Economic Development Coalition Begins Long Journey To Revive Greater Reading

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

What should Berks County’s economy look like in 10 or 20 years?

That’s what eight economic-development and workforce groups explored when they collaborated on the Ride to Prosperity report three years ago. The group wanted to create a greater Reading where residents are more prosperous and happy to live here, where businesses are more innovative and there’s more opportunities.

To start the work, the group filled the report with specific action items that could be done in three to five years.

Three years later, the group has checked some big items off the weighty to-do list.  Berks Park 78 became shovel-ready and attracted three tenants.  A fast-track development program has moved several projects through an express-lane approval process.  Key players stress the importance of eight economic and municipal groups working together for a common goal: a stronger and prosperous economy.

Read more:  http://businessweekly.readingeagle.com/economic-development-coalition-begins-long-journey-to-revive-greater-reading/

Streetlights Proposal A Nonstarter For Reading City Council

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

City residents have been taxed to the hilt and need help from the state to help fix Reading’s financial woes, council members said at a finance, audit and budget committee meeting Monday.

A passionate discussion about the state of the city developed during the meeting, spurred by talk of a proposal to start charging residents for streetlights.

The administration has floated the idea of charging residents for streetlights that provide light to their properties.  Carole B. Snyder, managing director, earlier presented the proposal to council, saying it would free money to pave streets.

The city currently uses money from the state liquid-fuels fund to help pay for electricity for streetlights.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=485327

Bill To Boost Neighborhood Climate Could Freeze Out Reading

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Two competing bills are being introduced in the state Senate that would expand Allentown’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone – unique and highly successful but also highly criticized – to other Pennsylvania cities.

One bill would include Reading; the other would not.

The prize for any city is the zones’ new ability to retain state personal income and sales tax revenue generated in the zone, using it to repay bond issues for demolition, infrastructure and even new buildings.

But both bills, in answer to charges that Allentown’s gains are the state’s losses, would limit how much state tax can be kept locally.

Sen. Lloyd Smucker, a Lancaster Republican, introduced the first bill in early May to authorize what he calls City Revitalization and Improvement Zones.  Its pilot program applies only to cities with 40,000 to 70,000 people.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=484975

Reading Taking Aim At The Drug Trade

Editor’s note:  Dear Attorney General Kane.  Please zero in on Pottstown (18 miles from Reading).  It is overrun with drug dealers, Section 8 slumlords and has a very high crime rate.  The police force is overwhelmed.

Reading is one of the portals through which much of Pennsylvania is receiving illegal drugs, and state Attorney General Kathleen Kane has proposed a plan that she says could help stanch the flow.

“The major source of supply into Harrisburg and Lancaster and York is coming from Reading,” Kane said during an interview with the Reading Eagle at her office in Harrisburg.

Nearing the midway point of her first year in elective office, she said she viewed illegal drugs as the top issue for her in Berks County.  Other pressing issues include child sex predators and consumer protection.  Kane previously worked as a Lackawanna County prosecutor and as an attorney.

Supplies of crack, PCP, heroin or marijuana come to Reading from places such as Arizona, Illinois and New York, with the original major source being Mexico, Kane said.  In Reading, the drugs are repackaged into street-sale quantities and sent out to other parts of Pennsylvania.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=485005

Reading Looks To Rewrite The Rules To Help Business

Contractors, developers and even city officials have complained for years that getting approvals and permits from City Hall is too complicated and takes too long.

Developer Alan Shuman, prodded recently by City Council, said it often takes him four weeks and longer to get permits in hand for many of his projects.

Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer had campaigned on building a more business-friendly City Hall and told a business group in April that it often takes four to six weeks to issue a permit.

“Businesses jump down my throat for that,” he said.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=484891

Program Profiles Reading Redevelopment Efforts

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

Efforts to revitalize Reading’s economy were highlighted Thursday in a live national round-table online discussion that included panelists from California and Georgia.

“Albert Boscov is very good at shaking money trees, and I collect the bills,” said Adam Mukerji, executive director of the Reading Redevelopment Authority, who sat in for the retailer Boscov, a key figure with Our City Reading, a group committed to helping first-time buyers purchase refurbished city homes.

Mukerji described the retailer “as one of the most charitable persons I have ever worked with.”

