Police Commended, Bridge Limited, Architects Hired

Photos by Evan Brandt

From left, James Christie, supervisory senior resident FBI agent, Lower Pottsgrove Police Detective Sgt. Joseph Campbell, Police Chief Michael Foltz, Joseph Bushner, assistant special FBI agent after Monday night's commendation ceremony at the township commissioner's meeting.

Although not lengthy, the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners meeting Monday night produced three items of interest.

FBI Thank Yous

The first was the recognition of township police Detective Sgt. Joseph Campbell and Detective Daniel Kienle by the FBI.

James Christie, supervisor senior resident FBI agent and Joseph Bushner, assistant special FBI agent, both from the Philadelphia office were on hand to hand out the commendations for work by the local police.

Here is some video of the presentation:



According to Police Chief Michael Foltz the commendations came about as the result of police investigation of break-ins of unlocked vehicles in Lower Pottsgrove and Limerick townships.

"One of those cars contained government property," said Foltz who demurred when asked what it was. "I can't say," was all he would say.

In any case, Campbell and Kienle canvassed the areas where the break-ins occurred and obtained security video from several private residences.

Images from the video were matched and shared on social media "and a suspect was identified. That snowballed into several suspects," said Foltz.

Within 24 hours of the first suspect being identified, all of the suspects had been apprehended and the "government property" recovered.

Bushner said he was at the FBI office in Fort Washington for seven years in charge of Montgomery and Bucks counties and had several interactions with Foltz and the Lower Pottsgrove Police.

"We enjoy a really good relationship with your police department and a lot of it is because of Chief Foltz," he said.

"We told them we've had a situation here with government property. They quickly scrambled the troops, got out there, found the people, interviewed them and the same day got a search warrant and the next thing, the property was recovered, so it was really a boon to us," Bushner said.

Later in the evening, all five of the township commissioners praised the police department and thanked them for their good work.

Weight Restrictions on Bridge

Engineer Chad Camburn had some surprising and unpleasant news for the commissioners Monday; namely that they own a 60-year-old bridge on Adams Street they did not know they owned, and it is deteriorating.

The bridge over Sprogel's Run is near the road's intersection with Buchert Road and is showed signs of crumbling concrete and rusting steel during a recent PennDOT inspection.

Warning poles have been erected to keep
vehicles from the edges of the Adams Street bridge.

He said the PennDOT inspector said because the water damage is coming from the top of the bridge, the only possible repair would be to strip off all the asphalt and insert an impermeable layer between the infrastructure and the pavement.

But that would get expensive and not be terribly cost-effective when compared to the price of simply replacing the bridge, Camburn said.

"It's lasted 60 years and that's about its lifespan," Camburn said.

The public works department recently posted markers to keep vehicles away from the bridge edges, where the structure is weakest, and the commissioners unanimously approved the posting of a 15-ton weight limit on the bridge.

Although it will not necessarily affect school bus traffic it will prevent most fire trucks from crossing the bridge, according to Lew Babel, Lower Pottsgrove Fire Marshal.

He said fire trucks can cross Sprogel's Run on the one-lane bridge a block away where North Washington Street meets Kaufman Road.

"It will also affect Pottstown fire trucks when they come to assist us," he said.

Camburn said the next step is to get the bridge on PennDOT's schedule, which will make it easier for the township to get grants to help cover the cost of replacing the bridge in the next 10 years.

Architect Hired for New Township Building

With another unanimous vote, township commissioners approved a contract with Alloy 5, the Bethlehem architecture firm that has been designing a new municipal building at the corner of South Pleasantview and East High Street.

A rendering of the new building, as seen from South Pleasantview
Road, that was presented to the public in August.

Township Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. said the contract covers schematic designs, preparing construction documents, bidding and overseeing construction and cannot exceed $396,514.

Once the commissioners settle on the size and design of the building, they have 90 days to vote on moving the project forward.

The public got its first look at the new building plan in August, when schematics for a 16,000-square-foot building with an estimated $8.2 million price tag was outlined for the township-owned lot at East High Street and South Pleasantview Road.

The current township building at the corner of Buchert and North Pleasantview roads was built in 1989 and is only 7,500 square feet.

