I may have hit her as I was trying to get her to stop hitting me.”
In accepting Villa’s pleas, Sarcione said he was compelled to comment on the events described by Kelly.
“The violence that you inflicted on this victim is unspeakable,” the judge said. “What you did to this young lady is every woman’s nightmare.”
Villa, a Mexican national, will be evaluated by the state’s Sexual Offender Assessment Board for status as a sexually violent predator before his formal sentencing. A deportation detainer had been lodged against him, so that as soon as he is paroled on the rape sentence he will be returned to Mexico.
Dismissing the jurors around 12:30 p.m., less than three hours after they began listening to the attorneys’ opening statements, Sarcione thanked them for the relatively brief time they served, telling them the case had been resolved.
“I feel kind of bad, though,” he said. “We didn’t even give you lunch.”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
What A Reporter Wants
This originally appeared on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008
You readers might think that we in the news reporting dodge would fight like tigers over the chance to cover a story like a presidential candidate coming to a West Bradford youth athletic facility to deliver a rousing campaign speech -- at which the candidate stirred the passions of his audience by declaring, “I need your vote.”
You might think that such an assignment would rouse us from our normal “cops-‘n-councils” drudgery and motivate us with a sense of excitement and First Amendment-y awe to rival any scene in “All The President’s Men,” and that, in addition, we would actually look like Robert Redford or Dustin Hoffman while covering it.
You might think that we would approach the task of reporting such an event with the same seriousness of purpose as would a firefighter at the scene of a burning schoolhouse, a policeman running down an armed bank robber, or a Republican National Committee staffer shopping at Saks Fifth Ave. for that “just-so” perfect Valentino pants suit to add to Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be-donated-to-charity wardrobe.
You might think that, but you would be wrong.
Reporters do not like covering campaign events. We do not like standing in big rooms with crowds of sweaty people, being herded around like sheep, forced to write down meaningless phrases that someone else wrote, all the time wondering how we were going to be able to keep our eyes open at the computer while we re-type those same meaningless phrases into a story.
Reporters secretly envy the people who go to the campaign rallies to actually rally, instead of transcribe. We envy them because for them, when the rally is over, it’s over. They can go home, heat up a burrito, turn on “Dancing With the Stars,” and if someone asks them how the rally went they can say, “fine,” just like that, and no crusty old editor is ever going to look at them and shout, “I send you out there for three and a half hours with two photographers to fill six columns and a 72-point headline and all you’ve got for me is ‘fine?’ ”
No, we reporters like news stories such as the one that hit the wires last week, dateline Jackson, Mo.:
“A man who left about $1,000 in $20 bills in an unzipped vinyl bag on a desk at his home is expected to be reimbursed after mice mutilated the cash. The man left the cash on the desk, but misplaced it during severe weather in March. He eventually found the bag, and in August took it to First Missouri State Bank in Jackson in hopes of covering his losses. Bank manager Michelle Johns said Wednesday she and two staffers picked through rodent droppings and bird feathers in the bag and reassembled the bills.”
Give a reporter an assignment that includes the phrases “$1,000 in $20 bills” and “rodent droppings” and you’ve given him the greatest Christmas present Santa ever conceived.
October marks my 26th anniversary covering current events for the Daily Local News. I’ve covered presidential campaign rallies, Ku Klux Klan marches, murder trials, open space referendums and Coatesville City Council before it became dysfunctional. My favorite story, however, is none of the above.
My favorite story is the one about the guy from Phoenixville who got mad at his neighbor for calling the police about a loud beer party he had at his apartment. The next day, the neighbor confronted his accuser in the backyard and pointedly took off the t-shirt he was wearing. Tattooed un-mistakenly across his chest were two words that are commonly used to describe, in vulgar terms, the act of human reproduction -- one a verb, one a pronoun.
He got 90 days probation, a $50 fine, and a reporters’ undying affection.
You readers might think that we in the news reporting dodge would fight like tigers over the chance to cover a story like a presidential candidate coming to a West Bradford youth athletic facility to deliver a rousing campaign speech -- at which the candidate stirred the passions of his audience by declaring, “I need your vote.”
You might think that such an assignment would rouse us from our normal “cops-‘n-councils” drudgery and motivate us with a sense of excitement and First Amendment-y awe to rival any scene in “All The President’s Men,” and that, in addition, we would actually look like Robert Redford or Dustin Hoffman while covering it.
