The Sanatoga Post

That large white cane represents the hope of better vision, members of the Pottstown-Stowe Lions Club say

POTTSTOWN PA – Supplying eyeglasses to Pottstown area residents unable to afford them is again the goal of this year’s “White Cane Days,” a fund-raiser being conducted by the Pottstown-Stowe Lions Club running Friday through Sunday (Oct. 14-16, 2011) from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Redner’s Warehouse Market in the North End Shopping Center, North Charlotte Street, Pottstown PA.

The Pottstown-Stowe chapter of Lions Clubs International includes members from Pottstown, Stowe, Sanatoga, and all of Lower, Upper, and West Pottsgrove townships, representative Ronnie Schoudt said Monday. They hope their collections will help improve the sight of dozens of local children and adults who suffer from a variety of eye-related problems.

The group also helps support regional vision assistance, with donations to the Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley and Leader Dogs For The Blind, as well as the Sanatoga-based Meals On Wheels program operated by Family Services of Montgomery County.

Photo from the Pottstown-Stowe Lions Club

The northeast corner of High and Hanover streets, at the heart of downtown Pottstown

POTTSTOWN PA – “Music has charms to soothe the savage breast,” English playwright and poet William Congreve wrote 314 years ago. If he was psychic, he might have added, “it pumps up downtown shopping too.”

At least, that’s what merchant testimonials pouring in to the Pottstown Downtown Improvement District Authority (PDIDA) office on High Street seem to indicate.

Two borough of Pottstown blogs, Roots Of Revitalization and GoldenCockroach, reported during the weekend (Oct. 8 and 9, 2011) about the downtown shopping district’s efforts to chase loiterers, potential criminals, and other unsavory characters from High Street and elsewhere by playing operatic and instrumental music over its loudspeakers.

Just music, albeit music that probably ranks low on the charts of the population PDIDA wanted to target.

PDIDA made a decision “to start a progressive movement in town to get rid of some of the vagrancy issues we face daily … with NO COST to taxpayers,” the organization’s president, Sheila Dugan told Roots of Revitalization. During its first day of experimentation, she said, “we had many loiterers hanging around just minutes before we put the music on. Within a half-hour … the streets began to clear. Many merchants were amazed (as were we!) but it did work!”

Amazed may be understatement.

“I just had to let you know how excited we are here,” Lastick Furniture, 269 High St., reported. “There were a few … customers over the weekend who wanted to know where all the ‘regulars’ were. I told them about the music and they were amazed at the results, but very pleased.”

We “can actually see the music working every time it’s tried,” Ben Moscia at the Pottstown Farmers Market, 300 High St., added. “The benches in front of the parking lot adjacent to our building are usually full of people who aren’t shy about making noise, littering, spitting, cussing loudly. When the music is playing, no problem; they go away. I saw it with my own eyes again today.”

“The music is working. Good going,” Ink And Essence, 241 High St., chimed in.

“Hooray! We were jumping around like bugs on a hot griddle,” the bloggers at GoldenCockroach wrote. “It was actually great to be downtown again. Nobody came up begging for a buck or a cig. That alone is huge, because lately there have been more panhandlers than shoppers on High Street.”

PDIDA doesn’t claim originality in using music to master the shopping environment. Roots of Revitalization noted that a variety of studies “show music can eliminate non-purposeful loitering in business districts.” The organization, Dugan said, merely paid attention to the results of others, and so far can claim similar findings.

Now, she added, the tunes need only some tuning up. “There are kinks that we need to fix,” Dugan acknowledged to Roots of Revitalization. “Regularly we will be out looking at every speaker, its direction, and what we can do to resolve sound level issues.” PDIDA’s equipment is “a bit antiquated, but we feel we can resolve these issues quickly and at little to no cost,” she said.

“We’re proud of PDIDA and the borough for thinking outside the box and exploring an idea that has real merit,” GoldenCockroach crowed. “Keep the music,” its bloggers wrote, “diss the thugs.”

• Read a post titled “Pottstown Is Alive With The Sound of Music,” published Saturday (Oct. 8) by Roots of Revitalization, here.
• Read a post titled “The Streets Are Alive With The Sound of Music,” published Sunday (Oct. 9) by GoldenCockroach, here.