The possibility of constructing the new building has been discussed for more than a year in the board's infrastructure committee and if the board decides to move forward with the plan, it is estimated it will take 18 months to complete.

And with that, here are the Tweets from last night's meeting:

Bridge Limits, Police Awards & Architect Contract

Lower Pottsgrove Police Kudos and Sanatoga Green

Photos by Evan Brandt

Lower Pottsgrove Township Commissioner Ray Lopez shows one side of the township police commemorative medallion now being presented with police and citizen awards.

Police news was front and center Monday night as the Lower Pottsgrove Township Commissioners gathered for their first meeting of the month.

Police Chief Michael Foltz recognized Sgt. Scott Weidenhammer and his wife Vicki for all they did to ensure that the police department received its re-accreditation.

Lower Pottsgrove is one of about 110 law enforcement agencies out of 1,100 across the state that have achieved accreditation through the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police — Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission.

First accredited in 2014, the department must meet the 133 standards every three years to remain in good standing and Weidenhammer was in charge of that effort, as well as his other duties.

Commissioners Stephen Klotz and Earl Swavely, left and right,

applaud as Chief Mike Foltz congratulates Sgt. Scott
Weidenhammer 

and his wife Vicki for their work on
the re-accreditation of the police department.

"There are a number of times when he was in here working on that when it was not his shift," said Foltz. He added that when the committee is here for its inspection, if was Weidenhammer and his wife who acted as hosts, with Vicki providing some home cooking as well as other support.

"We are certainly not the biggest department in the state to be accredited, but the fact that we are, and were re-confirmed shows the professionalism of this department," said Commissioner Earl Swavely, himself a former police chief.

"It's not any easier three years later," said Commissioners Vice Chairman Stephen Klotz.

Weidenhammer was presented with a commendation and his wife with a citizens award and both received the commemorative medallion the township had made up for police-related awards.

Next up was Sgt. William James, who wanted to thank the commissioners for the opportunity to attend the FBI National Academy, particularly given that only about 1 percent of those who apply are accepted.

Lower Pottsgrove Police Sgt. William James addresses
the township commissioners about the FBI Academy.

During his 10 weeks at the academy, James completed 30 hours of coursework in fitness in law enforcement and 45 hours each in courses including effective writing, public speaking, employment law issues for law enforcement executives, essentials for law enforcement leaders and law enforcement approaches to counter terrorism.

He said the difficulty of the work is the equivalent or a graduate school-level course.

Foltz also detailed a busy April for the department which included a DUI stop that netted several arrests, including a. weapons charge, to a vandalism spree in Rolling Hills and Walnut Ridge housing complexes on Easter weekend, in which one officer was nearly hit with a thrown battery.

In the another item of frequent discussion in the township building, Pottsgrove Schools Business Manager David Nester was on hand to provide the commissioners with the demographic study the district had delivered recently.

It told a much different tale of how many new students two large housing developments on tap in the township -- Sanatoga Green and Spring Valley Farms -- might generate.

The upshot, "the numbers are conservative but about twice what the developer predicted," Nester said.

Pottsgrove Schools Business Manager Dave Nester, right,

outlines the results of the district's latest demographic study.

He was informed by Chad Camburn, one of the township's engineers from Burshich Assoc., that Spring Valley Farms is contemplating changing its plan from two-story family homes to single story ranches marketed toward homeowners over 50, which would reduce the number of children the district would have to accommodate.

"That's much appreciated," Nester replied.

Camburn also said the number of townhomes in the Sanatoga Green project has bee reduced slightly, but that the developers there are pushing very hard to move the process forward.

He said last month he and the township received 12 submissions from Castle Caldecott LLC. "They're being very cooperative, but they're anxious. Hopefully, after they get preliminary approval, they'll take a breath," he said.

Camburn also said that between Sanatoga Green, a commercial property being proposed for the adjacent property, and the development of commercial property adjacent to the Turkey Hill on East High Street, that PennDOT, Limerick and Lower Pottsgrove are ready to back a regional traffic study for the entire Sanatoga Route 422 interchange area.

Look to future reports in The Mercury for more on these items.

In the meantime, here are the ever-lovin' Tweets!