Council Hunts for a Quorum, Welcomes New Cop

Photo by Evan Brandt

Pottstown's newest police officer, Timothy Coffland and his wife Jessica, center, moments after being sworn in by Pottstown Mayor Sharon Thomas, right, and Police Chief Richard Drumheller, left.

Pottstown swore in its newest police officer, Timothy Coffland, just in time Monday night.

Just as the meeting broke up, there was a double shooting on Chestnut Street. You can read about it here.

Best of luck Officer Coffland.

But while we may have enough police officers to handle Pottstown's crime, we had trouble finding enough borough council members Wednesday to handle the borough's business.

When council convened, only Council President Dan Weand, Vice President Sheryl Miller, member Dennis Arms and Mayor Sharon Thomas were present.

The first of these meetings almost didn't happen,
due to lack of a quorum.

Since the mayor only votes in a tie, council was one vote short of the four voting members needed to form a quorum on the seven-member board.

But Twitter saved the day.

When I tagged Councilman Ryan Procsal in mentioning the inability to conduct business, he responded with "be right there."

It seems he just got back from vacation and had not thought he would be available for the council meeting, but when he saw the need, he came running.

Absent were council members Carol Kulp, Rita Pez and Joe Kirkland.

What with the shootings, I'm afraid I can't give you a terribly complete report on the meeting as I was otherwise engaged.

Suffice it to say that the major topics of discussion were stormwater control measures; changes to the proposed law governing murals on buildings; a request to mount a Latino-themed mural either on the Carousel building or the old borough garage on Beech Street; concern about allowing more backyard burning and praise for the July 4th Parade and GoFourth celebrations of the past several days.

The rest, I'm afraid, you will have to intuit from the Tweets below and whatever articles get written out of the meeting.