Pittsburgh Fringe Festival Offers Three Days Of Performances

Locator map with the Shadyside neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania highlighted. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After beginning with a pair of warm-up acts last weekend, what’s billed as the first Pittsburgh Fringe Festival gets under way May 9 with a three-day flood of two dozen productions — many with multiple performances — taking place in eight locations in and near Shadyside.

The festival is the brainchild of Dan Stiker, who had enjoyed attending and performing at the New York International Fringe Festival and missed its excitement when he moved back to Pittsburgh.

“It’s the kind of theater I want to be a part of,” he says.

Like Striker, some may have developed a taste for fringe festivals by attending the best known ones in New York City or Edinburgh, Scotland, or those in smaller U.S. cities such as Minneapolis, San Diego, Cincinnati and Asheville, N.C., or those in farther flung locales including Singapore, Budapest and Melbourne.

Read more: http://triblive.com/aande/theaterarts/6036617-74/fringe-festival-stiker#ixzz31F5pB7wF
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Pittsburgh Preparing For Eventful Summer

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)

Olympic hopefuls, furry friends and an internationally acclaimed salsa band are just a few of the attractions projected to draw tourists to Pittsburgh this summer.

VisitPittsburgh, a tourism industry nonprofit, gathered business professionals Thursday at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel to coordinate this summer’s events.

Craig Davis, VisitPittsburgh’s president and CEO, said the idea of the third annual luncheon is to get those in the hospitality industry on the same page.

“When we bring it and put it all on one script, you get into a situation where — perennial favorites coupled with big conventions and Buccos baseball — these are reasons for people to come into town,” Mr. Davis said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2014/05/09/City-preparing-for-eventful-summer/stories/201405090081#ixzz31F2vQAZ4

Mapping The Data: Minimum Wage Of $10.10/Hour Would Benefit 21% Of Workers In Lancaster County

Editor’s note:  This is a more in-depth article than the one below with some excellent graphs and charts showing all 67 counties in Pennsylvania and what the impact of raising the minimum wage would mean by county.  Well worth the read!

About one in five workers in Lancaster County would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a new study shows.

That 21 percent amounts to 49,099 workers here, according to the Keystone Research Center study.

The research is being cited by a labor and community coalition, Raise the Wage PA, which will hold a rally in Penn Square at noon Thursday.

Lancaster County rates somewhat worse than the statewide figure of 19 percent and the urban-area figure of 18 percent, says the study.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/business/local_business/mapping-the-data-minimum-wage-of-hour-would-benefit-of/article_9ae665b4-d63a-11e3-88f4-0017a43b2370.html

Nanticoke Resident Plans Community Garden

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

NANTICOKE, PA – Rebecca Seman wants to see the Nanticoke area community growing.

Mainly vegetables, but she’d like to see people grow some flowers, too.

About a month ago, Seman started the Greater Nanticoke Area Community Garden initiative with the idea of getting area residents interested in sustainable farming. She also wants to organize events to improve the community, including a cleanup and flower-planting at Patriot Square Park this Saturday.

“It’s just something I’ve kind of always wanted to do,” Seman said. “Lately I’ve seen a lot of places around the country are trying to become more sustainable. I’d like to see that in Nanticoke.”

Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/nanticoke-resident-plans-community-garden-1.1682779

Study: One Fifth Of Luzerne County Workers Impacted By Minimum-Wage Hike

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

WILKES-BARRE, PA — At first, it sounds like a good new, bad news sort of thing.

The good news: According to a new report, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would help 21 percent of the Luzerne County workforce get better pay.

The bad news: One fifth of Luzerne County workers earn below or near the proposed new minimum of $10.10 an hour.

The numbers come from “Living on the Edge: Where Very Low-wage Workers Live in Pennsylvania,” issued by the Keystone Research Center this week. As part of a push to get Harrisburg to consider increasing the minimum, rallies were held around the state Thursday, including one on Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square.

Read more: http://timesleader.com/news/local-news-news/1380548/Study:-Wage-hike-would-boost-fifth-of-area-workers

Five People Arrested In Buy/Bust Drug Stings In Wilkes-Barre

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

WILKES-BARRE, PA — City police and state police troopers with the Vice and Narcotics Unit arrested five people in unrelated buy-bust drug stings on Wednesday.

According to the criminal complaints:

• Johnathan M. Simmons, 23, of Culver Street, Forty Fort, was charged with selling heroin in the area of North Grant Street and Amber Lane at about 12:55 p.m., which is in a school zone. Police had to stun Simmons with a Taser when he allegedly attempted to run away.

Simmons was charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of communication facility. He was jailed at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility for lack of $50,000 bail.

