Today’s Pottstown Mercury has an article written by Evan Brandt which certainly makes this resident smile. Pottstown is finally taking a stand against being skirted by development and having jobs and taxes sucked out of the borough. Bravo!
Dan Weand and Steve Toroney appear to be the ring leaders in this movement based on the article. Both are Borough Councilmen (Toroney is President) and on the Pottstown Planning Commission. Steve Toroney also serves on the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Committee.
The recent construction of Upland Square in West Pottsgrove Township and the proposed Commerce Corner center in Upper Pottsgrove Township have prompted this stand. Giant and several other large stores have left Pottstown Plaza and Pottstown Center for Upland Square, thereby taking tax dollars and jobs with them. Giant also evidently holds the lease on their former Pottstown Plaza site to keep competition out. I cry foul! That shopping center needs tenants to fill it back up again. Purposely keeping that store vacant is just wrong and hurts Pottstown! People need to know these things so they can make informed decisions about where they want to shop!
The State Street and Route 100 intersection will need redesigned again to accommodate Commerce Corner. Part of the plan would be to make the entrance into Commerce Corner from Wilson Street. The entrance would be from Pottstown Borough but Pottstown would not see any revenue, just more traffic on Wilson Street!
Certainly everyone benefits from the jobs created by Upland Square and the potential jobs from Commerce Corner. However, harming Pottstown in the process is wrong. This border development places a strain on Pottstown’s infrastructure such as increased water, sewer and police assistance. Working together regionally is the only way to go.
I hope this movement gains traction and Pottstown can start to benefit from all this development instead of being surrounded by it! More development is in the works!
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It seems to me that the multiple conflicting and competing layers of government in PA kind of makes it tough to resolve the problems you enumerate.
I love it here, but the other states I have lived in have only two levels of beaurocracy beneath them to deal with: city and county.
Here in PA we also have boroughs, townships and other small political entities that probably made sense at the time they were created in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, I wonder how any of them cooperate. (Not too well from what I have observed as a property and business owner!)
Mike, you are so correct in your assessment. It hampers development and makes things dicey when trying to accomplish things. I have also lived in other states but prefer Pennsylvania, despite some of the archaic configurations. Guess that comes from being an original colony way back in the day 🙂
It also is a big reason why cities in other states are growing and in Pennsylvania not, for the most part. Annexation is almost impossible here. In other states cities can annex outlying areas to increase their population and area.