It's green, like money, and that's exactly what is being demanded

Jennifer Marsteller

SANATOGA PA – Most Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township residents see Jennifer Marsteller’s name twice a year … and that’s all, if they’re lucky.

Marsteller holds what may be the one of the world’s most thankless jobs: she’s the township treasurer and tax collector. Recipients of her semi-annual notices that taxes are due more than likely wish she would lose their addresses. That’s not about to happen, of course. The tax bills for which she is responsible are Lower Pottsgrove’s way of telling property owners they matter. That they are not forgotten.

And that they’d better pay up.

Marsteller on Thursday (March 1, 2012) mailed her first salvo of 2012, the yearly combined township, fire, and Montgomery County tax bills. They arrived in many mailboxes on Saturday (March 3) and are payable without penalty at her office, in Suite 1 of 1954 E. High St., Sanatoga PA, by June 30. Taxpayers who ante up by or before April 30 earn a 2-percent discount on the face amount. Those who pay on July 1 or later face a 10-percent penalty fee.

For those interested in actually meeting a living person before they part with their cash, Marsteller’s office hours are:

• Mondays from 4-7 p.m., except the first Monday of each month when she closes at 6:30 p.m.;
• Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon; and
• from March through June on the first and third Saturdays of each month, from 10 a.m. to noon.

Marsteller reports to The Post she will continue this year to be available for special appointments, during which she will accept payments, even though she said an announcement of that option was inadvertently omitted from the newest bills.

Marsteller has planned for foot-draggers, stragglers and last-minute types, too. Just before the April discount period expires, her office will be open April 27 from 4-8 p.m., April 28 from 10 a.m. to noon, and April 29 from 9 a.m. to noon and 4-8 p.m. Similarly, just before the penalty period kicks in, Marsteller will be available June 29 from 9 a.m. to noon, and June 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Her second shot over the property owners’ bow will be fired about July 1. That’s when the Pottsgrove School District tax bills are due to be sent out.