Photo by the Urban Land Institute

SANATOGA PA — A motorcyclist driving recklessly westbound on U.S. Route 422 in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township snarled traffic for two hours Sunday afternoon (Oct. 9, 2011) after he wrecked his bike into the center guardrail, The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper reported Monday (Oct. 10). A second crash, a chain reaction involving three other vehicles, occurred only minutes later as motorists tried to avoid the first accident, it added.

Emergency crews were dispatched Sunday at 3:58 p.m. for the two separate incidents, both located just east of the South Pleasant View Road overpass.

Township Police Department Sgt. Timothy S. Walters told The Mercury that the motorcyclist, Joshua Solomon, 24, of Pottstown, lost control of his bike while he was passing traffic on the left-hand shoulder of the highway.

The impact from the accident “destroyed” the motorcycle, causing the front tire to explode and the bike to break into multiple pieces, Walters said. Solomon was flown from the scene to an area hospital; where he was taken to receive treatment was not immediately known. Information on the people driving the three vehicles also was not immediately available.

• Read a story by reporter Phil Ellingsworth Jr., titled “Route 422 in Lower Pottsgrove closed for two hours after crash that involved motorcycle, 3 vehicles” and published Monday in The Mercury, here.

SANATOGA PA – The effort to rebuild entrance and exit ramps for U.S. Route 422 at the Armand Hammer Boulevard interchange in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township will – much like traveling 422 itself during rush hours – take longer than expected, the Board of Commissioners learned last week.

The former Occidental property is now being marketed as the TriCounty Business Park

At fault? “The red tape that sometimes gets involved in dealing with a big corporation,” Chad Camburn of Bursich Associates, the township’s engineering firm, reported to board members during their Oct. 3 (2011) meeting.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has spent most of this year buying properties it needs to begin what is called “Section M1A of the Pottstown Bypass Improvement Project.” The additional land will be used to rebuild 422 bridges spanning the Schuylkill River between Lower Pottsgrove and North Coventry townships, and ramps around the nearby interchanges at Armand Hammer and Route 724.

Lower Pottsgrove and the borough of Pottstown also have quietly discussed the potential of changes to the Armand Hammer street scape, intended to coincide with PennDOT’s renovations, that would make the boulevard a more inviting gateway to the east side of Pottstown.

Bidding materials seeking contractors for the project were scheduled to have been released by December. That won’t happen now, Camburn said, due to lingering “right of way issues” between PennDOT and Occidental Chemical Corp., which through subsidiaries owns a substantial portion of property on the north side of the interchange.

It’s not as if OxyChem, as the company is often called, is trying to block the project; it isn’t, Camburn assured board members. But there is more paperwork involved, and more corporate reviews and assessments to be conducted before all parties involved sign the necessary agreements of sale. For that reason, PennDOT has postponed the bidding until early next year, he said.

Commissioners thanked Camburn for, but had no comment on, the news.

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 3):

• Red Tape Stalls Repairs At 422 And Armand Hammer
• Townships Talk About Coordinating Fun And Games
• Local Fire Crews In Schools This Week, Teaching Safety
• Township Bends To Give Garbage Bidders Choices
• The Problems At Pruss Hill Lurk Beneath Its Bridge
• Police Detail At Limerick Hearings Cost $1,468
• Pruss Hill Bridge Might Re-Open With Weight Limit

The Bill Koss Combo played during June in Lower Pottsgrove's summer concert series

SANATOGA PA – Municipal parks and recreation boards can be like fiefdoms, Alyson Elliott, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township‘s assistant manager, explained last week. All of them serve certain groups of people exclusively, and so far few of them have been inclined to let others in on what they do.

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), as well as the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, would like to change that, she said.

The boards, usually made up of volunteers, are responsible for planning taxpayers’ fun and games. They find talent for summer concerts in the parks, arrange bus trips to nearby attractions, and schedule kids’ sporting events like baseball and soccer. Each does similar things, but only for the residents of their township or borough.

