Former Pennsylvania Governor George Leader Honored At Funeral Service

Standard of the Governor of Pennsylvania http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-pa.html#gov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HERSHEY, PA – Douglas Yeboah first met George Leader about eight years ago while working as a chaplain at the state prison in Chester.

Leader had sponsored a program at the prison to provide guidance and mentors to inmates, giving them a second chance. He believed in second chances and he believed in helping people in prison, people others had discarded or forgotten.

Not long after that, Yeboah retired from the prison system and moved back to his native Ghana.  He kept in touch with Leader and the former governor would often ask about Yeboah’s work.  The work, he always told him, was hard.  There was so much need in Ghana, so much pain and suffering.  Yeboah told him that children lacked medical care and that many of their maladies were preventable, if only they had access to clean drinking water.

Leader asked what he could do and in a short time, a drilling rig to dig wells for clean water was on its way to Ghana.  Yeboah mentioned to Leader that he hoped one day to build a children’s hospital, but it was out of his reach.  Leader told him he could do it, he could make it happen.

Read more:  http://www.ydr.com/local/ci_23259461/gov-george-leader-laid-rest

Studies On 2 Berks Highways To Shape Work Plans

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Studies to find out what it would take to make two of Berks County’s most-congested highways a quicker go are now underway.

PennDOT consultants are examining the seven-mile stretch of Route 222 between the Kutztown Bypass in Maxatawny Township and the Trexlertown Bypass in Lehigh County to see how much it would cost to widen it to four lanes.

At the same time, another team is looking at the West Shore Bypass between Wyomissing and Exeter Township to determine what changes could improve traffic flow.

Both studies were discussed Thursday during a meeting of the Reading Area Transportation Study, the panel that plans how state and federal transportation funds are spent in Berks.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=474858

Saint Vincent Reaches Final Agreement With Highmark

Headquarters of the insurance company in Pittsburgh, , . Address 120 Fifth Ave., Downtown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  Those folks at Highmark are gobbling up anything that’s not nailed down!

Erie, PA – The future of Saint Vincent Health System is now in the hands of Erie County Orphans’ Court.

Saint Vincent and Highmark Inc. have reached a definitive agreement for the Erie hospital to join Highmark’s integrated delivery system — the newly named Allegheny Health Network.

Saint Vincent would join Jefferson Regional Medical Center and West Penn Allegheny Health System in the network.  The Pennsylvania Insurance Department announced its approval Monday of Highmark’s takeover of West Penn.

“We look forward to joining the Highmark (network) in the very near future, along with Jefferson Regional Medical Center and West Penn Allegheny Health System, as we work to preserve health-care choice and ensure access to the highest level of quality care for residents throughout all of western Pennsylvania,” Saint Vincent Chief Executive Scott Whalen said in a statement.

Read more:

http://goerie.com/article/20130430/NEWS02/304309961/Saint-Vincent-reaches-final-agreement-with-Highmark

Schwartz Launches Her 2014 Bid For Governor

English: Official congressional portrait of Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As U.S. REP. Allyson Schwartz gears up for a 2014 gubernatorial campaign, a familiar name is talking about succeeding her in the 13th Congressional District, which covers parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Marjorie Margolies, a former television reporter who teaches at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, held that seat for one term, from 1993 to 1995.

She famously lost re-election after changing her 1993 vote on then-President Bill Clinton’s budget, giving him a one-vote margin of victory that broke her promise not to support an increase in federal taxes.

There are no hard feelings, though, since they are now related by marriage – Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, is married to Margolies’ son.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20130409_Schwartz_launches_her_2014_bid_for_governor.html

US Airways Moon Township Center May Close

FAA Airport Diagram of KPIT (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

US Airways may jettison yet another Pittsburgh International Airport facility built specifically for its needs — one financed with the help of more than $16 million in public subsidies.

In a meeting last week with pilots, US Airways CEO Doug Parker said the carrier may close its state-of-the-art operations control center in Moon in “a couple years” as a result of its merger with bankrupt American Airlines.

If Mr. Parker’s prediction holds true, it would be the latest blow to a region that has seen US Airways slash more than 10,000 jobs and hundreds of flights over the past decade.  The airline also eliminated its Pittsburgh hub in 2004 — 12 years after the midfield terminal, built to its specifications, opened to support the airline’s growing needs. US Airways now has about 1,800 employees in the region.

