The Sanatoga Post

• Girls Varsity Lacrosse at Springfield (Montco), 9 a.m.
• Girls Varsity Lacrosse at Lower Moreland, 9 a.m.
• Boys Varsity Track at PENN RELAYS, 9 a.m.
• Girls Varsity Track at PENN RELAYS, 9 a.m.
• Girls JV Lacrosse at Springfield (Montco, 10:15 a.m.
• Boys Varsity Track at home vs. 9TH & 10TH INVITATIONAL, 11 a.m.
• Girls Varsity Track at home vs. 9TH & 10TH INVITATIONAL, 11 a.m.
• Boys Varsity Lacrosse at home vs. Phoenixville, Lower, Noon
• Boys JV Lacrosse at home vs. Phoenixville, Lower, 1:15 p.m.

Provided by HighSchoolSports.net

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

More and more of our neighbors are going hungry.
We can help them. Click here or on the graphic above and visit FeedingAmerica.org.

Published as a public service by The Sanatoga Post

Emergency repairs to the East High Street bridge a few years ago made it impassable. PennDOT expects to close it again this June for reconstruction, despite Lower Pottsgrove's repeated objections.

SANATOGA PA – A state highway official in King of Prussia consumed two pages and 10 paragraphs Tuesday (April 21, 2009) to essentially say one word: “no.”

Lester Toaso, chief of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) District 6 office, has denied – for now, at least -  Lower Pottsgrove ‘s request that one lane of the East High Street bridge at North Sanatoga Road remain open to traffic during repairs the department will begin this summer. The township fears the bridge closing of several months may cripple or kill businesses along the route that rely on its steady stream of commuters.

“We certainly understand the desire to keep traffic flowing on the bridge during construction, and I wish we were able to safely accommodate a travel lane,” Toaso wrote in a letter to the township’s two state legislators, a copy of which was distributed during Thursday’s (April 23, 2009) meeting of the township Board of Commissioners. “Unfortunately, we cannot,” he added, citing the bridge’s “structural uncertainty” during repairs.

Board members weren’t buying it.

“I find it very hard to believe they can’t keep even a portion of it open,” Commissioner James Phillips said.  “It’s like they’re saying ‘sorry, we don’t care, that’s just the way it is’.” His colleagues authorized Phillips to draft a response on their behalf.

With better construction management and financial incentives for contractors to finish early, Commissioner Stephen Klotz added, PennDOT could minimize the closure and speed the repairs. “It’s not that hard to do,” Klotz noted; “they do it all the time.”

The state expects to take four to six months to straighten the bridge, fills cracks in its masonry, and install a new retaining barrier. During that time, it intends to route traffic entirely around Sanatoga village, diverting it over U.S. Route 422 from Armand Hammer Boulevard in Pottstown to the Sanatoga interchange. Board members worry potential customers who feel inconvenienced will simply patronize businesses elsewhere.

The bridge was last closed for repairs during 2004.

Legislative lobbying by the township’s state senator, John Rafferty,  and Tom Quigley, in the state House of Representatives, was seen by commissioners as Lower Pottsgrove’s last, best hope for a change to the traffic plan before repairs started. Rafferty is a member of the Senate Transportation Committee, which has PennDOT oversight. Toaso’s letter was a response to an April 2 inquiry signed by both Rafferty and Quigley.

Related:

• Township Looks To Pols For Bridge Help
• Bridge Closing Threatens Businesses, Board Says
• Sanatoga Bridge Closing This Spring
• Bridge Repairs Next Year

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

A barricaded walking path serves as the current entrance to the township's Schuylkill River Park.

SANATOGA PA – Tit-for-tat, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Commissioner Anthony Doyle figures.

If Occidental Chemical and a business partner want township approval for a proposed minor subdivision change, Doyle reasoned Thursday (April 23, 2009), maybe they could provide something the township wants as well …  like better access to its open space along the Schuylkill River near Occidental’s property.

Doyle made his pitch to colleagues on the Board of Commissioners during their meeting in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., relying in part on a similar recommendation recently offered by a member of the Montgomery County (PA) Planning Commission. Board members said they would consider the idea, but gave no time frame for action.

At issue are two seemingly different needs with a common factor: Occidental.

The company wants to change lot lines on adjacent properties owned by it and BCW Associates Ltd. at 351 and 375 Armand Hammer Blvd. The shift would allow the parties to retain rather than demolish a building on one lot, an Occidental attorney told  the township Planning Commission earlier this week, thus making it more marketable. Both Doyle and Board of Commissioners’ President Bruce Foltz attended the planning session.

The township some day wants, but was in no recent hurry to get, more convenient public access to 12.3 acres of open space dedicated as its Schuylkill River Park, 2116 Sanatoga Station Rd. Portions of it abut Occidental-owned land along no-longer-used Hart Road. Why not negotiate public right-of-way on Hart to enter the park land, Doyle suggested, in exchange for township approval of the subdivision plan?

“Now’s the time to do it, with Occidental on the move,” Doyle contended. “If we don’t start talking to somebody about it, it’s never going to get done,” he said.

