SANATOGA  PA – Weekend (April 18-19, 2009) jottings from a reporter’s notebook:

Having Contacts Helps

Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott is a member of a community advisory panel for Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station. The township Board of Commissioners, recently asked if any of its members would care to assume her role there, agreed Elliott was the best person to continue as its representative.

Exelon pays attention to the township, too. A concert series that will be presented this summer in Sanatoga Park by the township Parks and Recreation Board is being underwritten in its entirety by a $5,000 contribution from the utility company.

What’s REALLY Important? Ask The Teachers

In Pottsgrove School District discussions last week over potential renovations to Ringing Rocks Elementary School, the people who teach at Ringing were generally happy about the prospects for additional classrooms, an expanded library, and a new gym floor. But, as they looked at tentative architectural layouts during a district Board of School Directors meeting, a burning question arose:

“Are we going to have more bathrooms?,” they asked. More specifically, “Will there be more toilets?”

Students at Ringing, it seems, encounter mid-morning traffic jams at the restrooms daily, with years-old facilities that are too small to handle the current student population. Although the architect’s tentative plans didn’t show bathroom interior configurations, teachers were assured the bathrooms, also, would be significantly upgraded when the building was refurbished.

A small cheer went up from the teachers.

Proof That A Good Credit Rating Helps

The school district refinanced more than $9 million worth of bonds last week, taking advantage of lowered rates to save more than $274,000 in interest payments. The refinancing auction was held electronically by district agents April 14 (2009), and had been scheduled for between 11 and 11:15 a.m.

Bidding activity was hot, though, in part due to the district’s past record of bond payments and its long-standing excellent credit rating. Instead of getting an expected 40-45 bids, it received a total of 53 from five different financial institutions, and the bidding time-frame was extended twice by two minutes each. Bidding finally ended at 11:19 a.m.

It’s nice, and profitable, to be so wanted.

Goodbye, Elmer, And Thanks

Dr. Elmer Friedberg

Greater Pottstown area residents, and many families in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, lost a friend Friday (April 17, 2009) in the death at age 92 of retired Air Force Brigadier General Dr. Elmer Friedberg. Although he was, as he sometimes said, “Air-Force-Blue, through and through” – and received several military honors in both active duty and as a reservist – Friedberg was best known locally as an eye doctor, an optometrist. He helped correct and improve the vision of thousands of folks here for more than 40 years.

He was a modest and quiet man; thoughtful, but hardly shy. If Friedberg held a strong opinion on a topic, you heard about it pretty quick. His ability to express himself, and what he perceived as the community’s needs, served him and Pottstown well. He worked behind the scenes as a volunteer or board member with Creative Health Services, the American Red Cross, the Pottstown Drug Rehabilitation Center, the borough Human Relations Commission, and its Civil Defense Committee.

As he grew older, Friedberg mailed out his annual Christmas letters earlier and earlier; not because he feared ill health, he explained, but simply because they took longer to compose. In each letter he always referred to his wife of 57 years, Sue, as his “doe-eyed beauty.”

Elmer cared about people, both those close to him and those he never met but inevitably helped because of his passion for community involvement. He will be missed.