The Sanatoga Post

SANATOGA PA – Two improvements and reader enhancements were installed Wednesday (Jan. 19, 2010) on the Transportation archive page of The Sanatoga Post, according to Managing Editor Joe Zlomek.

• Best gasoline price-finder from GasBuddy. The popular consumer website GasBuddy.com has for several years offered a small software application, known as a widget, to its partners that allows their website users to find gas stations – displayed on a local map – which offer the least expensive regular, mid-grade, premium and diesel fuel prices. The Post has been a GasBuddy partner for more than a year, but was unable to make use of its widget until now.
  • It appears in the right side column of our Transportation archive page, under the heading “Local Gasoline Prices.” To reach it, click here, or on the “Transportation” text link that appears just below our masthead at the top of any page.
  • Anyone who buys gas can also use GasBuddy.com to report prices they see at any pump and any station, and so help fellow travelers know where fuel bargains are. As prices go up, that help is increasingly important. Visit GasBuddy.com to become a member; it’s free! The Post has already enlisted volunteers to update prices at Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township stations on a regular basis to keep its readers better informed.

• SEPTA’s Trip Planner. Also on the Transportation archive page, just below the GasBuddy widget, is a public transit trip planning widget offered by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. If you don’t own a car to buy gas for, or if you prefer public over private vehicles, The Post isn’t about to leave you stranded!
  • The SEPTA widget allows users to enter their starting and destination locations, as well as the day and time they want to travel. Once that’s done, just click the button that says “Plan My Trip.”
  • A new window will open with SEPTA’s suggestions of the rail and bus routes you’ll need to get where you want to go, as well as the number of minutes you may spend walking to the proper pick-up points.

The Post is a dynamic and evolving news medium. We’re installing new features on-site almost every week. To keep up with what we’re doing in western Montgomery County PA, and to have The Post’s news articles delivered to you every morning in a single, easily read e-mail, click here.

STOWE PA – Faced with a $1.2 million shortfall between what it might receive in revenues during the 2011-2012 school year and what it might spend, the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors voted unanimously Tuesday (Jan. 18, 2011) to advertise a proposed preliminary budget of $58.5 million for public review, and said it would seek permission to raise next year’s taxes above a state-imposed 1.8-percent cap.

The spending plan presented to directors by district Business Administrator David Nester consists, he said, of conservative expectations, aggressive calculations and best guesses. Nester’s problem, he explained during the board’s meeting at West Pottsgrove Elementary School in Stowe, is that the state hasn’t yet announced how much money it intends to give Pottsgrove for its annual basic education subsidy.

Some kind of budget, however, must be submitted by Jan. 27, or Pottsgrove would be locked into the tax cap, known as its Act 1 index. Raising property taxes by no more than 1.8 percent next year, or about $74 for the district’s average home, “would just be painful,” Nester told directors. The preliminary budget approval was their response.

Next year’s preliminary budget amounts to $58,550,072, which is $896,000 more than this year’s adopted budget. Of that amount 64 percent, or $37 million, pays for salaries and benefits alone for all district employees. Although the budget covers anticipated longevity or “step” increases for district teachers, it does not include any amounts for raises that could result from contract negotiations already under way.

A tax increase of about 5.2 percent, representing an additional $215 in taxes above this year’s level on a district home valued at $120,000, would be needed to erase the preliminary deficit. Directors made it clear they didn’t want to go anywhere near that number, and will start to look for budget items to cut while Nester petitions the state for the ability to increase taxes more, possibly by up to 3.6 percent.

The preliminary budget was expected to be available for public inspection Wednesday (Jan. 19) at the district offices, 1301 Kauffman Rd., Pottstown PA, and also for download from the district’s website, Nester said.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of Jan. 18):

• Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
• Pottsgrove Canceled Tuesday School Board Meeting
• Few Change Orders, So Far, At Ringing Rocks

The CVS Pharmacy store in the North End Shopping Center on North Charlotte Street.

POTTSTOWN PA – If searching for buried treasure sounds appealing, Pennsylvania’s newest governor and former chief prosecutor has given you a different place to look – on the shelves of your local CVS Pharmacy – and the chance to earn a little something for the effort.

