SANATOGA PA – Whenever money becomes available, directors at Sanatoga’s Sunnybrook Ballroom have a promotional sign ready to spend it on, the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Board of Commissioners was assured Monday night (Dec. 7, 2009).

A proposed sign for Sunnybrook commissioners seemed to favor Monday.

Sunnybrook board of directors’ member J. Wilmer “Wil” Hallman showed commissioners designs, created earlier this year, of a prototype sign to replace an aging billboard on East High Street that currently is used to promote events at the ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Rd., Pottstown PA. The new sign features a computer-programmable, internally-lighted message board that would need township Zoning Hearing Board approval.

It needs funding, too.

Montgomery County has indicated it still has an $80,000 grant to help pay for the sign, money the commissioners rejected in July (2009) because they didn’t like and couldn’t change grant requirements. Commissioners Jonathan Spadt and James Phillips have been working with county officials on a compromise in the contract that makes Lower Pottsgrove responsible for both the sign and the grant’s use.

Sunnybrook still wants the sign, Hallman repeated Monday.

He and Sunnybrook President Thomas Sephakis expressed concern, during the commissioners’ first December meeting, that the grant may disappear when the county closes its 2009 financial books unless the township specifically states its support for the sign. The county “is looking for some kind of response by the end of the year,” Sephakis said.

Commissioners liked one of the two prototypes Hallman displayed, and agreed that, “generally speaking, you have that support,” Spadt said. But commissioners held off on a formal motion to that effect “until we’ve had a little more time to talk,” Spadt added.

If the grant money, which Sunnybrook first applied for during 2008, ever arrives, Hallman and Sephakis also said they hope the commissioners will let the Zoning Hearing Board know they endorse the project. That’s possible too, Spadt said.

Related:

• Still Hope For Sunnybrook Grant Township Rejected
• Its Grant Gone, Sunnybrook Looks To ‘Something Else’
• Township Says No To Sunnybrook Grant, Citing Risks
• Sunnybrook Grant On Township’s Agenda
• Sunnybrook, Township at Odds Over Grant

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.