Community Day, Route 422 Plans Coming Together

Photo by Evan Brandt

When the Oct. 14, 2017 date for West Pottsgrove Community Day gets closer, expect to see these reminders posted in prominent locations around town.

The commissioners workshop meeting last night lasted only about 30 minutes, but produce three things of interest to township residents, as well as drivers of Route 422.

First, as you probably already read in The Mercury, the next phase of rthe Route 422 rehabilitation begins this month and will, among other things, result in the speed limit from Stowe to River Bridge Road being reduced, and for the closure of the Stowe offramps at Grosstown Road at different points, sometimes for as long as 170 days.

Much depends on the weather, said Township Manager Craig Lloyd and Police Chief Matthew Stofflet.

Second, if you were confused by your trash bill, don't be. Although the new Waste Management bills break out the cost of recycling, West Pottsgrove residents always paid for recycling, the old bills just didn't show it, said Lloyd.

Lastly, the attractions for the upcoming Community Day in October have been more clearly spelled out, as you can see in the Tweets below.

West Pottsgrove OKs $200K Sewer Settlement

How much township business can you conduct in 40 minutes?

As it turns out, a fair amount if you are the West Pottsgrove Township Commissioners.

Perhaps the most fruitful thing to occur in that short period of time was an agreement to settle with Rettew Assoc. engineers for the under-engineering of the Grosstown Road sewer pump station.

The Grosstown Road pump station is located adjacent to

the parking lot at the township building which is, obviously,

on Grosstown Road.

The board agreed to a settlement amount of $212,500 with the firm that designed upgrades to the sewer pump station that were, evidently, inadequate to the flow of sewage.

At least three years of problems, including sewer back-ups into the basements of two or three unfortunate households, led to the litigation.

During heavy flows, and heavy rains, the township has to bring in auxiliary equipment to push the sewage through the system to the treatment plant in Pottstown at a fast enough rate to avoid those back-ups.

The fix to the station is estimated to cost $168,000 and the difference between the two figures would cover legal and engineering fees for the fix. But no mention was made of covering the cost of bringing in extra pumping equipment.

In other business, the commissioners voted to extend for three months the five-year-old trash collection contract with Waste Management Inc. to allow for more time to prepare bids for the next contract.

The board also voted to double the rental fee for the pavilion at the township building from $25 to $50 to help defray the costs of clean-up incurred by township staff.

Also, a new Community Day Committee was formed and community members and businesses are being asked to join to help improve the annual celebration. Those interested should contact the township manager's office at 610-323-7717.

And here are the Tweets.

Let's (Not) Talk Trash

POTTSTOWN -- With no comment or discussion, borough council Monday night unanimously authorized the advertisement of a new ordinance that will make property owners responsible for cleaning up the litter dropped in front of their homes.

As I reported in the April 24 edition of The Mercury, the ordinance is based on a Massachusetts law and, at the time it was first publicly broached, generated quite a bit of discussion.

Back then, Borough Manager Jason Bobst told council the law is necessary because the borough has been told time and time again by district judges that under current ordinance, unless a person is witnessed littering, they can’t be prosecuted for it.


Under the new proposal, property owners would be responsible for cleaning up in front of their properties; a problem highlighted in a more recent Mercury report, about a High Street property owned by state Rep. Marcy Toepel.

“That would mean that regardless of how it got there, the property owner would be responsible for keeping the property clean of trash,” is how Mayor Bonnie Heath explained it in April.

Also at the time, Councilwoman Maureen Allen expressed concerns because, she said, some parts of town have more of a litter problem than others. "Why are we always falling back on the property owners?" she asked in April.

Also at the time, Councilman Jody Rhoads warned that if people are made responsible for trash in the alleys dropped by trash collectors, "that's going to be a bad situation."

But Council Vice President Mark Gibson, who each year is involved with borough-wide clean-ups, and Councilman Joseph Kirkland both supported the measure in April; particularly after Bobst said the worst problem in town is with rental properties and tenants leaving and leaving their stuff behind when they move out, to the point where "it looks like their living room threw up in the alley."

Borough  Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. was instructed to draft an ordinance in April, but there has been no public discussion of it since then (that I can recall). In fact, not a word was said about it at Monday's meeting, other than the vote itself.

It remains unclear, therefore, what the provisions are, how fines, if any would work, or any of the particulars.

I guess this must be one of those times when it pays to read The Mercury legal notices and keep an eye out for it there, as, in all likelihood, it will come up for a vote next month.

* * *

In other garbage-related news, council also announced that three companies submitted bids for a new trash contract for the borough. And although they have been opened, they have not yet been tabulated.

The three companies that bid are Waste Management, Mascaro & Sons, which currently provides the service, and A.J. Blosenski Inc. The bid will be awarded during a special council meeting, scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28, when the 2012 budget will also be discussed in detail.

The last contract kept trash costs the same throughout all three years of the pact. The results of this bid are likely to have a large impact on the 2012 budget, and any increase will show up in your trash/water bill.