It may not be that simple a trade, however, according to township Manager Rodney Hawthorne. Ownership of Hart Road needs to be more thoroughly explored, he said, because sections of it may be controlled by not only Occidental but also by Norfolk Southern Railroad or Conrail.

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

Revolutionary War re-enactors clutch their rifles during a previous encampment at Valley Forge.

VALLEY FORGE PA – Revolutionary War re-enactors will recreate an encampment May 2 (2009; Saturday) and May 3 (2009; Sunday) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Valley Forge National Historical Park, to observe the 231st anniversary of America’s early, pivotal alliance with France in 1778. The event is free and open to the public.

Visitors can enter the encampment at Conway’s Brigade (off Route 23), and speak with living historians – officers and enlisted men, women and children – about their experiences at Valley Forge and what the French Alliance meant to the American Revolution. At the park’s Welcome Center, Route 23 and North Gulph Rd., children will be able to create tri-corner hats and French flags.

A worship service commemorating the alliance, and French and American soldiers who died in combat with the British, will be held Sunday at 11:30 a.m. at Washington Memorial Chapel on Route 23. It will be followed at 12:30 p.m. by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Waterman Monument in front of chapel. The Second Pennsylvania Regiment reenactment group will march to the monument and on to the Grand Parade area. Artillery firings will be held at 1 and 3 p.m.

For more information, call 610-783-1077.

Photo by the VisitPA Media Room

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

• Boys Varsity Track at PENN RELAYS, 9 a.m.
• Girls Varsity Track at PENN RELAYS, 9 a.m.
• Boys Varsity Tennis at home vs. Lansdale Catholic, 3:30 p.m.
• Boys Varsity Lacrosse at home vs. Methacton High School, Lower, 3:45 p.m.
• Boys 8th Baseball at home vs. Spring-Ford M.S., Pottsgrove, 3:45 p.m.
• Boys 7th Baseball at home vs. Spring-Ford M.S., Pottsgrove, 3:45 p.m.
• Girls 8th Softball at home vs. Phoenixville, Lower, 3:45 p.m.
• Girls 7th Softball at home vs. Phoenixville, Lower, 3:45 p.m.
• Boys JV Lacrosse at home vs. Methacton High School, Lower, 5 p.m.

Provided by HighSchoolSports.net

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

Thousands of teens would love to put up with you as a parent.
Consider adoption. Click here or on the graphic above and visit AdoptUsKids.org.

Published as a public service by The Sanatoga Post

A man disposes of boxes Wednesday at dumpsters within TH Properties' Coddington View community in Upper Pottsgrove. Unfinished homes sit exposed to the elements in the background.

POTTSTOWN PA – Owners at Coddington View, the only TH Properties (THP) residential development within the Pottsgrove School District,  and others who bought THP homes said Wednesday (April 22, 2009) they were talking to lawyers and planning to appeal for help from municipal officials following the builder’s announcement a day earlier that it had ceased operations.

Outside the entrance to Coddington View.

Angry, worried, confused and disheartened THP buyers and prospects, as well as those who empathized with their plight, took to Internet websites to express their feelings on the news.

One chat site, WheresBuilder.com, launched efforts late Tuesday night (April 21, 2009) to organize public discussion. By 5 a.m. today (Thursday, April 23, 2009) – only 31 hours later – it had attracted 95 members, 238 comments on 32 different topics, and more than 5,400 page views.

THP, a Harleysville PA-based builder that opened for business in 1992 and built and sold new homes across southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, reported Tuesday it had “temporarily suspended its operations” and was “actively exploring options to restructure” the company. It blamed “the recession and the collapse of the housing market” for its financial troubles, but the company and its principals also recently were the subjects of several lawsuits.

In the wake of media coverage of the unfolding THP story, people who already occupied THP homes, as well as those who had made down-payments on them, decried their situation. Some who paid deposits of between $2,500 and $20,000 on homes not yet delivered worried their money was gone and unrecoverable. Others who make monthly payments to homeowner associations for services like trash pick-up and lawn mowing were consulting with attorneys on how to handle future installments.

In Coddington View – located within Upper Pottsgrove (PA) Township on the east side of Farmington Avenue about a half-mile north of Wilson Street – owners there were making plans to attend the May 4 scheduled meeting of the township Board of Commissioners, ostensibly to determine what help, if any, the municipality could offer.

In a message posted Wednesday at WheresBuilder.com, Upper Pottsgrove Township Manager Jack Layne attempted to assure Coddington View home owners that the municipality has made “a consistent and good faith effort to insure that adequate funding support was earmarked for road completion and other outstanding items” there. He pledged the township was “monitoring this situation very closely.”

In related news:

Activity at the courthouse. “Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the builder in Montgomery County Court,” a Philadelphia Business Journal article by Natalie Kostelni reported Wednesday. “Some of the lawsuits were filed by companies that did work for TH Properties but didn’t get paid and had put a mechanics lien against the builder,” it said.

