SANATOGA  PA – Weekend (March 14-15, 2009) jottings from a reporter’s notebook, in no particular order:

One More Item For His Resume

Community insurer. Real estate developer. Planning facilitator. Behind-the-scenes political force. Distinguished Montgomery County Community College alumnus.

Sanatoga businessman James Vlahos, president of Vlahos-Dunn Insurance, 1954 E. High St., qualifies for all those titles. Now add “handyman” to the list.

Vlahos could be found Sunday afternoon (March 15, 2009), outside his Sunnyville Office Complex II on East High Street, dressed in work clothes and a protective hoodie to ward off the chill as he installed flood lights to illuminate signage for his firm and that of his building’s tenants.

On To Greener Pastures

Antoinette Colon.

Antoinette Colon, former editor of The Community Connection, a weekly newspaper owned by Journal Register Company and distributed by mail to residents of Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, has been named director of public relations and marketing at Cheyney University in Cheyney PA, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest historically black university.

Colon, who began work at the university last month, continues to serve on the Healthy Women Advisory Board of Pottstown Memorial Medical Center, and also has volunteered as a team captain in the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life fund-raising event in Boyertown PA. She is a native of Berks County PA.

The Clock Is Ticking

Wherever he is, John Mack – owner of property along State Route 1033 in Upper Hanover (PA) Township, northeast of Lower Pottsgrove – has just six years to claim his cash.

In a somewhat-rarely-seen legal notice published this week in an area newspaper, Mack is identified as the owner-in-deed of land that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has condemned under eminent domain proceedings to make highway improvements. Eminent domain is a Fifth Amendment constitutional principle that allows the government to take title and possession of private property for public use, usually after payment of what is considered fair market value for the property.

Just how much the state will pay Mack for the land isn’t mentioned in the legal notice, but the amount will be placed in escrow with the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. Mack has until sometime in 2015 to withdraw his compensation. He could get it now, if he knew it was there, but he doesn’t. The state either can’t find him – it doesn’t know his “whereabouts,” as the legal notice puts it – or for some reason can’t serve him with a copy of the condemnation.

And if Mack doesn’t pick up his cash? After Year Six, it gets returned to the state.

An offer they couldn't refuse.

Catch Of The Day

Several Sanatoga residents were among 51 passengers on a local bus Saturday (March 15, 2009) that deposited theater-goers near Broadway in New York City to watch either The Phantom of the Opera or The Little Mermaid. Among those along for the ride were a half-dozen girls age 10 and younger. All were bound, with parents or grandparents in tow, to see a Mermaid musical matinee; one had received her ticket as a January birthday gift. Upon their return, many clutched Ariel dolls (she’s the mermaid) and clamshell-shaped carrying cases (to hold the dolls in, of course). The adults reported both were sold inside the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, West 46th Street, as a pair for $60, a savings of $20 off the regular price. “It was a real buy,” one parent breathlessly explained.

Consumerism lives.

Photo from Cheyney University; handbill image from Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

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

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