Former state Attorney General Tom Corbett took the oath of office Tuesday (Jan. 18, 2011) as the Commonwealth’s 46th governor, and the first Republican to hold that office in eight years, during an outdoor ceremony at the state capitol in Harrisburg. Only 12 days earlier, however, then AG Corbett announced a settlement that makes the drug store chain, with two locations in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township and elsewhere, a potential treasure hunter’s paradise.

In a Jan. 6 statement, Corbett said his attorney general‘s Health Care Division had reached a settlement with CVS over complaints that it earlier sold expired over-the-counter drugs, infant formula, baby food, dairy products and other food items at unspecified stores. Part of the deal requires CVS to provide coupons for $2 off “any future purchase to any consumers who find expired products offered for sale at a CVS store in Pennsylvania.”

So if you’re shopping at CVS and you find a product being sold beyond its printed expiration date, the AG’s office said, go stake your claim at the cash register.

In addition to its stores at 1833 E. High St. and 1300 N. Charlotte St., both in Lower Pottsgrove, CVS also operates in Limerick, Royersford, Gilbertsville, Boyertown, Douglassville and North Coventry PA.

The coupons are only a small part of the consumer protection settlement, which also required CVS to:

• Donate a total of $150,000 to five food banks in Philadelphia, Bethlehem, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Erie;
• Pay the AG’s office another $100,000 to be used for future consumer protection and education activities;
• Inspect all dairy products daily at all Pennsylvania CVS stores;
• Regularly inspect other products and remove items that are within 60 days of their expiration dates, including all items related to allergy treatment, baby feeding, children’s remedies, cold remedies, oral hygiene products, pain relievers, stomach remedies and all other over-the-counter drugs that bear expiration dates;
• Prominently remind customers to check “sell by” and “expiration” dates, and to notify CVS employees immediately if they find expired products;
• Create automatic prompts at store cash registers that require cashiers to verify expiration dates;
• Train and certify all store managers and employees involved in stocking baby food, infant formula, dairy products and over-the-counter drugs; and
• Regularly audit CVS stores to verify compliance with the settlement.

POTTSTOWN PA – Montgomery County Community College will conduct a “Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Completion Day” on Feb. 12 (2011; Saturday), with two sessions beginning at 10 a.m. and noon, respectively, in South Hall rooms 247 and 250 at MCCC’s West campus, 101 College Dr., Pottstown PA. The event is open to the public.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

All Pottsgrove High School college-bound students and others, regardless of what school they plan to attend, are invited to get free help in completing the FAFSA form required by colleges, universities and private schools to qualify for scholarships, grants, loans and work-study.

Advance registration is required. To register, visit the college’s website, here. For more information, call 215-641-6566.

Students age 23 and younger should attend with a parent or guardian. Both the student and parent should bring their social security cards, driver’s licenses, 2010 federal tax returns, W-2 forms and other income information. They should also bring information about any savings, investments, and assets that they have.

Students age 24 and older may attend alone, and should bring their social security card, driver’s license, completed 2010 federal tax return, W-2 forms and other income information. They should also bring information about any savings, investments, and assets that they have.

Photo from Google Images

La Massaria at Bella Vista.

GILBERTSVILLE PA – The annual bridal fair at La Massaria, the banquet facility at Bella Vista Golf Course, 2901 Fagleysville Rd., Gilbertsville PA, has been scheduled for Feb. 20 (2011; Sunday) from 1-4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Advance registration is being requested, and is offered online, here.

PHILADELPHIA PA – Pennoni Associates of Philadelphia, the engineering, design and consulting firm whose representatives serve as engineers for Limerick (PA) Township, has bought the professional engineering and land surveying firm Patton Harris Rust and Associates (PHRA) of Chantilly VA, it announced earlier this month (January 2011).

More than 170 PHRA staff members in its seven offices will join Pennoni’s other employees to broaden its operations in Maryland and Virginia. PHRA was established in 1952 and has a variety of clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region. Its professional employees include telecommunications and utility engineers, surveyors, planners, landscape architects, and environmental specialists.

Pennoni “is both pleased and honored to welcome PHRA into our firm,” aid company founder and Chairman C.R. “Chuck” Pennoni. The acquired company, he added, “has an excellent professional reputation of providing quality engineering services with honesty and integrity for over 60 years, while providing a very welcoming place to work.”

