Pottstown Council Gives Carousel Project Top Funding Priority

Editor’s note:  I am glad to see that this project may soon be completed and start bringing in money!

POTTSTOWN — Borough Council has selected the Carousel at Pottstown and surrounding entrance to town as its top priority in its annual funding request to the Montgomery County Revitalization Fund.

The unanimous council vote followed the recommendation of Borough Manager Jason Bobst and grants coordinator Erica Weekley, both of whom said the funding could complete the long-running Carousel project and allow it to open to the public.

Key to that recommendation was the news that the Carousel organization had been issued a challenge by a donor, who pledged to match any funding raised. Council made its recommendation and the ultimate awarding of the funding contingent upon that pledge being realized.

Jim Arms, who acts as the liaison between council and the Carousel board of directors, told council Monday that, he is “99.9 percent sure” of the funding. “It was put to me as a challenge,” he said.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20120115/NEWS01/120119804/pottstown-council-gives-carousel-project-top-funding-priority

Pottstown Senior Center Finds New Home

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Editor’s note:  We are glad that the Senior Center will stay in the borough of Pottstown where it belongs.  Furthermore, we are happy to see the former Pottstown Health Club building be reoccupied before it turns into a blighted property!  A win-win by all accounts!

POTTSTOWN, PA — After years of searching, the Pottstown Area Senior Center has finally found a new home: the former Pottstown Health Club site on Moser Road.

It was 1997 when the decision was made to leave the senior center’s former downtown home, the former Eagles building, and move into space in the expanded YMCA.

But a decade later, with both organizations growing, both needed more space.  And so the search began.

Locations investigated included the former East Penn AAA building on South Hanover and South Street and the former Dames Chevrolet dealership on High Street, as well as the former Giant supermarket, former Super-Fresh (now site of Wawa) and St. Pius X High School.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20120115/NEWS01/120119806/pottstown-senior-center-finds-new-home

Chester-Upland School District May Run Out Of Cash

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CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Nearly two decades after being declared financially distressed, the school system in this struggling Philadelphia suburb faces a new and even more daunting crisis: It may run out of cash.

Administrators in the Chester Upland School District, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest systems and once the center of a failed experiment in school privatization, say they won’t be able to make payroll Wednesday unless the state advances the district $18.7 million in expected funding. While teachers and staff have vowed to continue working, the situation has thrown the system into new turmoil and has parents scrambling for other options.

Hoping to avoid a shutdown, the school filed a lawsuit Thursday, declaring a “cash-flow crisis” and asking a judge to tell state Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis that he must act to provide students in the district with a “thorough and efficient educational system.” Meanwhile, anxious parents are looking at other options for their children, such as sending them to private schools or having them live with relatives and go to other public schools.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120115/NEWS03/120119722

Pennsylvania Near Top In U.S. In Air Pollution

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Pennsylvania is second only to Texas in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and refineries, and two of the state’s top 10 polluters are facilities owned by PPL Corp. of Allentown, new federal data show.

Nationwide, the electric industry is responsible for the bulk of U.S. pollution blamed for global warming, according to the data, which were released Wednesday in the government’s first public catalog of individual polluters.  Power plants accounted for 72 percent of the greenhouse gases reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 2010.

Specifically, the main culprit is coal, which is as cheap as it is dirty.  Twenty mostly coal-fired power plants in 15 states were among the worst polluters.

Among the biggest offenders in Pennsylvania were PPL’s Brunner Island plant in York County and its Montour plant in Montour County.  Together, they spewed the equivalent of 18.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-greenhouse-gasses-20120112,0,6222628.story

Pottsville Based Yuengling Becomes Largest U.S.-Owned Brewery

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D.G. Yuengling and Son, which proudly bills itself as America’s oldest brewery, has something new to brag about.

The Pottsville company, whose sales surged last year when it entered Ohio, has become the largest American beer-maker by surpassing Boston Beer in 2011 sales.

That’s right. A beer launched by a German immigrant in 1829 to quench the thirst of Pennsylvania coal miners can claim a distinction once held by Anheuser-Busch, maker of the iconic Budweiser brand, which got gobbled up by a Belgian company a few years ago.

It’s a surprising story about how an underdog prevailed while much larger American brewers fell under foreign ownership. Even beer market experts could not have foreseen such rapid changes.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-allentown-yuengling-sales-20120112,0,287571.story