No Pottstown Tax Hike Due, In Part, To 3-Year-Old Report Says Council President

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

Editor’s note:  And also due to the tireless efforts of Jason Bobst, Janice Lee and Dan Weand for fixing the broken accounting system.  Imagine what Pottstown could become if Council President Toroney followed the ULI Report recommendations!

POTTSTOWN — Borough Council President Stephen Toroney credited a 2009 consultant report on the borough’s finances for starting Pottstown down the road to what he considers a landmark achievement, that was made official Monday with the adoption of a $38.5 million that does not raise borough taxes for the first time in recent memory.

Councilman Mark Gibson, who, as a paid driver for the Empire Fire Company could be said to benefit financially by voting for the budget, which makes contributions to the fire companies, abstained from the vote.

But the budget, officially balanced at $38,530,729, otherwise received unanimous support from the remainder of council.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20121214/NEWS01/121219662/no-pottstown-tax-hike-due-in-part-to-3-year-old-report-says-council-president#full_story

Turnovers Plague Eagles In Loss To Cincinnati

Andy Reid, Philadelphia Eagles’ coach, after the Eagles’ training camp in Lehigh, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PHILADELPHIA – Following a one-game flirtation with competence, the Philadelphia Eagles got back to doing what they do best Thursday night.

That is, they couldn’t get out of their own way in another embarrassing defeat, this one a 34-13 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals at Lincoln Financial Field.

Making this one even more disgraceful was that the Eagles (4-10) were ahead late in the third quarter before the wheels came off in a dumbfounding series of turnovers that led to 24 Cincinnati points in 31/2 minutes.

Leading by three and in position to extend the advantage and win their second in a row after losing eight straight games, the bumbling Birds instead turned the ball over four times in the next six minutes to match their season high with five giveaways.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=435189

Reading Crime Summit Objectives Outlined

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Momentum toward creating a new, multijurisdiction approach to attacking crime in Reading and Berks County gathered quickly at a Thursday meeting called by county officials to plan next month’s crime summit.

The summit is set for Jan. 18, but District Attorney John T. Adams, county commissioners and others made it clear that a push to redeploy area law enforcement assets would start before then.

Their main reason was that, summit or not, there appears to be little hope of getting significant help from the financially strapped state and federal governments to deal with city and county crime.

“It is using our existing resources and redeploying them more effectively than we have in the past,” said state Sen. Judy Schwank, a Ruscombmanor Township Democrat. “I don’t see a cavalry coming.”

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=435148