More to come? Wachovia Bank, which is among financial instutions that filed lawsuits against THP to recover funds loaned to the company, similarly called residential loans against affiliates of another new-home builder, Heritage Homes Group, according to an article Tuesday at GlobeSt.com. The four New Jersey-based affiliates, but not the company itself, subsequently filed for bankruptcy in January (2009), the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. GlobeSt.com writer David Jacobs speculates that Wells Fargo Bank, which bought Wachovia last year, is taking “aggressive action” to clean up the books on its acquisition.

Not quite what it hoped for. Builder Magazine, which bills itself as the “information source for the home building industry,” said in an online story Wednesday that THP last year claimed its two greatest accomplishments were “reducing debt and lowering operating expenses.” THP had “closed (sold) 385 homes in 2008 for $125 million in revenue,” Builder reported, and added the company “had projected closing 350 homes in 2009.”

Also related:

• Moving On In The THP Debacle
• What’s Next?, THP Owners Wonder
• Builder THP Suspends Its Operations
• Bank Reportedly Sues Home Builder

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

There are almost 3,000 sewer manholes in Lower Pottsgrove. See what you learn from newsletters?

SANATOGA PA – All the news that’s seemingly fit to print about the Lower Pottsgrove Sewer Authority has officially hit the digital street.

The five-member authority, which is responsible for operation and maintenance of the township’s sanitary sewer system and its more than 46 miles of pipe, has published its first newsletter. The Lower Pottsgrove Township Authority News, Volume 1, Issue 1 released earlier this month, is now available for download as an Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF) file from the township’s website.

The newsletter is the authority’s attempt to increase public awareness of what it does and, more specifically, to implore customers to look for and remove any illegal connections to the system. Illegal water sources include sump pumps, floor drains or surface runoff seepage. Every gallon of extra water that must be treated in the system adds to the cost of its operation, for which all residential customers pay $460 a year.

The two-page newsletter includes a history of the authority, a description of illegal connections and how they can be eliminated, an explanation of sewer rates, and a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.

Photo by Clipart.com

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

SANATOGA PA – Weekend activities for Sanatogans (and anyone else!), April 24-26, 2009:

Friday, April 24

The musical “Into The Woods,” presented by the Drama Club students of St. Pius X High School in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, will open at 7:30 p.m. at the high school, 844 N. Keim St. The show also will be staged Saturday at the same time. Tickets cost $15. For more information, call Cheryl Reape at 610-989-0100 Ext. 125.

“The Sound of Music” will be staged by Camphill Village Kimberton Hills at 7 p.m. in Rose Hall at the development disabilities community, 1601 Pughtown Rd., Kimberton PA. Performances also are scheduled for Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Seating for each show is limited to 150 people. Tickets cost $10 for adults, $5 for children, and $35 per family.

The second-day presentation of “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,” a full-length play, will be staged by Coventry Christian School at 7 p.m. at its 699 N. Pleasant View Rd., Sanatoga PA, campus. Tickets cost $7 for adults, and $5 for children age 10 and younger.

Saturday, April 25

New lambs have arrived at Peter Wentz Farmstead.

It’s Sheep Shearing Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Peter Wentz Farmstead, the Montgomery County PA historic site east of the intersection of Routes 73 and 363 in Worcester PA. After visitors see the shearing of the sheep, they can stay to learn more from the craftspeople who produce wool products, and stop by the Summer Kitchen to experience open hearth cooking of foods for the late winter-early spring season. Admission is free. For more information, call 610-584-5104.

An Alternative Energy and Environmental Awareness Expo hosted by Lower Pottsgrove’s state legislators, Rep. Tom Quigley and Sen. John Rafferty, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Spring-Ford 9th Grade Center, 400 S. Lewis Rd., Royersford PA. A diverse group of organizations “that have made a commitment to encourage positive environmental stewardship” will be among the exhibitors. For more information, call Quigley’s office at 610-326-9563.

A free, grand re-opening Kids Day that features the new temperature-controlled dome at The 422 Sportsplex, 1400 Industrial Hwy., Pottstown PA, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will offer an inflatable obstacle courses and slides, a jousting ring, face-painting, clowns, and demonstrations by participants in its karate, cheerleading and Lil’ Kickers programs. The owners also will conduct a silent auction of autographed sports memorabilia to raise funds for charity.

An open house for prospective students interested in attending Montgomery County Community College’s West Campus in Pottstown PA will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at the college community room, 101 College Dr. Pre-registration at the college website is not necessary but appreciated; those who pre-register will receive a free gift. For more information, call 215-641-6671.

Sunday, April 26

Put your walking shoes on for the March of Dimes’ March for Babies 5-mile walk. The fund-raising walk begins with a complimentary breakfast at 9 a.m. in Pottstown’s Memorial Park at King and Manatawny streets, and leaves for foot-striding fun at 10 a.m. on a “safe and enjoyable” route throughout the borough, organizers say.

The open-air farmer’s market sponsored by the Pottstown Downtown Improvement District Authority is scheduled to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the parking lot located at the corner of Charlotte and High Streets. Vendors of home-grown fruits and vegetables, as well as crafters and artisans, are expected to be on hand to sell their wares to the public. Free live entertainment will feature local talent. Kids can even draw on the sidewalk. For more information on the weekly event, call the office of Pottstown Main Street Manager Bill Haley at 610-323-5400.

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