Exelon's Limerick Generating Station, as seen at night.

LIMERICK PA – Linfield Sports Park, a 17-1/2-acre Limerick (PA) Township recreational facility with a softball field, sports pavilion and multipurpose field will be upgraded later this year by adding more softball fields, and multi-purpose fields for lacrosse and soccer. Its pavilion will also be upgraded.

“We are looking forward to the upgrades that will come in 2011, so that additional teams will be able to use our fields, and families and organizations can use the pavilions,” the township’s former Board of Supervisors Chairman Kenneth W. Sperring Jr. said.

The park was purchased earlier this year with the help of a $150,000 contribution from Exelon Nuclear. Exelon’s “Limerick Generating Station (LGS) contribution to the township has helped us greatly over the past few years to upgrade our recreational facilities for the good of all of our residents,” Sperring added.

Other Exelon contributions have also been used to refurbish Manderach Memorial Playground, and support the township’s summer concert series and Limerick Community Day. Funds have also been given to the Linfield and Limerick Fire companies, and helped pay for the expansion of the Limerick Township Police Department building.

It’s important “to everyone at Limerick Generating Station that we are a good neighbor, and are able to partner with Limerick Township to provide excellent recreational facilities for area residents,” said Bill Maguire, the LGS site vice president. Many LGS employees “live in this community and are able to benefit from the facilities that Limerick Township provides, making this area a great place to live, work and raise a family,” Maguire said.

Photo from Google Images

FORD ISLAND HI – Customized bio-security equipment, designed and manufactured by a Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township company, is being installed as part of a 30-acre campus of new and renovated scientific facilities now being built in Hawaii for the nation’s official weather forecasters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

An architect's rendering of NOAA's new Pacific Regional Center headquarters.

The well-known federal agency and the U.S. Navy broke ground last month (Dec. 7, 2010) for construction of the final phase of NOAA’s Pacific Regional Center. The vast complex on historic Ford Island at Pearl Harbor will support coastal and marine resources, and predict weather events, tsunamis, and climate changes in the Pacific. Construction is expected to be finished by October 2012.

Protecting some of the water supplies that feed the campus will be special ultraviolet (UV) sterilizers that are the products of Emperor Aquatics Inc., 2229 Sanatoga Station Rd., Pottstown PA.

The annual December observance of Japan’s surprise World War II bombing of Pearl Harbor, a date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed “will live in infamy,” was specifically chosen to launch construction of a three-building, $131 million laboratory and office plaza that will serve as the heart of NOAA‘s Hawaii headquarters, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command reported.

Four UV sterilizers being supplied by Emperor for the center's bio-security program.

Emperor is a 21-year-old company located in the south-central portion of the township between U.S. Route 422 and the Schuylkill River. It manufactures high-quality water filtration and UV germicidal equipment to disinfect water-borne microorganisms that cause diseases in fish and other aquatic life. Back in May (2010) Emperor announced on its website that it was shipping “several custom” units of its SafeGUARD-brand Shell and Tube UV sterilizers for the NOAA “facilities’ bio-security program.”

The plaza now being built consists of two World War II-era aircraft hangars joined by a third, new building between them. Together they will provide 310,000 square feet of core working space destined to employ more than 700 people while saving NOAA money by improving efficiency and reducing overhead costs.

Several other parts of the campus, such as piers, a storage facility and a ship operations facility, are already finished. The Marine Science and Storage Facility, which contains wet laboratories and marine animal tanks where Emperor Aquatics’ handiwork is expected to be put to round-the-clock use, should be completed later this year.

Emperor’s expertise involves working with clients like NOAA to determine which microorganisms present infection risks. It calculates how long the germs must be exposed to UV radiation to eliminate their threats, and then builds sterilizers that meet those specific needs. Some of the company’s products, consequently, are one-of-a-kind designs.

The benefit of UV treatment, the company explains, is that it has no residual effects downstream and is harmless to animals swimming in the pools where treated water is delivered. It compares favorably to chemicals such as chlorine or bromine, which can irritate the skin and eye tissue of mammals, reptiles, and birds; or ozone gas, which if not measured and properly controlled can severely damage tissue and cause death in fish and invertebrates.