Conversation Starters, a national nonprofit based in College Station, Texas, hosted the third in a series focusing on nationwide ideas for community building and economic development.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=484645

Census: Asians Fastest-Growing Group In Berks

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

An increase of Asians in Berks County is now outpacing a persistently booming growth of Latinos while the number of non-Latino whites has decreased.

With a growth rate of 8.7 percent between the April 1, 2010, Census and estimates taken July 1, 2012, Asians were the fastest growing minority nationwide and in Berks, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Click here for charts showing population growth in Berks County, Pennsylvania and the nation

Berks reflects long-standing state and national trends of rapid growth among Asians and Latinos.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=484432

Project Assures Penn Street A Project Visibly Brighter Future

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

Penn Street is slated for $1 million in upgrades this summer that will include new and brighter streetlights from Second to Eighth streets.

It also will include replacing the gap-toothed crosswalks at Penn’s intersections with Second and Third, replacing the bouncy bricks with plastic grids like the crosswalk at Eighth and Penn.

Both projects will get underway at the same time, likely August or September, city Public Works Director Charles M. Jones said.

And he said both are funded by federal highway grants, not local tax money.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=483519

Reading Police Find Bullet-Riddled Body Of Man Near Storage Business

Reading police found the bullet-riddled body of a man next to a self-storage unit in the city early Wednesday morning.

Police said they received a call from a passer-by about 2:20 a.m. reporting a man down near a locker at a storage business in the 400 block of Blair Avenue.

When investigators arrived at the site just off Schuylkill Avenue they found the body of a 36-year-old Latino man on the ground toward the back of the storage facility.

Sgt. John M. Solecki of the criminal investigations division said the victim did odd jobs at the storage facility for patrons – like watch their cars and valuables – for tips.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=482935

Reading Administration Revives Proposal For Streetlight Assessments

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

Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer’s administration is reviving a proposal to impose a streetlight assessment that might cost a row home owner $16 a year, but larger property owners several thousand dollars.

Managing Director Carole B. Snyder asked City Council on Monday to consider introducing the enabling ordinance this month, to get some benefit from it this year.

“We don’t want to put any more burden on anyone, but we’re limited on options,” Snyder said.

The fee is being considered because it’s one of the few ways to get the 32 percent of city properties exempt from property taxes to pay for city services, she said.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=482631

Stealing Burglars’ Thunder: New Reading Police Unit Solving Crimes Fast

Editor’s note:  Two Roy’s Rants thumbs up!!!

The dedicated burglary unit is in line with Chief William M. Heim’s crime reduction strategy, which relies on focused policing to do more with less manpower.

Serial burglars in Reading are feeling the heat due to the formation of a city police squad that specializes in investigating burglaries.

The squad was started in early March with the temporary transfer of two patrolmen to the criminal investigations division, said Sgt. John M. Solecki, who supervises the unit.

Solecki credited the burglary squad – consisting of officers James Kennedy and Christopher Bucklin – with two recent arrests of suspected serial burglars.

About two-dozen burglaries have been cleared as a result of those and other arrests, he said.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=482406

Party Atmosphere Aids Painters Working To Brighten Reading Blocks

Replacing their button-down collars for T-shirts, employees of several local firms and organizations grabbed scrapers and paintbrushes and helped 20 families in the 6th Ward spruce up the facades of their homes Saturday.

It was part of Operation Facelift, run by Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Berks Inc. since 1989.

This year it focused on the 200 and 300 blocks of North Second Street and the 100 block of Elm Street.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=482280

Season’s First Heat Wave Expected To End With A Bang On Sunday

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

Berks County‘s first official heat wave of the year is expected to morph into the first major summertime thunderstorm, starting Sunday afternoon into evening with gusty winds of 60 mph, torrential downpours, lots of lightning strikes and perhaps some damage, a meteorologist said.

“It certainly could pack a punch,” said Erik Pindrock of AccuWeather near State College.

Since it’s expected to be the first major lightning storm of the season, Pindrock said it’s important for everyone – but especially those working outside – to take it seriously, learn the facts about lightning and take the proper precautions, which mostly is to get inside.