Closing the operations control center would cost the region another 700 jobs.  The 72,000-square-foot building opened in November 2008 after Pennsylvania and Allegheny County officials outbid Charlotte, N.C., and Phoenix for the facility.  It combined a center in Findlay that US Airways had operated for 11 years and a smaller one in Phoenix, the result of the carrier’s 2005 merger with America West Airlines.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/us-airways-moon-center-may-close-680893/#ixzz2OfqwUXRr

Pennsylvania Pushes Drillers To Frack With Coal Mine Water

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Each day, 300 million gallons of polluted mine water enters Pennsylvania streams and rivers, turning many of them into dead zones unable to support aquatic life. At the same time, drilling companies use up to 5 million gallons of fresh water for every natural-gas well they frack.

State environmental officials and coal region lawmakers are hoping that the state’s newest extractive industry can help clean up a giant mess left by the last one. They are encouraging drillers to use tainted coal mine water to hydraulically fracture gas wells in the Marcellus Shale formation, with the twin goals of diverting pollution from streams and rivers that now run orange with mine drainage and reducing the drillers’ reliance on fresh sources of water.

Drainage from abandoned mines is one of the state’s worst environmental headaches, impairing 5,500 miles of waterways.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=461598

Berks School Boards Face More Tough Choices In 2013-14 Budget Process

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States Public School Districts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s looking like another tough budget season for school districts across Berks County.

Of the 13 local districts that have prepared preliminary budgets, all but one spending plan included significant shortfalls, ranging from about $400,000 to $2.2 million.

Muhlenberg’s budget doesn’t have a gap, but it currently includes a property tax increase larger than the state permits.

Budget gaps among districts can be somewhat hard to compare, because some include tax increases or major cuts in their preliminary budgets while others don’t.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=454915

Pa. May Pull Back On Funding For Redevelopment Projects

Map of Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s most sweeping economic development programs could see a limited spending cap and permanent guidelines under a recently passed proposal.

The state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (often called “R-Cap”) provides grants with borrowed money for private projects pursued by municipalities and local agencies.

That could include hospital expansions, parking garages or community centers — any project with a cultural, civic or historical connection that could create jobs and be tied to economic development.

But the program is often criticized as a questionable source of ballooning debt.

RACP’s debt ceiling is $4.05 billion, about 10 times what it was when it was created in 1986.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130224/NEWS03/130229703/pa-may-pull-back-on-funding-for-redevelopment-projects#full_story

Allyson Schwartz Nearly Certain To Face Corbett, insiders Say

English: Official congressional portrait of Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz is all but certain to run for governor next year, buoyed by a $3.1 million campaign fund and a recent poll that showed her leading Gov. Corbett in a test matchup, according to several people familiar with the Montgomery County Democrat’s thinking.

The five-term House member from Jenkintown has been positioning herself for a gubernatorial run for a couple of months.

As evidence of her increasing prominence, the Pennsylvania GOP, in its statement last week responding to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, asked: “When will Allyson Schwartz present a serious plan to control spending?”

“She’s making all the phone calls, taking all the meetings you would do to run for governor, but I don’t think she’s made her final decision,” said Montgomery County Democratic Chairman Marcel Groen. He has estimated the chance of Schwartz’s running at better than 80 percent.

Read more:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/state/20130218_Allyson_Schwartz_nearly_certain_to_face_Corbett__insiders_say.html

Boyertown School Board OKs Preliminary Budget, Will Apply For Tax-Hike Exceptions

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States Public School Districts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Boyertown School Board members voted 7-1 to adopt a $95.58 million preliminary budget for 2013-14, but not without airing concerns about tax hikes.

Before passing the preliminary budget Tuesday, the board voted 6-2 to pursue exceptions to exceed the state’s Act 1 index, which would otherwise cap the tax increase at 2.1 percent.

Ruth A. Dierolf and Joseph Nichols voted against pursuing exceptions, which would allow tax hikes as high as 3 percent and 2.4 percent in Berks and Montgomery counties, respectively.

The increases would raise annual taxes on properties assessed at $100,000 by $67 in Berks and by $55 in Montgomery.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=452502

PennDOT Efficiency Drive Could Free Up Funds For Roadwork

Editor’s note:  Who ever thought we would see PennDOT and efficiency in the same sentence!