NOAA is only one of Emperor’s high-profile clients. Also on its list are some of the nation’s most visited zoos and aquariums, many research universities, fish hatcheries across several states, and major retailers.

The Ford Island campus will house NOAA’s diverse set of programs, including the National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Services, National Ocean Service, National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Center, Marine and Aviation Operations, the International Tsunami Information Center, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The location’s ability to provide deep water berthing for vessels, sea water for scientific research, and plenty of space makes it ideal for NOAA’s uses, Dr. Larry Robinson, the agency’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Conservation and Management, said.

The plaza is being built by a Chicago contractor and paid for using federal stimulus funding. The massive renovation and construction project is designed with many environmentally sustainable features that should allow it to qualify for gold-level certification as a “green” building.

Photos from NOAA and Emperor Aquatics Inc.

An annual mid-winter treat at the Green Lane Nature Center was sampling maple syrup made with sap tapped from trees on its grounds. Budget cuts are closing the center.

POTTSTOWN PA – Montgomery County‘s Green Lane (PA) Nature Center will be closed, four parks employees are being laid off, the county’s formerly annual Scottish-Irish Festival will be canceled, and other outdoor programs will be significantly changed or curtailed under budget cuts announced Wednesday (Jan. 12, 2011) by the county Parks and Heritage Services Department.

The county’s operating historic sites – Pottsgrove Manor in Pottstown PA, Pennypacker Mills in Schwenksville PA, the Peter Wentz Farmstead in Worcester PA, and the John James Audubon Center in Audubon PA – will maintain their current hours, and none of the county’s parks or trails will be closed or have their hours reduced, the department said.

However, it also plans to have private vendors provide boat rental services at Deep Creek Lake and Green Lane Reservoir. It eliminated the concert series at Norristown Farm Park; and it will leave three other unfilled jobs vacant.

The cuts are necessary “to meet budgetary constraints in the coming year,” according to the department, which said it cut $871,000 from its spending plan for 2011.

During summer months the Nature Center was known for its butterfly garden, at left.

Although the Nature Center building, behind the Marlborough Elementary School at 1492 Gravel Pike, Green Lane, is being closed, the county’s environmental education programs will continue, department officials cautioned. But their announced layoffs include one of three environmental educators; the remaining two likely be busier now as they provide programs in the parks and at schools. Also losing their jobs are an office support person, an administrator and a maintenance person.

Ultimately, the department indicated, the Nature Center was on the short end of a cost-benefit ratio. It reported the center received fewer than 2,000 visitors during 2010. Keeping it open would have required one full-time employee and more than $125,000 in structural improvements. The result: parents who depended upon the center for mid-week and weekend activities for their curious youngsters must now look for them elsewhere.

The department hasn’t written the Nature Center off completely, though. “Parks and Heritage Services staff is aware of strong community support for the Nature Center,” it said, “and are interested in exploring a public-private partnership that could result in it reopening” or finding an alternate site.

The Parks and Heritage Services cuts are part of an overall $3.75 million reduction in expenses dictated by county commissioners late last year to ensure passage of a total $403.95 million budget with no tax increase for 2011.

POTTSTOWN PA – Weather and road conditions delayed the opening of all Pottsgrove School District buildings by two hours today (Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011), the district announced at 5:05 a.m. in an e-mail, and that affected the start of mid-term exams at Pottsgrove High School … but only a little.

High school Principal Chris Shaffer, who can read weather reports as well as graduation statistics, made it known Monday night (Jan. 17), also by e-mail, that he had already planned for the delay. His memo also was posted on the high school’s web pages.

Shaffer distributed a two-page document that spelled out in detail new times and locations for students who would be taking mid-terms in English, social studies, math and science. One page covered the possibility of the delay; the second was a “what-if” contingency should the schools be closed entirely. They were not.

Up to three inches of snow fell overnight Monday across portions of the greater Pottstown PA area, and was followed Tuesday morning by less than a quarter-inch of ice and freezing rain, according to AccuWeather. Temperatures at sunrise were predicted to be at the freezing mark, 32 degrees, but were to get warmer during the day, with a high of 38. The morning mess made travel slippery, and inevitably slowed buses and other traffic for safety’s sake.

Photo from Google Images