Location of Pottstown in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Editor’s note: Considering the same 5 square miles comprises the school district and the borough, this is well overdue. However, on a positive note, we will hope this leads to substantive change for the beleaguered Pottstown taxpayer.
POTTSTOWN — It won’t just be the location of the joint school board/borough council meeting Tuesday that is unusual.
The agenda is short, unusual in itself, and further, it is focused almost exclusively on breaking down barriers to cooperation.
“We want to set the stage for collaborating, for open communication,” said schools Superintendent Jeff Sparagana who, along with Borough Manager Mark Flanders, met with The Mercury Thursday to outline their efforts.
“That’s one of the reasons we wanted to have the meeting off-site,” said Flanders. “To put everyone in a setting that encourages participation and interaction.”
This has the potential to be such a positive direction for Pottstown. It seems apparent that both entities are exploring ways that they can make community participation in local government a less formal, more open process – AND – communicating with each other.
There are so many bright, enthusiastic residents that cower from the format of the council meetings where they are not permitted to take part in the conversation.
As a consequence, the conversations take place among residents who continuously chide council and management because they will not make the effort to reach out to the people who live here. It will probably take some time to trust that their participation is valued and a determined effort will have to be made by local government but, if this is the beginning of a path to inclusion, it’s very very encouraging.
It is encouraging. Let’s hope it doesn’t get derailed.
I’m anxious to hear how it turns out-for real, from someone who’ll give us a candid brief..Amy Francis, you reading this? I’ll be an optimist and hope this is the beginning of more open, positive communication and that the borough and School District get down to doing real work to improve the lives of their constituents!