You might think that we would approach the task of reporting such an event with the same seriousness of purpose as would a firefighter at the scene of a burning schoolhouse, a policeman running down an armed bank robber, or a Republican National Committee staffer shopping at Saks Fifth Ave. for that “just-so” perfect Valentino pants suit to add to Sarah Palin’s soon-to-be-donated-to-charity wardrobe.
You might think that, but you would be wrong.
Reporters do not like covering campaign events. We do not like standing in big rooms with crowds of sweaty people, being herded around like sheep, forced to write down meaningless phrases that someone else wrote, all the time wondering how we were going to be able to keep our eyes open at the computer while we re-type those same meaningless phrases into a story.
Reporters secretly envy the people who go to the campaign rallies to actually rally, instead of transcribe. We envy them because for them, when the rally is over, it’s over. They can go home, heat up a burrito, turn on “Dancing With the Stars,” and if someone asks them how the rally went they can say, “fine,” just like that, and no crusty old editor is ever going to look at them and shout, “I send you out there for three and a half hours with two photographers to fill six columns and a 72-point headline and all you’ve got for me is ‘fine?’ ”
No, we reporters like news stories such as the one that hit the wires last week, dateline Jackson, Mo.:
“A man who left about $1,000 in $20 bills in an unzipped vinyl bag on a desk at his home is expected to be reimbursed after mice mutilated the cash. The man left the cash on the desk, but misplaced it during severe weather in March. He eventually found the bag, and in August took it to First Missouri State Bank in Jackson in hopes of covering his losses. Bank manager Michelle Johns said Wednesday she and two staffers picked through rodent droppings and bird feathers in the bag and reassembled the bills.”
Give a reporter an assignment that includes the phrases “$1,000 in $20 bills” and “rodent droppings” and you’ve given him the greatest Christmas present Santa ever conceived.
October marks my 26th anniversary covering current events for the Daily Local News. I’ve covered presidential campaign rallies, Ku Klux Klan marches, murder trials, open space referendums and Coatesville City Council before it became dysfunctional. My favorite story, however, is none of the above.
My favorite story is the one about the guy from Phoenixville who got mad at his neighbor for calling the police about a loud beer party he had at his apartment. The next day, the neighbor confronted his accuser in the backyard and pointedly took off the t-shirt he was wearing. Tattooed un-mistakenly across his chest were two words that are commonly used to describe, in vulgar terms, the act of human reproduction -- one a verb, one a pronoun.
He got 90 days probation, a $50 fine, and a reporters’ undying affection.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Blue Book Special
This has never appeared anywhere in print.
Sorry, Constant Readers. No column this week due to unavailability.
I crashed the Class of 1978’s 30th reunion at Earlham College, at which a fine time was had by all, except those of us who were held captive for 45 insufferable minutes by the college president, whose name I promise I will never remember, not only because he tried to shame us into giving the school free range over our checkbooks and retirement funds and those of our children and our children’s children during a fundraising pitch, but also because at a reception later in the day he introduced himself to me not once but twice, obviously having forgotten my name or face in the intervening five minutes between our first and (hopefully) last encounters.
The highlight of the weekend (for me, that is, not for anyone else) came when I was walking into the decorated gymnasium, with its grainy black and white photos of Mike O’Rourke in his soccer shorts for said luncheon and felt someone grab my elbow. Turning, I was greeted by a 50-ish woman in a red dress who said, “Michael Rellahan, it is such a pleasure to read your columns every week in the Daily Local.” She was a West Chester person and apparently recognized me from the photo that goes with the Sunday column. Either that or she’s seen my mug on the Post Office wall, in its semi-permanent frame under the heading, “Parking Ticket Scofflaws.”
I didn’t tell anyone because (1) I was too startled to know that I cannot escape from my own fame, (b) no one I was with would believe me anyway and, (iii) I wanted to keep it a secret until I could share it with you, my Constant Readers.
So here is what we would call on the second floor of Carpenter Hall an “essay test.” “What would be the biggest thrill for you at your 30th reunion, depending on whether you have/or have had, one?” Give examples. Show work.
Until next week.
Sorry, Constant Readers. No column this week due to unavailability.
I crashed the Class of 1978’s 30th reunion at Earlham College, at which a fine time was had by all, except those of us who were held captive for 45 insufferable minutes by the college president, whose name I promise I will never remember, not only because he tried to shame us into giving the school free range over our checkbooks and retirement funds and those of our children and our children’s children during a fundraising pitch, but also because at a reception later in the day he introduced himself to me not once but twice, obviously having forgotten my name or face in the intervening five minutes between our first and (hopefully) last encounters.
