SANATOGA  PA – Weekend (March 7-8, 2009) jottings from a reporter’s notebook, in no particular order:

It’s Either The Marketing Or The Location

A week ago Friday (Feb. 27, 2009), the Baja Beach Tanning Club at 600 Heritage Dr., Sanatoga PA, advertised on a sign facing East High Street traffic that it was giving away tanning services over the weekend. You wanted a tan, Friday through Sunday (March 1, 2008), you got it for free.

Earlier this week, the sign announcing availability of free tans was replaced with another one. Help wanted at Baja Beach, it said.  Coincidence? Doubt it. Advertising pays.

Apparently that vacancy was quickly filled. The second sign disappeared almost as fast as it went up.

By Sunday (March 8, 2009) a third, and still different, sign was erected, not by the tanning salon but by its neighbors in the shopping center, Parma Pizza. It needs help too, and is looking to hire delivery drivers.

Not just at night.

Caught ‘em

Lower Pottsgrove Police received a surprise during February, police Chief Michael Shade told the township Board of Commissioners last week (March 2,2009), when they set up driving-under-the-influence checks in daytime hours as part of an effort by departments statewide to curb drunk driving. The daylight checks were “kind of unique,” Shade said. He wondered if they would yield any results because, he noted, it would be more “unusual to find DUIs during the day.”

Sadly, or happily – depending on your point of view – they were effective. His officers made a couple of arrests, according to Shade. Expect similar checks in the future.

A Local Financial Firm That’s Growing

Republican U.S. Senators Richard Shelby and John McCain made national news talk show appearances Sunday (March 8, 2009), advocating that the federal government should let some big troubled banks fail rather than commit more funds to prop them up. Mentioned most frequently was ailing Citigroup Inc.

In the continuing rumble of bad news about the banking business, it’s sometimes easy to miss the good. Locally based financial institutions, in particular, are faring pretty well. For one example look to Diamond Credit Union, headquartered on Medical Drive in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township.

In its recent newsletter, Diamond President John Faust reports the credit union will break ground this spring for construction of its third free-standing branch office, on Route 422 West in Exeter (PA) Township across from the Sheetz convenience store and gas station. How’s he feel about expansion? “We are thrilled to be in (this) position,” Faust said.

Just One Person Can Make A Difference

When the Pottstown Area Council of Governments convenes Tuesday (March 10, 2009) in East Coventry (PA) Township for its regular monthly meeting, Lower Pottsgrove council representative Commissioner James Phillips will be in attendance as usual … but unusually prepared.

By that, Phillips indicates, he intends to make a recommendation on a new project for the council.

Phillips wasn’t specific in describing his plans last week (March 2, 2009) to colleagues on the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners, but he said he had been working with township Secretary Michele Cappelletti on an “initiative to make COG even more useful.”

Related:

• Notebook Worthy, April 6, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, March 30, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, March 23, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, March 16, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, March 9, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, March 2, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, Feb. 23, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, Feb. 16, 2009
• Notebook Worthy, Dec. 9, 2008

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.