Location of Pottstown in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you read today’s Mercury, you undoubtedly noticed there was a fatal shooting at Brian’s Cafe on the corner of North Charlotte Street and Jefferson Avenue around 2:00 am this morning. A 27-year-old male died at PMMC after being transported there from the crime scene.
It appears the leadership of Pottstown doesn’t care about crime. They are more concerned about saving paper and buying 23 iPads instead of spending money on surveillance cameras, police overtime, more police, crime tracking software, cops walking a beat and/or any other assorted method(s) to combat crime.
Pottstown will never revitalize until it gets cleaned up. Cleaning up Pottstown won’t happen until somebody takes crime seriously and (a). allocates some resources to solve the problem or (b). asks for help from the state or (c). all the above. Keeping a “lid on the powder keg” isn’t a strategy, sorry!
Criminals are not afraid of the police. Drug deals take place is broad daylight. Vagrants wander the downtown chasing away potential customers who are trying to patronize one of the few businesses on High Street. The laws already on the books are not enforced. Yet borough council meetings have plain clothes police officers in the audience to keep the unruly taxpayers quiet. Maybe those police officers should be patrolling the streets instead of being used to intimidate the very people who pay their salaries.
The Codes Department is a shambles and has contributed to the problem by allowing absentee landlords to carve up homes into substandard rental units. You have all been following this debacle in the Mercury, I’m sure. Absentee landlords fail to conduct background checks and will rent to anybody willing to pay in cash. Pottstown is overrun with social service agencies, Section 8 housing, vagrants, drugs and criminals.
Pottstown keeps promoting from within which is perpetuating the leadership vacuum. How many borough employees live in Pottstown? Do any police officers live in Pottstown? Does Pottstown have any minority or female police officers? Does Chief BM live in Pottstown? Did Jason Bobst live in Pottstown?
Has anybody noticed all the for sale signs dotting the borough? What about all the Sheriff’s sales? People just walk away from their homes.
Before Pottstown becomes the next Camden or Chester, somebody needs to do something. As voters, you can do something by cleaning house this fall and getting new blood on Pottstown Borough Council and electing a new mayor. If things don’t change soon, there will be no going back. The day of reckoning is almost at hand.
We urge voters to check out the Reform Party candidates for Pottstown Borough Council and Ross Belovich for mayor as alternatives to the current bumper crop of ostriches on council and the illustrious Missy Mayor. You can make a difference.
The taxpayers of Pottstown need to take control of their own destiny. You’re footing the bill so you should be calling the shots. Get people on council who will truly represent your interests instead of electing those who foster their own private agendas and could give a rip about your needs.
Power to the Pottstown People!
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