{"id":243183,"date":"2026-07-14T15:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T15:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243183\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T15:37:08","slug":"upper-darby-pulls-back-on-move-to-take-second-fire-company-property-by-eminent-domain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243183\/","title":{"rendered":"Upper Darby pulls back on move to take second fire company property by eminent domain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal to take a second Upper Darby fire company station by eminent domain<\/a> has been set aside for now.<\/p>\n

Upper Darby Council was expected to begin discussions at the Wednesday night meeting to acquire the Primos-Secane-Westbrook Park Fire Company, station 74, property at 1005 Secane Ave. in Secane.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning, council President Marion Minick announced that after discussions among council members, council leadership decided additional work on the ordinance was needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important public safety matter with long-term implications for the township, and we intend to continue those discussions and bring the legislation back at the appropriate time,\u201d said Minick.<\/p>\n

In an earlier news release, Minick said the proposal was intended to protect the community fire station as a permanent public asset dedicated to fire protection and emergency services, ensuring it remains available to serve the residents of Upper Darby Township for generations to come.<\/p>\n

According to Minick, Company 74 has been allocated approximately $170,000 annually in township funding. Earlier this year, the township adopted reimbursement and accountability requirements governing those public funds to strengthen oversight and reinforce responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources.<\/p>\n

In recent years the number of firefighters able to volunteer in the township has greatly diminished. The 71-year-old volunteer fire company is also staffed by career township firefighters.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the executive leadership of Primos-Secane-Westbrook Park Fire Company posted a press release<\/a> stating they became aware of the possible eminent domain from the council meeting agenda.<\/p>\n

Primos volunteers say they had been working in good faith with the council president and vice president to address accountability issues when the eminent domain was ordinance was put forward.<\/p>\n

Fire company officials said accountability concerns have been addressed through a transparent and unbiased review process, and company leadership has taken part in numerous meetings, phone calls and other communication with township officials.<\/p>\n

Fire company President Joseph Vizzarri and board Chair Thomas Micozzie said they believed discussions were progressing toward a cooperative solution.<\/p>\n

The fire company leadership said they were disappointed by what they called the dismissive treatment of the fire company by a minority of council members.<\/p>\n

The stations asked residents to attend Wednesday\u2019s council meeting to voice their support for the company.<\/p>\n

In May, council approved the first step in authorizing the acquisition of another volunteer fire company building<\/a> in the township.<\/p>\n

The leadership at Upper Darby Fire Company No. 1 located at 7241 West Chester Pike, put their firehouse up for sale in April,\u00a0 saying, \u201cThere is no long-term role for our station as an active volunteer firehouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t clear for far along the eminent domain process was in that matter.<\/p>\n

The township has also been involved in a dispute with one of the other volunteer stations<\/a>, Garrettford Drexel Hill Fire Company over proper staffing. That station went out of service for a short period of time over a dispute on whether units could respond without a qualified officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A proposal to take a second Upper Darby fire company station by eminent domain has been set aside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,212,182,139,28,210,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-243183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-delaware-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-dtd","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}