DCNR and the foundation, both of which control some of the grant money that pays for local recreation programs, are advocating the appointment of a regional recreation coordinator, Elliot told the township Board of Commissioners during its Oct. 3 (2011) meeting. As the title implies, he or she would coordinate activities between boards, with an eye on involving more people and also reducing costs.

The idea has been pitched several times during regional meetings that Elliott attends. To date, though, “each community has been somewhat apprehensive about jumping in,” she said. The municipalities are uncertain a regional approach could ensure their specific taxpayers’ recreational needs or desires are met, Elliott added.

DCNR apparently knows a political stumbling block when it sees one. Faced with continued opposition to a coordinator, Elliott reported it recently announced plans to conduct a study that would “help communities narrow down” what they do differently for their specific audiences, as well as what they do in common.

With that information in hand, she noted, maybe attitudes toward a coordinator would change.

Commissioners voiced no opinions on whether or not they consider coordination a good idea, but asked Elliott to keep them updated on the study’s results.

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 3):

• Townships Talk About Coordinating Fun And Games
• Local Fire Crews In Schools This Week, Teaching Safety
• Township Bends To Give Garbage Bidders Choices
• The Problems At Pruss Hill Lurk Beneath Its Bridge
• Police Detail At Limerick Hearings Cost $1,468
• Pruss Hill Bridge Might Re-Open With Weight Limit

Area fire companies, including those representing Lower Pottsgrove, gathered last Saturday at Home Depot in Pottstown for public activities to commemorate Fire Prevention Week

SANATOGA PA – It’s National Fire Prevention Week, and that means members of Lower Pottsgrove’s two all-volunteer fire companies – Sanatoga and Ringing Hill – will be out visiting local school children this week to teach them about and encourage fire safety, township Fire Marshal Lew Babel told the Board of Commissioners.

Visits are planned for daycare, public and private schools alike, he said.

This year’s observance, conducted internationally by the National Fire Protection Association, began Sunday (Oct. 9, 2011) and continues through Saturday (Oct. 15). It was founded in 1925 to commemorate the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which burned about four square miles of that city and killed hundreds of people.

Although the Chicago conflagration is ancient history to most students with whom firefighters will meet, the message they’ll bring is timely, Babel noted. Fire safety research has changed many of the lessons the Baby Boomer generation learned about dealing with flames and keeping out of harm’s way; teaching the new techniques top the companies’ agendas.

For several years Fire Prevention Week has kicked off locally with day-long activities in the parking lot of Home Depot, Armand Hammer Boulevard, Pottstown PA. It was held last Saturday (Oct. 1) and was heavily attended and the township was well represented, Babel reported. He also submitted to the board fire company service statistics for August 2011:

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 3):

• Local Fire Crews In Schools This Week, Teaching Safety
• Township Bends To Give Garbage Bidders Choices
• The Problems At Pruss Hill Lurk Beneath Its Bridge
• Police Detail At Limerick Hearings Cost $1,468
• Pruss Hill Bridge Might Re-Open With Weight Limit

Photo by Robert Ward from the Sanatoga Fire Company

Christopher Columbus

SANATOGA PA – The Columbus Day holiday is being observed today (Monday, Oct. 10, 2011), and consequently the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, is closed for the day. Its staff returns, and it will reopen for regular business, Tuesday (Oct. 11) beginning at 8 a.m.

Trash and recyclables collections will not change, however. The township reminds local residents to put their garbage cans and recycling bins to the curb as usual today.

Schools within the Pottsgrove School District are open and conducting daily operations, according to its calendar.

Illustration from Google Images

SANATOGA PA – Preparation meetings for Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township‘s 2012 budget may be open to the public, but documents the Board of Commissioners is using to help plan revenue and expense estimates for next year apparently are not, former Commissioner Tom Troutman learned Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 4, 2011).

Troutman, long retired from the board, said he joined members of its budget committee Tuesday for the first of two meetings, intended to be public sessions during which proposed purchases and cost-saving measures would be kicked around for consideration. A budget presented by the committee usually is unveiled in November and adopted – sometimes with modifications, sometimes not – in December.

Although commissioners opened their doors to let outsiders in, they were less forthcoming in providing supporting material. Troutman said the committee rejected his request for copies of paperwork to which they referred in the discussions.