The highlight of the weekend (for me, that is, not for anyone else) came when I was walking into the decorated gymnasium, with its grainy black and white photos of Mike O’Rourke in his soccer shorts for said luncheon and felt someone grab my elbow. Turning, I was greeted by a 50-ish woman in a red dress who said, “Michael Rellahan, it is such a pleasure to read your columns every week in the Daily Local.” She was a West Chester person and apparently recognized me from the photo that goes with the Sunday column. Either that or she’s seen my mug on the Post Office wall, in its semi-permanent frame under the heading, “Parking Ticket Scofflaws.”
I didn’t tell anyone because (1) I was too startled to know that I cannot escape from my own fame, (b) no one I was with would believe me anyway and, (iii) I wanted to keep it a secret until I could share it with you, my Constant Readers.
So here is what we would call on the second floor of Carpenter Hall an “essay test.” “What would be the biggest thrill for you at your 30th reunion, depending on whether you have/or have had, one?” Give examples. Show work.
Until next week.
Monday, October 13, 2008
My Thoughts of Trains
This column originally appeared on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008
I do not know why I’ve been thinking about passenger trains so much in the last week.
Strike that, as we like to say in court when we want to take something back. I actually do know why I’ve been thinking about passenger trains so much in the last week, but I’m not going to tell you. I initially thought I would use that earlier bit of obfuscation to distract you, but I checked with the editors and it turns out I am not allowed to lie in print. Unless, of course, I am writing about the new Coatesville city finance director’s qualifications, and then the sky’s the limit.
But I have indeed been thinking about passenger trains lately, mostly about how much I love them and how I haven’t had the pleasure of taking a trip on one in quite a while. It’s something that I miss.
My fist rain rides came early in life, when my mother would put my sisters and me on a train in Cincinnati for a trip to her family in little Batavia, Ill., an hour or so west of Chicago. The train was called the James Whitcomb Riley, after the once famous “Hoosier poet” who celebrated all sorts of Americana. (Did you know that he wrote a poem called “Little Orphand Annie” that was the inspiration for the carton character of the similar name, and that years later my one-time neighbor in Cinncinnati, Sarah Jessica Parker, of “Sex and the City” fame, played Annie on Broadway? I didn’t either.)
I loved the fact that the train we rode on to see my mother’s aunts and uncles was named after a person, even if I did not know who that person was. I loved that when you tried to walk on the train, you swaggered back and forth like you were three sheets to the wind, and nobody minded because they were lurching around as much as you. I loved the peculiar aroma that came from the dining car and the fact that the tables had tablecloths on them and the silver water pitchers had small beads of water perspiration on them.
I also loved the fact that when we got to Chicago, we had to walk across town from Central Station, where the Riley came in, to Union Station, where we would catch the Chicago & Northwestern commuter train to Geneva, Ill., which was just up the Fox River from Batavia. I loved the fact that the commuter trains had an upper seating area where you could look down on the heads of passengers who were taking the train home after a hard day of work in Chicago.
As a grown up, I’ve ridden trains to Washington, D.C., and home to Cincinnati. I’ve ridden trains to New York City and to Boston. I’ve ridden trains to Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J. I’ve ridden a train from Dublin, Ireland, to Galway and from Sligo back to Dublin. I rode a train home from Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1992 after personally witnessing state Sen. Andy Dinniman wearing a tuxedo. I rode a train back to Exton from Lancaster, where I heard uber-lawyer Richard Sprague argue a case on behalf of Judge James P. MacElree II in March 1997.
In the courtroom that day, I listened to the argument Sprague made and interviewed him afterwards, then walked a few blocks to the Lancaster train station and hopped the Amtrak Pennsylvanian in the late afternoon. I sat in a seat facing back towards Lancaster as the train rolled towards Chester County.
I thought about the story that I was going to have to write when I got back to the office, mapping out the lead paragraph and mentally going over what to include in the story and what to omit. I looked out the window of the train and saw the sun going down over the farm fields of western Chester County that were furrowed with the promise of the coming spring. I’ve ridden in a lot of cars and flown in a lot of planes in my life, but I’ve never enjoyed the peace of travel as I did that day.
I do not know why I’ve been thinking about passenger trains so much in the last week.
