Sign outside the Historical Society museum.

SANATOGA PA – The president and vice president of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society, and two members of its museum committee, abruptly resigned from office last week in a leadership rift that one side characterizes as a problem of “negative attitudes,” and the other claims is a problem of “personal agendas.”

Ordinarily, such they-said-we-said bickering would merit little attention beyond the non-profit organization’s 80 dues-paying members. The historical society, however, has received taxpayer-funded contributions from Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township for several years as part of its operating revenue.

It’s unknown what, if any, role the group’s internal strife will play in township decisions about whether its gifts should continue in the tight budget year to come.

President Guy Rogers, 1st Vice President Bob Joos, and committee members Ruth and Butch Rogers tendered their resignations before the start of the society’s meeting last Wednesday (Oct. 14, 2009) in its museum and offices at the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Pottstown PA, Joos reported by e-mail.

In a subsequent telephone interview, Joos said he and the three Rogers family members “had enough” of what he claimed was a constant barrage of “negative attitudes from a few people who regularly attended meetings. We decided we were going to move on,” he said. The four offered the reasons for their actions and then left, according to Joos.

“It was apparent that they had other personal agendas,” society member and former township Board of Commissioners President Thomas Troutman – responding in a separate e-mail – said of Rogers and Joos.

Although both had been elected since 2005 to their society leadership positions, “neither … lived in Lower Pottsgrove Township,” Troutman wrote. “We thank them for all of their efforts and work in the past,” he added.

Troutman, who was the society’s 2nd vice president, this afternoon (Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009) said he had moved into the president’s vacancy. Member John Scherer was appointed 1st vice president, and member David Updegrove was named 2nd vice president.

It was Troutman who, during township budget discussions last fall, urged current commissioners to fully restore Lower Pottsgrove’s contribution to the society after the board announced plans to halve it. That cut was to have been part of a broader move to also reduce contributions to the Sanatoga-based Visiting Nurse Association, the Pottstown Area Seniors Center, and the Pottstown Public Library.

The former Sanatoga Chapel, which the society uses as its headquarters.

Public outcry over the proposal, and particularly its effect on the library, prompted commissioners to restore funding to all four organizations over six months. The money came, in part, from the township savings account, known as a fund balance.

Now a board committee and township staff members are honing Lower Pottsgrove’s 2010 budget. During the board’s Sept. 24 (2009) meeting, Commissioners James Phillips and Stephen Klotz both expressed their desire to avoid a tax increase in the coming year. “That looks harder and harder as the economy gets worse and worse,” Phillips said.

Given the board’s self-imposed limits on how low the fund balance can be drawn, and the fact that township revenues have dropped significantly with the recession, commissioners may conclude budget cuts – including some or all contributions – are among their few options in meeting a no-tax-hike goal.

“It’s way, way too premature to talk about tax rates,” Phillips said in the September meeting.

Only minutes later, township Manager Rodney Hawthorne showed commissioners and meeting audience members a new, decorative blanket depicting scenes from within the township. The fringed, blue-and-white coverings – the township ordered 130 of them – could be offered in a fund-raiser for $50 each, Hawthorne noted, with a partner to do the selling and split the profits.

The suggested partner was the historical society.

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