“(I) was refused to get any copies of the info sheets that all had. They said it was not for the public to see until it becomes final. How does this fit into (Pennsylvania’s) Right-To-Know Act?,” Troutman grumbled in an e-mail to The Post.

The Right-To-Know Act, which took effect in January 2009, has been praised as an effective way to provide state residents with more, not less, freedom of information from government officials. “Ensuring open and honest government … can only be attained through the unfettered exchange of information” between it and its citizens, Office of Open Records Executive Director Terry Mutchler has written.

The act practically guarantees citizen access to all kinds of government information that was hidden or denied in the past. It does, however, contain exceptions that allow officials to keep some things private. Many deal with security issues. Some cover personnel information. And two address – you guessed it – budget matters.

The law exempts access to “internal, predecisional deliberations of an agency, its members, employees or officials … relating to a budget recommendation, legislative proposal, legislative amendment, contemplated or proposed policy or course of action, or any research, memos or other documents used in the predecisional deliberations.”

It also exempts “the strategy to be used to develop or achieve the successful adoption of a budget, legislative proposal or regulation.”

To which, upon learning more about the exceptions, Troutman offered: “I guess that the open records act is not as good as I thought.”

The committee’s second scheduled meeting is set for Oct. 18, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Sanatoga PA. Its discussions are separate from the full board’s regular monthly meetings. The sessions can run for as little as one hour and as long as 2-1/2 hours.

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove 2012 budget):

• Open Budget Meetings, He Complains, Not That Open
• Township Committee Planning Two Budget Meetings
• Thanks To Survey Input, Township Preparing Trash Bids
• Pottstown Library Asks Township For Higher Funding

Photo from Google Images

SANATOGA PA – To ensure Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township can attract more than just one bidder for its garbage collection business, the Board of Commissioners said Monday (Oct. 3, 2011) that it’s willing to consider having a hauler pick up trash over a two-day period.

Don’t worry; there’s no guesswork involved. If a multiple day pick-up schedule is ultimately accepted, property owners north of Buchert Road would have their garbage collected on Day One, and those south of Buchert on Day Two. The winning bidder, most likely, would specify the days involved.

Getting multiple bidders involved is what commissioners ardently hope for, as they negotiate a new contract for waste hauling in coming years. The current contract, soon to expire, is held by Norristown-based J.P. Mascaro and Sons. None on the board have openly criticized Mascaro, but they’ve made it clear they want other firms involved in the negotiations to gain some bargaining leverage and lower costs.

Several potential bidders attended an initial meeting earlier this week to review the Lower Pottsgrove’s requirements. All but one clamored for the multiple day option as a way to cut their expenses and, in return, those of the township. Without it, Solicitor K. Kurtz Holloway explained, the firms’ representatives indicated they probably wouldn’t be interested.

“So we run the risk of not getting competitive bids if we don’t do more than one day,” Commissioner Michael McGroarty said. Holloway agreed. “Probably should do that,” McGroarty added.

There’s a precedent for multiple day pick-ups, Manager Rodney Hawthorne noted. Over slightly more than a decade the township has had as many as four, and as few as one, pick-up days scheduled. Buchert Road was the dividing line then too.

Commissioners agreed to “split out multiple days as a bidding option,” as Holloway put it, and create a sort of bidder’s smorgasbord intended to elicit more than one price quote from the competing companies. Another meeting with bidders is planned for next week.

Related:

• Township Bends To Give Garbage Bidders Choices
• Thanks To Survey Input, Township Preparing Trash Bids
• From Township Trash Survey, A Heap Of Interesting Ideas
• Township Didn’t Know You’d Have Trash On Your Mind
• Trash Talkin’: Township Wants Opinions On Messy Topic
• Lower Pottsgrove Seeks Suggestions In A Trash Survey

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 3):

• Township Bends To Give Garbage Bidders Choices
• The Problems At Pruss Hill Lurk Beneath Its Bridge
• Police Detail At Limerick Hearings Cost $1,468
• Pruss Hill Bridge Might Re-Open With Weight Limit

Related:

• Tired of That Suit? Give It To Pottsgrove Music League