The supervisors voted Nov. 28 to seize the horse show grounds by eminent domain for a public park, generating an outcry that rivaled the din of a steeplechase and resulted in a reversal less than a month later.
On Friday - two days after a sit-down with officials from the township and the Horse Show - the supervisors voted to rescind the condemnation, eliciting sighs of relief from the community.
Joan Gross, a longtime landowner in neighboring East Nantmeal Township, said she was not surprised by the anger the condemnation generated. She likened the impact to what Main Liners would do if the Devon Horse Show grounds was suddenly threatened.
A former Wynnewood resident, Gross said that the Devon show, like Ludwig's Corner, produced big crowds and traffic congestion once a year, but that the event was part of the community fabric.
"It means continuity . . . and it represents tradition," she said. "That's what farm country is all about."
That's why several hundred opponents protested Dec. 4 at the township building. They were joined by State Sen. Andrew E. Dinniman (D., Chester) and Chester County Commissioner Ryan Costello.
"We need to make sure that when eminent domain is ever used, it's used for the best of purposes, and this is not one of them," Dinniman told the crowd.
About 300 protesters packed each of two township meetings, and the fracas cost one of the township's three supervisors her day job.
On Monday, the board of the French and Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust ended its more-than-five-year relationship with its executive director, Clare Quinn, one of West Vincent's three supervisors.