Strike that, as we like to say in court when we want to take something back. I actually do know why I’ve been thinking about passenger trains so much in the last week, but I’m not going to tell you. I initially thought I would use that earlier bit of obfuscation to distract you, but I checked with the editors and it turns out I am not allowed to lie in print. Unless, of course, I am writing about the new Coatesville city finance director’s qualifications, and then the sky’s the limit.
But I have indeed been thinking about passenger trains lately, mostly about how much I love them and how I haven’t had the pleasure of taking a trip on one in quite a while. It’s something that I miss.
My fist rain rides came early in life, when my mother would put my sisters and me on a train in Cincinnati for a trip to her family in little Batavia, Ill., an hour or so west of Chicago. The train was called the James Whitcomb Riley, after the once famous “Hoosier poet” who celebrated all sorts of Americana. (Did you know that he wrote a poem called “Little Orphand Annie” that was the inspiration for the carton character of the similar name, and that years later my one-time neighbor in Cinncinnati, Sarah Jessica Parker, of “Sex and the City” fame, played Annie on Broadway? I didn’t either.)
I loved the fact that the train we rode on to see my mother’s aunts and uncles was named after a person, even if I did not know who that person was. I loved that when you tried to walk on the train, you swaggered back and forth like you were three sheets to the wind, and nobody minded because they were lurching around as much as you. I loved the peculiar aroma that came from the dining car and the fact that the tables had tablecloths on them and the silver water pitchers had small beads of water perspiration on them.
I also loved the fact that when we got to Chicago, we had to walk across town from Central Station, where the Riley came in, to Union Station, where we would catch the Chicago & Northwestern commuter train to Geneva, Ill., which was just up the Fox River from Batavia. I loved the fact that the commuter trains had an upper seating area where you could look down on the heads of passengers who were taking the train home after a hard day of work in Chicago.
As a grown up, I’ve ridden trains to Washington, D.C., and home to Cincinnati. I’ve ridden trains to New York City and to Boston. I’ve ridden trains to Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J. I’ve ridden a train from Dublin, Ireland, to Galway and from Sligo back to Dublin. I rode a train home from Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1992 after personally witnessing state Sen. Andy Dinniman wearing a tuxedo. I rode a train back to Exton from Lancaster, where I heard uber-lawyer Richard Sprague argue a case on behalf of Judge James P. MacElree II in March 1997.
In the courtroom that day, I listened to the argument Sprague made and interviewed him afterwards, then walked a few blocks to the Lancaster train station and hopped the Amtrak Pennsylvanian in the late afternoon. I sat in a seat facing back towards Lancaster as the train rolled towards Chester County.
I thought about the story that I was going to have to write when I got back to the office, mapping out the lead paragraph and mentally going over what to include in the story and what to omit. I looked out the window of the train and saw the sun going down over the farm fields of western Chester County that were furrowed with the promise of the coming spring. I’ve ridden in a lot of cars and flown in a lot of planes in my life, but I’ve never enjoyed the peace of travel as I did that day.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Losing A Small Town Voice
This column originally appeared on Oct. 5, 2008
Two years ago this month, I traveled to Hobart, Indiana, to help celebrate the 50th birthday of an old college friend.
Dan and his wife Sandy have known one another since high school, and together have raised three near-perfect children (daughter Lisa tends to go a little heavy on the cell phone calls to Mom, but what are you going to do?) The kids all go to the same school that Dan and Sandy graduated from, and where Dan, who I met the first day of my college career, played football. When I arrived that Friday in October, in fact, everyone was anxiously anticipating the playoff showdown between the Hobart High “Brickies” and their cross-county rivals.
The game (which the Brickes won, by the way) was broadcast on the local radio station, WEFM-FM. While we sat in Dan and Sandy’s living room and caught up with one another that evening, Sandy made regular trips to the kitchen to tune in for the score and then touch base with various family members by phone, generally seeing who could voice the biggest distaste for the opposing squad and its hated head coach. The scene struck me as a slice of small town American life that we sometimes think no longer exists, but really does.
I’m telling you this because up until last week, that same scenario regularly played itself out in living rooms and kitchens across Chester County on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons (except the part about me being present.) High school football fans tuned in to West Chester-based WCOJ-AM and caught the action in Ches-Mont games, as broadcast by Bill Mason and John Aberley, cheering on their alma maters and heaping scorn on the opposition.