“It’s a good rule that, if you’re outside and can hear thunder, it’s probably close enough to get hit by lightning,” said Pindrock, who grew up in Shillington.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=482165

Labor Board Sides With Reading Teachers: District Negotiators Had Conflict

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

The state Labor Relations Board has ruled in favor of the city’s teachers union in a claim against the Reading School District.

The Reading Education Association had filed an unfair labor practice in February 2012, claiming two board members formerly on the district’s negotiation team should be removed.

The union claimed that Karen H. McCree should be barred from negotiations because she is a member of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the Reading union’s parent organization.  McCree works for the Delaware County Intermediate Unit.

Robert F. Heebner Jr. should be taken off the negotiation team, the union claimed, because as a former Reading teacher he was a member of the Reading Education Association.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=481952

Reading Royals Crush Stockton, Win First Kelly Cup

Stockton, CA – Yannick Tifu lifted the Kelly Cup high above his head, looked toward a contingent of Reading Royals fans who were gathered behind their team’s bench and let out a loud, proud scream.

The work was done, the title was secured and it was time to party.

The Royals claimed their first ECHL Kelly Cup championship on Saturday with a dominating 6-0 win against the Thunder in front of a crowd of 4,662 at Stockton Arena.

The Royals took control of the game with a four-goal second period and another sterling performance by goaltender Riley Gill, who earned the finals most valuable player award.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=481015

Deficit To Get Millions Worse In Future, Reading City Council Told

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

City Controller Christian Zale on Monday pressed his case, again, to City Council: Unless the city makes some drastic changes, it’s facing a $35 million cumulative deficit by 2017.

However, those changes can’t include bigger property tax hikes; Zale said his projection already assumes the city raises the property tax by 5 percent in each of the next four years.

But he said the tax increases cut the deficit by only $10 million.  Without them, the deficit rises to $45 million.

“Me being conservative, I tried to be as gloomy as I could,” Zale told council.  ”And quite frankly, I don’t want to hear (that) we’ll approach that and try to solve it when that time comes.”

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=479276

TV Program On Reading’s Future Takes First Place

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

A program produced by WFMZ-TV and Reading Eagle Company took first place in the public affairs category over the weekend at the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association awards banquet for 2012 in Harrisburg.

It was previously announced that “From Poverty to Prosperity: Reading Looks to the Future” finished in the top three in the category for medium-market TV stations, but its exact finish was not announced until the banquet.

The program was a joint effort between print and television media, sponsored by M&T Bank in collaboration with United Way of Berks County and hosted by Reading Area Community College.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=479294

Business Spearheads Cleanup At 10th & South

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

Editor’s note:  Two Roy’s Rants thumbs up for Penny Dutch Apparel and private sector involvement!

Vanessa Velez and her mother, Karen, worked in tandem as they shoveled leaves, dirt and debris into orange bags at Reading’s 10th & South Playground.

“We’re just trying to help out, and give the kids a nice place to play,” said Karen Velez of Ephrata.

The mother-daughter pair were among about a dozen volunteers who helped clean up the playground Saturday.

The cleanup was organized by Penny Dutch Apparel of Mountville, Lancaster County, with support from the nonprofit Reading Beautification Inc.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=478864

Stokesay Castle Savior Recounts Memorable Career

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

The bolt of lightning that lit up Stokesay Castle just before Christmas in 1991 was invisible to everyone except the first-time visitor who experienced it.

It was a brilliant, internal flash of recognition that took place in the mind of Jack D. Gulati.

A veteran buyer and seller of businesses who had immigrated to the U.S. from India as a teenager, Gulati had learned to profit from such moments.  He had experienced many.  Like all the other times, as he absorbed the hulking medieval-style grandeur of Stokesay, he saw two simple things.

Value and possibility.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=478200

Hesitant Exeter School Board Hikes Taxes In Tentative Budget

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

Tough budgetary times call for tough decisions.

But in the Exeter School District, it looks as though school officials might put off some of those decisions for at least another year.

The school board voted 7-2 Tuesday to pass a $66.8 million tentative budget that would raise taxes 2.5 percent next year but forgo any major cuts to programs or staffing.

“We’ve been paring down as much as possible,” board member Joseph R. Staub said. “None of us want to take a tax increase, but unfortunately it is the system we have until they (the state) take the burden off of homeowners.”

Read more:   http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=477240