Resignation

Citing health and business pressures, Andrew A. Orr, president of the Radnor Township Board of Commissioners, has announced his resignation, effective tomorrow. Orr, 52, who has served as a commissioner from the Third Ward for six years, had planned to resign earlier, township sources said, but he remained on the board until after a contract settlement was reached with the township's nonuniformed employees. "I feel a bit burned-out and tired, and I have a lot of business pressures," Orr said.

Ivy L. Plis, the hard-working Voorhees Township committeewoman who has championed recycling and environmental issues, could announce her resignation during tomorrow night's committee meeting. Plis, 44, who with running mate Gary Finger in 1985 gave Republicans a four-member majority on the Township Committee, is expected to resign soon to join her husband, Michael, in Waterford, Conn. Michael Plis in February started a new job with a Waterford insurance firm, and their two children started school there the first week of this month.

Darby Township Commissioner Lee Taliaferro has resigned from his post as head of the borough's highway department, saying he was not getting support from the three Republican members on the Board of Commissioners. Taliaferro, one of two Democrats who represent the southern end of the geographically, politically and racially divided township, quit only two months after being appointed to oversee the department. Taliaferro resigned Wednesday during the board's monthly meeting.

Deptford Township's director of community development, Robert Marmion, who was fired in March and then given a reprieve, turned in his resignation July 13. The resignation, which Marmion ascribed to "personal and philosophical differences" with Deptford Manager William Saunders, takes effect Aug. 10. "We have had real disagreements in how things should be run," Marmion said. Marmion said he had advocated increasing the staff of the township Planning Department, which until recently consisted of two part-time secretaries.

If the resignation of Township Manager Paul Janssen was no big deal, why hasn't she been told the details, asks Supervisor Eileen Lemma. To hear it from her, it's because she's been frozen out of the process by the other four supervisors. They've ignored her and, at times, outright lied to her, she said. So Lemma resigned at Tuesday's board meeting, just as the supervisors began haggling over how to manage the township without Janssen. Board members have yet to make public Janssen's severance package and are considering hiring an adviser to help them construct the township's $7 million budget.

Where does Lloyd Simmers really live? Simmers, chairman of the Valley Township Board of Supervisors, resigned from the board last week because, he said, he was moving from Valley Township. But according to Valley Solicitor Alan Jarvis, Simmers has been living in Lancaster County since April. "As I understand it, he was then (as of the May 7 meeting) living outside the township," Jarvis said Tuesday. Even so, the majority of the board was reluctant to accept Simmers' resignation.

If his teams had defended and attacked on the court with the same intensity as audience members did at Tuesday's Springfield school board meeting, Jack Spinella's Springfield High School Spartans would have won him a lot of state boys' basketball championships. A long line of parents and students, including the president of the Springfield Booster Club, spoke at the meeting to defend Spinella, who resigned last month after 12 years at courtside. Spinella's resignation was the third by a Springfield High School coach in the last two years, and it has raised questions about the way the school's athletic department is run. Booster Club President Mike Sokel said that Spinella resigned after the administration put several "sanctions" on him that affected the way he coached the team.

The axe is beginning to fall. Philadelphia School Superintendent David Hornbeck has accepted the resignation of James H. "Torch" Lytle, who as assistant superintendent for school and regional support for the last 15 months held the number-two spot in the district. Earlier this month, Hornbeck asked for the resignations of all 21 cabinet members, saying that would send "a signal of real seriousness about changing the way we do business. " Lytle, an administrator in the system since 1970, confirmed yesterday that he had been reassigned as a high school principal on special assignment.

Eugene E. Kellis, who steered Bucks County Democrats to some impressive victories for seven years despite the GOP outnumbering them, will announce his resignation Aug. 2, sources said yesterday. Kellis, 52, a Northampton Township lawyer, has been the chairman of the Bucks County Democratic Committee since 1982. His term expires next June. Kellis would not comment on whether he would leave his political post. Sources said, however, that he decided to resign shortly after May's primary election in which Democrat Susan Devlin Scott unexpectedly swept the Democratic and Republican primaries for a Common Pleas Court judgeship seat over Republican favorite Peter Glascott.