Lurching Toward LERTA

A page from the PAID annual report, reviewed Wednesday at the joint Pottstown Borough Council/School Board meeting.

Steve Bamford was a busy guy Wednesday night.

After members of both boards took a tour of the newly renovated Franklin Elementary School, Bamford, the borough's main economic development officer, delivered not only the annual report of

Steve Bamford gets ready to deliver his report.

the Pottstown Area Industrial Development Inc., which he heads; he also updated both boards on a new tax incentive under consideration.

The tax incentive is called LERTA, which stands for Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance.

Borough and school district staff are recommending a district that encompasses the entire borough, but does not include residential properties -- at least not yet.

Borough Manager Mark Flanders said staff does not want to abandon the potential for using the LERTA credits for residential properties, merely that is it more complex and they feel it would be better to get the program up and running for commercial and industrial properties first.

Borough Council unanimously voted to authorize Borough Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr.  to move forward with crafting the new ordinance.

However the school board, which had six members and an apparent antipathy to using the taxpayer-funded microphones provided for the meeting, could not seem to decide (it was hard to tell) and seemed to push its vote on the next school board meeting.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting.