State To Undertake $500,000 Cleanup Of Pottstown Plating

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

Editor’s note:  This is great news!

POTTSTOWN — The state is stepping in to make sure a half-million-dollar environmental cleanup at a closed plating facility in the borough gets completed after the bankrupt owner stopped work.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced Wednesday it would take over the removal of hazardous materials left over at the former Pottstown Plating on South Washington Street at the intersection with Industrial Highway.

The company, which performed electroplating, opened in 1950 and closed in 2009 just before going bankrupt, according to the DEP.

When the DEP inspected the site in 2009, it found a number of environmental issues that needed to be addressed and the company’s owners hied a contractor to removed hazardous waste there.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20130918/state-to-undertake-500000-cleanup-of-pottstown-plating

After Delay, Reading Combines Some Bills

Editor’s note:  We like this idea.  It takes these bills and makes them part of the average person’s normal monthly expenses.  I bet people will be more willing to pay them on a monthly basis rather than quarterly.

City trash and recycling customers will find their bills easier to pay in June.

They won’t be any cheaper, but they’ll be monthly instead of quarterly; they’ll be part of the water and sewer bills; and there will be more ways to pay them.

“The benefit to city customers is that it’s more affordable, and because it’s consistent it will be easier to budget for,” Matthew Bembenick, director of administrative services, said at a Wednesday event announcing the transfer of billing to the Reading Area Water Authority.

But the long-planned deal got delayed, and the authority’s first bills will come out in May, when the city needs to get caught up for January through April.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=470572

Pottstown Poised To Adopt Montgomery County As Delinquent Tax Collector, Despite Cost

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

POTTSTOWN, PA — Borough council is poised to vote Tuesday to stop getting its delinquent tax collections done by a private company and instead hire the Montgomery County Tax Claims Bureau to do it instead.

Although this method will not cost the borough any money out of pocket, neither does the current system.

However, should borough council decide instead to stay with its current collector, it would be obligated to pay the county roughly $39,000 for doing nothing.

Councilman Dan Weand, who heads council’s finance committee which recommended the change, said the taxpayers might as well get something for their money.

 

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20121110/NEWS01/121119975/pottstown-poised-to-adopt-county-as-delinquent-tax-collector-despite-cost