Read more: http://timesleader.com/news/local-news-news/1384043/Five-people-arrested-in-buy-bust-drug-operations-in-Wilkes-Barre

Plans For $100 Million Allentown Building Move Forward

English: City of Allentown from east side (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the newest major office buildings planned by developer J.B. Reilly moved forward another step tonight.

The $100 million Five City Center received conditional approval, one of several steps in the early stages of the City Center Lehigh Valley project. Plans for the building were announced in March.

No tenant has yet been identified for the 250,000-square-foot building, but construction could begin as early as mid-2015, City Center spokesman Jeff Vaughansaid. The building could be as many as seven floors tall.

Planned for Walnut Street between Seventh and Eighth streets, the building could serve up to 1,000 workers and will include a 1,078-space parking deck, which will include some underground parking.

Read more: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2014/05/plans_for_100_million_allentow.html

Philadelphia International Airport To Conduct Monday Job Fair

Philadelphia International Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Government agencies, car rental companies, restaurants, and airlines at Philadelphia International Airport will be hiring 200 workers to fill airport jobs at a job fair on Monday in North Philadelphia.

More than 30 airport employers and agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are prepared to hire on-the-spot to fill jobs as customer service representatives, sales associates, bartenders, managers and assistant managers, cashiers, and more, the airport said.

The City of Philadelphia and Division of Aviation, in conjunction with Philadelphia Council president Darrell L. Clarke, will host the job fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Liacouras Center, 1776 North Broad St., on the Temple University campus.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20140510_Airport_to_conduct_Monday_job_fair.html#oHlF65gDaicbFwzy.99

Hundreds Of Perkiomen Valley High School Students Protest Teacher Layoffs

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

COLLEGEVILLE, PA — Hundreds of students streamed out of the front doors of the school in a quiet wave around 8:30 a.m. More than 550 Perkiomen Valley High School students participated in a walk out to protest proposed budget cuts which could mean several teachers would lose their jobs.

Alexa Monteleone spent the morning of her last day of high school on the baseball field taking a stand to try and save her mother’s job.

“It impacted me a lot. (My mom) has been here for so long and she has been so helpful to the school for the past 13 years,” she said about how she felt when she heard her mother could lose her job.

Monteleone’s mother, Maureen, is a para-professional and wears many hats, according to her daughter.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20140509/hundreds-of-perkiomen-valley-high-school-students-protest-teacher-layoffs

Collegeville Farmers Market Opens For Fourth Season Saturday

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

COLLEGEVILLE, PA — Although Phil Schmidt was in Virginia Beach on Wednesday, wrapping up details on several new barbecue sauces that will soon debut at his restaurant, he said he was looking forward to helping Collegeville Farmers Market open its fourth season on Saturday.

The owner of Phamous Phil’s BBQ & Grille — recently featured on the Food Network — will be in the back section of Da Vinci’s Pub parking lot all day cooking up smoked apple sausage, pulled pork and burgers.

Sandwiches — washed down with Phil’s homemade lemonade — will make for a tasty, easily portable and much less messy lunch than Phil’s trademark ribs as folks stroll through the market.

Barbecue buffs who crave the restaurant’s specialty can always choose to chow down on the “phamously” meaty smoked ribs at Schmidt’s eatery a couple of miles away in Evansburg.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/business/20140509/collegeville-farmers-market-opens-for-fourth-season-saturday

Pottstown School District’s Proposed Budget Cuts 11 Staff, Raises Taxes

The Pottstown School Board introduced the proposed budget for the 2014-15 school year at its Thursday night meeting, May 8, 2014.  For a brief synopsis of the meeting and more information, visit Brandt’s blog Digital Notebook at http://evan-brandt.blogspot.com/.  To see the Storify visit https://storify.com/PottstownNews/of-bushes-and-budgets?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=publisher&utm_campaign=embed-header

Deal For Music Venue In Pottstown’s Old Eagles Building Falls Through

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

Editor’s note:  More bad news for Pottstown.  Very sad.

POTTSTOWN, PA — Plans to move an established music venue in Philadelphia to the former Eagles building at 310 High St. have fallen through, the plan’s prime mover announced on his web page and Facebook this week.

In January, Jamey Reilly announced plans to purchase the building and to establish a place for live music performances in addition to an Asian/fusion restaurant operated by his wife.

His longtime venue in his home on Overbrook Avenue in Philadelphia had been shut down as an “illegal nightclub” and he was seeking a new venue and had settled on Pottstown as the place.

Not any more.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20140508/deal-for-music-venue-in-pottstowns-old-eagles-building-falls-through