What’s the 422?

Two unidentified tow truck operators remove a derelict Saab from Township Line Road in Limerick on August 19, 2009. At right is Thomas Roache, a candidate for the township's Board of Supervisors. (Photo: Ted Hodgins)

This morning, a copy of a citation was faxed from Magisterial Judge Walter F. Gadzicki’s office to Greta M. Washington, a code enforcement contractor for Limerick Township, advising Robert Hawkins, of the 200-block of Township Line Road in Limerick, that he was required to remove a derelict blue Saab automobile from the property.

As it turned out, the car was already gone.

The vehicle was removed by a private salvage company on Wednesday evening after a tow truck operator identified only as “Steve” asked Hawkins for permission to take it.

“He was a real nice guy. And I said, ‘You know, what? You can have it,’” Hawkins said today.

“All you have to do is walk down that driveway and knock on my door,” he said.

Hawkins says he placed the car adjacent to the road last year so that it could be towed for repairs.

“That night, the little kids came along and damaged my car,” he said.

Vandals broke several windows and defaced other parts of the Saab. More recently, a man knocked on Hawkins’s door to ask if he could buy parts.

“Guess what? He came back and now the wheels are gone,” Hawkins said.

The vehicle, which had visible damage to the headlamps, windshield, and other windows, had recently drawn official notice from both Perkiomen and Limerick townships. By most accounts, it had rested on the side of the road since at least September 2008.

In response to this site’s previous article on the vehicle, Perkiomen resident Ted Hodgins photographed the car and on Aug. 13 sent an e-mail requesting its removal to Limerick Township Manager Dan Kerr, the members of the township’s board of supervisors, state legislators John Rafferty and Thomas Quigley, and several media outlets.

Kerr replied to Hodgins on Aug. 17 that the matter was in Judge Gadzicki’s hands. Kerr also provided a copy of the citation to What’s the 422. According to the original citation, issued on June 25, Hawkins was fined $150 for an “abandoned vehicle.”

Kerr said an additional citation was sent to Hawkins on Aug. 4.

“From what the district judge’s office told us, a summons for arrest was going to be forwarded if [Hawkins] did not respond to latest notice,” Kerr said today via e-mail.

Hawkins said he’d had no contact with Limerick since filing a report with the Limerick Township Police Department after the car was vandalized.

Hodgins photographed the car’s removal Wednesday evening. He credits Michele Chrisman, Thomas Roache, and Annamarie Chestnut, who are running for the Limerick Township Board of Supervisors, with providing the impetus behind the removal.

Kerr said in early July that he’d repeatedly asked Chestnut’s husband, Paul Chestnut, then a code enforcement officer for the township, to investigate the situation. Chestnut’s employment was terminated in March when the board of supervisors voted to outsource the township’s code enforcement department.

Paul Chestnut denied having been asked about the Saab. Chrisman, who chairs the township’s planning commission, posted a comment to this site indicating that the issue “never came up in staff meetings.”

Chrisman notified What’s the 422 that the car was being towed Wednesday evening. She said that she, in turn, had been notified by Hodgins.

In some of Hodgins’s photographs, Chrisman, Roache, and Chestnut are seen displaying a sign for their campaign Web site while posing in front of the tow truck. In an interview, Chrisman did not take credit for the removal but said the situation shows the importance of face-to-face communication.

“It’s really quite easy to get things done if you knock on someone’s door or pick up the telephone. It’s a small community; it’s not Philadelphia,” she said.

Chrisman defended Hawkins, the car’s owner.

“As I stated in a previous post – they are a very nice family. They had NO idea there was an issue bouncing between Perkiomen and Limerick townships,” she wrote.

As for Hawkins, he just wants to mind his own business. When asked how he felt about his car turning into a political issue, Hawkins said: “I don’t want to be involved in nothing like this.”

“I don’t know what goes on in anyone else’s house. I don’t want to know what goes on in your house,” he said.

Hawkins, a 12-year resident of Limerick, said he regularly keeps multiple cars on his property. He likes to collect them, he said.

Hawkins denies ever receiving a citation for his Saab.

“How is it an abandoned car? It’s on my property,” he said.

Hawkins finds it unusual that his neighbors have been talking about this car for months. He only recently received a copy of the original What’s the 422 article and says he was unaware of the controversy.

“If you had control of your children, this would have never happened … Out of all this, I should have been involved in some kind of way,” he said.

David Powell contributed to this story.