It is unlikely that will happen anymore, now that WCOJ has been sold, down the river, to a religious programming radio system that intends to air Catholic-oriented shows. Holy Spirit Radio laid off all the employees of WCOJ on Tuesday, and has not indicated that it intends to keep any of the current programs, including the football broadcasts.
Truth be told, I didn’t listen to WCOJ very much. I appeared on broadcasts a couple of times, discussing court stories with Steve Karp and current events on “Circle in the Square.” I didn’t tune in to the Ches-Mont broadcasts because, frankly, I don’t have a dog in that fight. But I know my friend Nick swore by WCOJ’s Phillies broadcasts, and that the folks at the D K Diner viewed it as an invaluable resource for finding news stories to argue about over eggs and sausage.
And it made me feel good about the community I live in, knowing that WCOJ was out there touching people’s lives from Pottstown to Oxford with information from the sublime (Ron’s Swap Shop) to the ridiculous (The Paranormal Café). Say what you will about the county’s last remaining local radio station, WCHE-AM, but it certainly lacks the geographic reach and broadcast signal of its former neighboring rival.
The loss of WCOJ’s local programming isn’t going to be a topic of discussion at the next presidential debate, but I would like it to be. I would like to tell the candidates how the little chips at our sense of community eventually add up to a large feeling of displacement and loss. I would like to make sure they know how important it is to our small world to hear the voice of the local morning broadcaster let you know what the weather was like outside your very own window and whether school was going to be canceled because of it.
Mostly, I would like to tell them that being able to catch up on the Downingtown East versus Downingtown West score at halftime is just as valuable as listening to someone deliver a sermon.
Two years ago this month, I traveled to Hobart, Indiana, to help celebrate the 50th birthday of an old college friend.
Dan and his wife Sandy have known one another since high school, and together have raised three near-perfect children (daughter Lisa tends to go a little heavy on the cell phone calls to Mom, but what are you going to do?) The kids all go to the same school that Dan and Sandy graduated from, and where Dan, who I met the first day of my college career, played football. When I arrived that Friday in October, in fact, everyone was anxiously anticipating the playoff showdown between the Hobart High “Brickies” and their cross-county rivals.
The game (which the Brickes won, by the way) was broadcast on the local radio station, WEFM-FM. While we sat in Dan and Sandy’s living room and caught up with one another that evening, Sandy made regular trips to the kitchen to tune in for the score and then touch base with various family members by phone, generally seeing who could voice the biggest distaste for the opposing squad and its hated head coach. The scene struck me as a slice of small town American life that we sometimes think no longer exists, but really does.
I’m telling you this because up until last week, that same scenario regularly played itself out in living rooms and kitchens across Chester County on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons (except the part about me being present.) High school football fans tuned in to West Chester-based WCOJ-AM and caught the action in Ches-Mont games, as broadcast by Bill Mason and John Aberley, cheering on their alma maters and heaping scorn on the opposition.
It is unlikely that will happen anymore, now that WCOJ has been sold, down the river, to a religious programming radio system that intends to air Catholic-oriented shows. Holy Spirit Radio laid off all the employees of WCOJ on Tuesday, and has not indicated that it intends to keep any of the current programs, including the football broadcasts.
Truth be told, I didn’t listen to WCOJ very much. I appeared on broadcasts a couple of times, discussing court stories with Steve Karp and current events on “Circle in the Square.” I didn’t tune in to the Ches-Mont broadcasts because, frankly, I don’t have a dog in that fight. But I know my friend Nick swore by WCOJ’s Phillies broadcasts, and that the folks at the D K Diner viewed it as an invaluable resource for finding news stories to argue about over eggs and sausage.
And it made me feel good about the community I live in, knowing that WCOJ was out there touching people’s lives from Pottstown to Oxford with information from the sublime (Ron’s Swap Shop) to the ridiculous (The Paranormal Café). Say what you will about the county’s last remaining local radio station, WCHE-AM, but it certainly lacks the geographic reach and broadcast signal of its former neighboring rival.
The loss of WCOJ’s local programming isn’t going to be a topic of discussion at the next presidential debate, but I would like it to be. I would like to tell the candidates how the little chips at our sense of community eventually add up to a large feeling of displacement and loss. I would like to make sure they know how important it is to our small world to hear the voice of the local morning broadcaster let you know what the weather was like outside your very own window and whether school was going to be canceled because of it.
Mostly, I would like to tell them that being able to catch up on the Downingtown East versus Downingtown West score at halftime is just as valuable as listening to someone deliver a sermon.
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