First Nonprofit Supermarket Opens In Chester

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

CHESTER, PA. — In Chester, a city where hard times often plow under shiny promises, a hunger-relief agency’s pledge to build America’s first nonprofit supermarket was greeted skeptically at first.

But Philabundance may be confounding local doubters. Its Fare & Square grocery store, seven years in the making, is ready to open its doors this morning, a rare oasis in what has been called a food desert.

“No one believed this was coming,” said Denina Hood, a Chester native and an employee of the store that will become the first supermarket in town since 2001. “But this store isn’t going anywhere.”

Usually in the business of distributing donated food to pantries in the Delaware Valley, Philabundance, a nonprofit, has augmented its mission and become a store owner, charging prices 8 percent to 10 percent lower than small urban grocers.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/first-nonprofit-supermarket-opens-in-struggling-pa-city-705230/#ixzz2gCesc07x

Giant Duck’s Arrival Paints Pittsburgh Quack And Yellow

English: The source of the Ohio River at “The Point” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River (right) join to form the Ohio here. The West End Bridge crosses the Ohio in the foreground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Giant Rubber Duck’s fans were not disappointed.

Those fans — gathered on the Clemente Bridge and the Riverwalk and the steps of Point State Park by twos and threes, and then dozens and hundreds — numbered in the many thousands of people all packed together and squinting downriver into the sun on Friday afternoon to await its arrival.

And then, just as the tempers of hot children and harried mothers began to fray, bored teenagers returned their attention to their smartphones and grandparents began looking for a place to sit down, a flash of graceful yellow floated into view from around a bend in the river.

“There it is!” “Look, there it is!” “It’s here!” people shouted, nudging their friends and pointing downstream. And then, laughing and cheering and clapping and capturing videos on their phones, they watched entranced as the 40-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide rubber duck and its placid smile drew closer.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/giant-ducks-arrival-paints-pittsburgh-quack-and-yellow-705216/#ixzz2gCb7WjUp

Walgreens To Close Lehigh Valley Distribution Center, Lay Off 400

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

Walgreens will close its distribution center in Hanover Township, Northampton County, marking one of the largest layoffs in the Lehigh Valley in recent years.

The facility’s 400 employees will be laid off in phases, beginning in mid-January and concluding in March. Employees at the center, at 125 Commerce Way in Lehigh Valley Industrial Park IV, were informed of the decision Thursday.

“Our Lehigh Valley Distribution Center has served the company since 1991, making the decision to close it a difficult one,” Emily Hartwig of Walgreens corporate media relations said Friday.

Hartwig said the layoffs are part of the drugstore chain’s effort to maximize efficiencies at its distribution centers across the region.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-walgreens-to-close-bethlehem-distribution-cente-20130927,0,1515055.story#ixzz2gCXpUaeT
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Mother Says Victim’s Life Was On An Upswing

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

The mother of a woman slain in Northampton County Sunday remembered the time her daughter helped deliver a baby goat about two years ago on the family farm in Hunlock Creek.

“The goat needed help and, as gross as it was, she reached in saved that animal,” said Elaine Smith, who lives in Nanticoke.

Amanda Stratford, 28, of Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke, was found dead around 11:30 Sunday night in a pickup truck in Easton. The Northampton County coroner ruled her death a homicide after she was shot multiple times.

Smith and her husband did not get word of her death until Wednesday when the coroner called. Unanswered questions swirl around the woman’s death. Run-ins with the county judicial system speckled her past, and Easton police say her death was drug-related. Smith knows her daughter had trouble with the law years ago, but she said things seemed to be on the upswing.

Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/866319/Mother-says-victims-life-was-on-an-upswing

Wilkes-Barre Wife Killed In Domestic Dispute, Police Say

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

WILKES-BARRE, PA — Residents living on Andover Street said they knew Vito Joseph Aiello was capable of harming his wife, Jane.

Their concerns became real late Thursday night when he allegedly killed her in a shooting before turning the gun on himself. He survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his face, police said. The couple would have celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary today.

Authorities are treating the case as a murder/attempted suicide.

An autopsy is scheduled today at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/866270/Wife-killed-in-domestic-dispute-police-say

Coatesville’s Como A Steady Success – Until The Texting

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

Around noon on Father’s Day, Steve Brazzle texted Rich Como, his onetime principal at Coatesville High School.

“Happy Father’s Day pop pop,” Brazzle wrote, poking fun at Como’s age.

“My son!” replied Como, 67. “Much appreciated and thanks as always for remembering me. That does mean so much.”

Brazzle, who is black, wrote back: “Of course. Thanks for being who you are.”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20130929_Coatesville_s_Como_a_steady_success_-_until_the_texting.html#5UA4BoiZe55G1ksd.99

Pottstown Planners Approve Family Dollar Project

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

POTTSTOWN — With a 4-0 vote, the borough planning commission Thursday night gave unanimous approval to a plan to redevelop the former Rosenberry’s Grocery store at the corner of Eighth Street and Farmington Avenue into a Family Dollar Store.

Planning commission member Deb Penrod was absent and did not vote.

The approved plan calls for demolishing the 23,299-square-foot building that stands at the 1.7-acre site now, and was most recently occupied by McCabe’s Auto Supply. The building is now empty.

In its place, the company has proposed an 8,240-square-foot Family Dollar store which would be “much smaller and much closer to being in conformity with the zoning,” said lawyer John Ryan, who spoke on behalf of the developer.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20130927/pottstown-planners-approve-family-dollar-project

Governor Would Sign Transportation Bills

HARRISBURG, PA – Amid Pennsylvania’s stalled debate over how to raise more money for highways and transit agencies, state Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch said Friday that Gov. Tom Corbett would sign either of two plans that have led debate in the legislature.

Corbett has not to date publicly endorsed any specific transportation funding plan in the Legislature after a $1.8 billion plan he released in February failed to gain much traction with lawmakers.

But a new willingness by the governor to embrace either bill is a sign that he is no longer willing to let disagreement over some elements of each bill stop him from making it law.

“He wants a transportation bill on his desk,” Schoch said. “What passes both parts of the Legislature I believe he’ll sign.”

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=514833

GoggleWorks Apartments Tax-Exempt, Judge Rules

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

A Berks County judge has ruled that the GoggleWorks Apartments are completely tax-exempt, a decision that will save the five-story complex at Second and Washington streets $29,500 a year.

The order, handed down this week by Judge Scott E. Lash overturned the Berks County Board of Assessment Appeals, which decided in December that 80 percent of the building is taxable since 80 percent of the 59 apartments are being offered at market rate.

Built by the nonprofit Our City Reading, the complex is owned and managed by the Reading Housing Authority.

In a 26-page opinion, Lash said the market-rate apartments are tax-exempt because they fall within the scope and purpose of the housing authority’s operation, in this case to develop and revitalize a local community.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=514800