Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, At Last I've Found You....

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009.

Constant Reader Ed of West Chester wants to know something, and he wants me to get the answer. What Constant Reader Ed from West Chester wants to know is, “Why is there no grape bubble gum for sale in West Chester?”

I will give you all a moment or two to ponder that, while I explain that everyone has their own particular Chester County mystery, and it is my lot in life that they usually ask me to solve their personal riddles. Other people I know are asked how their health is or how their car is running or how many hours they had to wait in line at the self-service car wash to rid their cars of the winter’s ubiquitous coating of salty brine residue when they greet an acquaintance. I get asked why there are no park benches in front of the Chester County Justice Center, or where the hell the grape bubble gum is.

The sorts of mysteries I refer to are not the Sherlock Holmes/Miss Marple/Nero Wolfe-type mystery. The mysteries I speak of are the unanswerable questions we ponder while waiting for the light to change. Such as, “Who decided we need another bank in this town?”

My personal mystery starts, and ends, in Exton. What, I ask myself on an almost hourly basis, is up with the West Whiteland Municipal Building?

No, not the old one on Route 100 that looks like a plantation house from northern Virginia circa 1776. I’m referring to the building on the oh-so-aptly named Commerce Drive in the Main Street at Exton “life-style mall” that looks like a post-modern, avant-garde, semi-psychotic architect’s nervous doodling brought to brick-and-mortar fruition.

To get those you who are still pondering the grape bubble gum query a chance to catch up, let me explain that the West Whiteland Municipal Building has stood largely finished but virtually unoccupied for months. How long has it been thus? Remember when the only obstacle that stood between Hillary Clinton and the White House was the issue of whether or not she knew how to measure the drapes for the Oval Office? Well, the building has been around since before then.

There it sits, unused, vacant, and surrounded by a chain link fence that screams, as only a chain link fence can scream, “Keep out!” Apparently, the notion that a building pretty much completed might actually be put to use is not one that I alone harbor. In fact, the matter has raised such a ruckus in West Whiteland that the township devoted a full page of its Fall 2008 newsletter to the matter.

The building isn’t being used, the anonymous author of the newsletter informs us, because it is waiting for the “fit out” to be completed. “These contracts are for installation of the walls, flooring, finishes, electrical fixtures, plumbing, and HVAC necessary for the proper functioning of the building,” the newsletter informs us cheerily. It’s like those neighbors of yours who built a fancy new home in the cul-de-sac but did not have exactly enough scratch to put actual furniture and carpeting and kitchen cabinets in the place, so they wind up eating dinner on the hood of the SUV in the garage. Except that the West Whiteland Municipal Building cost $16 million.

Ooops, sorry! I meant $16,347,503. But who’s counting?

Here’s my favorite part of the newsletter article about the building. “A fifth query” – can’t you just imagine the phone calls? – “we have been asked is, ‘When will the Township have the deed for this property?’ At present, we have a court order that allows us access to the property to construct our building. Unfortunately, the developer who holds the deed has refused to deliver it to the Township. Following lengthy, unsuccessful efforts to resolve this issue, the Township is now pursuing a legal resolution to this matter.” Folks, I’ve been a courthouse reporter since 1992, and when the answer to a question includes terms such as “court order” and “legal resolution” and “unfortunately,” there is only one response: “No good can come of this.”

Anyway, the whole thing is supposed to be taken care of by this summer, when the newsletter estimates the township will move into the building. This would reassure me except that I once read in Popular Mechanics magazine that in the summer of 2009 we would all drive flying cars when we weren’t riding monorails and eating freeze-dried Chicken a la King. So pardon me if I remain skeptical.

Oh, and to Constant Reader Ed from West Chester: The answer is, “It’s a mystery.”