Extra taxes and fees aren’t the only tricks PennDOT has up its sleeves to round up more money for road projects.

The agency’s also turning to some less obvious solutions to its funding woes, such as mail-sorting machines and more durable highway paint.

PennDOT’s put together a list of technology investments, policy changes and other tweaks it thinks could save the state $50 million to $75 million a year and, in some cases, make the agency a little more pleasant to deal with.

The anticipated savings are a drop in the bucket compared with the $3.5 billion gap between available funding and the state’s transportation needs.  But it’s something.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=446586

‘We Have To Do Better’

A 1947 topographic map of the Reading, Pennsylvania area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

City statistics showing that the once-declining number of violent crimes in Reading began to edge up in 2012 drew a variety of reactions Thursday from city, county and community leaders.

Most agreed the trend means it is even more pressing to work on the follow-up ideas coming from last week’s crime summit.

Released Wednesday, the statistics also show crime is less than it was a decade ago.

But that brought a warning: Don’t accept the situation as the city’s new normal.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=445862

PPL To Seek Fee To Help Pay For Upgrades

PPL Electric Utilities is planning $705 million in improvements to its infrastructure over the next five years and is turning to its customers to help pay the bill.

PPL spokesman Bryan Hay said the company plans to file a petition this week with the state Public Utility Commission asking for a new fee that would help fund improvements to the company’s distribution system.

Hay did not provide specifics about the new charge, but said details would be released this week.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=443503

Pottstown School Board Will Keep Property Tax Hike To 2.4% State Limit

Location of Pottstown in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

POTTSTOWN — The Pottstown School Board will limit a property tax increase for the 2013-14 school year to 2.4 percent.

Each year about this time, under the state’s Act 1 legislation, school boards must decide whether to have the administration prepare a preliminary budget for examination, or pledge simply to keep beneath the state-determined index or “cap” for any property tax increases required as part of the budget that gets adopted in June.

The law requires that decision to be made 111 days prior to the spring primary.

That’s because if the board decides it wants to adopt a budget with a tax hike higher than the index allows, it must be approved by voters in that election.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130104/NEWS01/130109843/pottstown-school-board-will-keep-property-tax-hike-to-2-4-state-limit#full_story

Chamber Of Commerce President Joins Call For Reading Crime Summit

English: Downtown Reading, Pennsylvania; with Berks County courthouse on left; July 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While multiple independent efforts push toward scheduling a crime summit for Reading – including a pre-summit planning session set for Monday in the offices of state Sen. Judy Schwank – business executives are casting votes on the city’s tarnished image with their feet.

New executives hired by Berks companies are choosing to live in Chester or Montgomery counties, preferring greater proximity to Philadelphia, according to Ellen T. Horan, president and CEO of the Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce & Industry.  Horan, citing conversations with officials at Berks companies, said the perception of the city as crime-infested is repelling executive talent.

“The summit is a great idea,” Horan said. “I would like to see a little more urgency.”

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=434050

Questions Of Unethical, Sexual Conduct By Pottstown Police Chief/Interim Borough Manager Mark Flanders

Editor’s Note:   The Goldencockroach has opened Pandora’s box, also known as Pottstown politics, and all kinds of noxious gases are escaping into the atmosphere.   Getting to the bottom of the shenanigans going on in Pottstown Borough Hall is like peeling a rotten onion. Each layer is more putrid that the previous one.

The governing process utilized by borough leadership is mushroom management.  Keep the taxpayers in the dark and buried in dung.  There is plenty of dung to go around.  

The elected leadership of Pottstown evidently has a fondness for the feudal system.  The taxpayers aka “serfs” are treated as a nonentity and taxed to death.  The leadership aka the “landed gentry” recklessly spend tax dollars like there is no tomorrow.  

Speaking of reckless spending, evidently we wasted money on a supposed national search for a new borough manager only to have the job handed to Mark Flanders.  So you people are telling us there no one person in the United States of America who is more qualified to run Pottstown than the Chief of Police?????  Has anybody noticed the crime rate in Pottstown???? Evidently we reward poor performance with a promotion and a hefty raise.  Are there even metrics in place in borough hall to evaluate employees or do we just give raises and promotions to our friends?  Knod, knod, wink, wink…

An outside agency, not connected to anyone in Pottstown, nor intimidated by anyone in Pottstown, needs to do a thorough audit of Pottstown Borough Council and Pottstown Borough Hall.  We think the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should involve itself in an official capacity. If not Act 47 then the establishment of an oversight committee to ensure borough government becomes more transparent, review the overinflated budget and come up with a more realistic number for a borough of 22,377 inhabitants.

Click on the link below to read a ‘Peyton Place’ like narrative from the Goldencockroach: 

http://goldencockroach.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/allegations-of-unethical-sexual-conduct-by-pottstown-police-chiefinterim-borough-manager-mark-flanders/

PA-NY-NJ Picking Up After Hurricane Sandy’s Epic Devastation

The sodden, wind-blown tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania began an arduous journey back to normal on Wednesday after mammoth storm Sandy killed at least 82 people in a rampage that swamped coastal cities and cut power to millions across the Northeast.

Financial markets reopened with the New York Stock Exchange running on generator power after the first weather-related two-day closure since an 1888 blizzard. Packed buses took commuters to work with New York’s subway system idle after seawater flooded its tunnels.

The U. S. Navy said it was moving ships closer to areas affected by the disaster in case they might be needed, including the helicopter carrier USS Wasp.

Sandy killed 69 people in the Caribbean as a hurricane before crashing ashore just south of Atlantic City, N.J. Monday night as Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy, which became a rare hybrid superstorm after merging with another weather system to deliver 80 mile-per-hour winds and record storm surges.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-ny-nj-hurricane-sandy-update-1101-20121101,0,5611775,full.story

Superstorm Weakening, Worst Has Passed For Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA — A one-two punch of rain and high wind from a monster hybrid storm that started out as a hurricane battered Pennsylvania, leaving more than a million people without power as officials prepared to assess the damage Tuesday.

The storm soaked Philadelphia and its suburbs Monday night but forecasters said the worst was behind the state by daybreak Tuesday.

Major interstates around Philadelphia reopened Tuesday morning although some speed and vehicle restrictions remained in place across the state.  Additional road closures were likely in the day ahead, as the center of the storm was forecast to turn north from the Harrisburg area.

The severity of the storm in Pennsylvania expressed itself during the day Monday through a set of increasingly worrisome numbers, from the hundreds of people who fled their homes in the southeastern part of the state to the power outages affecting more than 1.2 million customers by early Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20121030/NEWS03/121039970/superstorm-weakening-worst-has-passed-for-pa-

Worst Of Hurricane Sandy Expected In Western Pennsylvania Tonight

Locator map of the Greater Pittsburgh metro area in the western part of the of . Red denotes the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, and yellow denotes the New Castle Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania utility companies are reporting that more than 30,000 people are already without power around the state, in the first wave of what are expected to be an increasing number of outages because of Hurricane Sandy.

At 3:15 p.m. Monday PECO was reporting over 15,000 customers without power, mostly in the Philadelphia area.  First Energy reports more than 8,000 and PPL about 8,000, including some in the Harrisburg area.

The utilities have lined up extra repair crews, but they still say some people could be without power for days.

Larger numbers of people are already without power in New Jersey.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/region/hurricane-sandy-impacts-beginning-to-be-felt-into-western-pennsylvania-659697/#ixzz2AjIf57gf

Monster Storm Closing In On Lehigh Valley Region

Icon for a Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale Category 1 hurricane. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After almost a week of ominous forecasts, the weather system born of a giant hurricane, a winter storm and an arctic air mass is upon us.  And it’s not going anywhere fast.

Across the Lehigh Valley, residents and government officials worked through the weekend to protect lives and property as Hurricane Sandy morphed into a gargantuan storm that will affect every part of the Northeast.

Although Sandy, which remained a Category 1 hurricane, was not expected to make landfall on the New Jersey coast until late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, the storm’s effects have been felt since Sunday evening.  Ahead of Sandy’s landfall, every school district in the Lehigh Valley canceled Monday’s classes.  Some colleges closed through Tuesday.

The worst of the weather will persist throughout the day Monday, with sustained winds from 35 to 45 mph and gusts up to 55 mph.  That will bring down tree limbs and small trees causing power outages and property damage.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-hurricane-sandy-impact-20121028,0,6460543.story