Pottstown Library Needs Region's Support

The Pottstown Regional Public Library has begun its end of year appeal for funds.

You can donate online by clicking right here.

The library gets public funding, at varying levels, from the borough and the three surrounding townships of Lower Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove.

Cutting the ribbon on the interior renovations.

(It also gets many users from North Coventry, who make no tax contribution but find it more convenient than the library in Ludwig's Corner of Phoenixville, the nearest Chester County libraries).

It also gets funding from the state, funding that has not been increased in years, but is under constant threat of being decreased.

Nevertheless, through grants, fundraising events and donations, the library just last December completed a $755,000 renovation to the interior of the historic building that was once Pottstown's Post Office.

As board member Arthur Green recently reported to borough council, the library is now making use of a Schuylkill Highlands mini-grant to design improvements to the exterior, with an eye toward stormwater control and keeping it out of the building's basement.

The full "wish list" would cost about $235,000, Green said, adding that the landscape advisers broke the project up into smaller segments that could be completed sequentially as money became available.

More than 1,200 people attended the library's 

solar eclipse program last month.

"So obviously, the library and the community are going to have to raise some money," said Green.

If you, by chance, think libraries are obsolete in the age of Internet wisdom, consider that the solar eclipse program last month at the library was its largest event ever, with more than 1,200 people, who made eclipse T-shirts and received 450 free eclipse glasses.

You might say it "eclipsed" all previous events .... sorry, couldn't resist.

If that's not enough evidence for you that more people than you think use the library, consider this information contained in the latest appeal letter:

Who are the people coming to the Pottstown Regional Public Library?A preschooler attending story time

Pottstown Schools students use the library regularly.

• A preschooler attending story time.
• A family checking out a museum pass for an educational and fun day
• An adult using a quiet area to prepare for a professional examination
• Two sisters researching their family in the newspaper archives
• A legally blind patron browsing audiobooks with the assistance of a staff member
• A student checking out a WiFi HotSpot for school projects

These people, and many more like them, are using the Pottstown Regional Public Library for educational, recreational, social, financial, and professional reasons. 

With your library card you have access to a wealth of materials and resources, both in the Library and through the Library website. Since 1921, the Pottstown Regional Public Library has existed to meet the needs of our community. This goal is not possible without your support.

Ryan Costello

Pottstown Regional Public Library is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Financial support from patrons, businesses, and foundations is essential. The library would welcome a donation to the 2017 year-end campaign, which will provide much-needed support for services and programs.

The Pottstown Regional Public Library is even a place where you can make contact with your Congressman. On the first and third Thursday of every month, either U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6th Dist., or someone from his office holds office hours at the library from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

If you need more information about what the library offers, check this out:

Available at Pottstown Regional Public Library:

• A collection of 70,000 books, magazines, audiobooks, music, movies and kits
• Plus access to library collections in Montgomery County and across PA

  

  The entire basement of the library is devoted to children.

• Classes and workshops for children, teens and adults
• Public computers, WiFi, fax, copy and print services
• Passes for Elmwood Zoo, Morris Arboretum, Reading Public Museum, and Boyertown Museum of
• Historic Vehicles
• Ancestry.com - genealogical research
• Foundation Directory - research grant opportunities for non-profits
• T-Mobile Hotspots and ROKUs to loan
• Passport services

Your Virtual Library 24/7:

The library often hosts Science in the Summer.

• Online library catalog for searching, reserving, and renewing library materials
• Overdrive - e-books
• Zinio - digital magazines
• Mango - language learning
• Brainfuse - homework help and test preparation
• JobNow - resume and job search services
• Freegal - downloadable and streaming music and streaming video
• Reference USA - address and phone number directory
• Tumblebooks - animated read-along children’s books
• Universal Class - instructor led online classes with course completion certificates

Hours of Operation:

• Monday through Wednesday 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
• Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Saturday 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

When Citizens 'Attack'

I know, I know.

I'm supposed to be off fishing somewhere.

But one of the problems with going fishing, and not catching any fish, is it gives you a lot of time to think.

So, despite my best efforts, I started thinking about Wednesday night's council meeting.

I was thinking about Borough Council President Dan Weand's response to the issues raised last month by school board member Thomas Hylton.

Hylton, using W-2s he obtained from the borough through a Right to Know request, said spending on employees had jumped more than 30 percent -- or $2 million -- in just four years.

Weand responded that Hylton's figures were "misleading" and, reading from a prepared statement, explained how that conclusion had been reached.

(You can see video of Weand reading his entire statement below:)



But it wasn't the specifics of his response so much that caught my attention. After all, council has been responding to Tom Hylton for years.

But it was that dynamic and one particular word upon which I dwelled as the fish ignored my bait. (This is a metaphor obviously as the only fish I ever see are in an aquarium or on my plate.)

The word in Weand's response that I kept coming back to was "attack."

A citizen raised a comparatively well-informed concern about spending at a public meeting (and yes, in the newspaper) and the response is to call it "an attack'?

I thought about it and wondered what would people think if you took the names (and wel-known personalities) out of the equation.

This can be hard, I know, because as former council Ron Downie once said, Pottstown executes "policy by personality." In other words WHO is speaking or acting is often more important than WHAT they say or do.

So here is the thought-experiment I thought up on my metaphorical fishing boat written, of course, in the form of a narrative:

A tax-paying citizen of the Borough of Pottstown recently raised concerns at a public meeting about spending on personnel.

The citizen had taken the steps of using the Right to Know law to obtain w-2 forms to get the fact as best they could be determined, and had taken into account the fact that the borough had gained and lost employees in the past four years.

The citizen even went to the trouble of putting the figures in a spreadsheet to determine, as accurately as he knew how, what the financial impact of the last four years of borough employment had been.

When the citizen saw the results, he brought those concerns to the publicly elected officials of the Borough of Pottstown and expressed them to said officials.

In what is unquestionably an unusual step, the citizen also went to the trouble and expense of outlining his concerns in a paid advertisement in the local newspaper, to ensure his concerns were shared with a wider number of his fellow citizens.

The elected councilman, chosen earlier in the year from among his peers to head the council, tasked the borough's finance department with examining that expenses and (because these instructions were not given in public, we don't know exactly what the finance department was instructed to do).

We do know the result, that at the next public meeting, the elected councilman provided a response which raised several reasonable responses, including that overtime expenses had been high due to unavoidable circumstances like being down 14 police officers and a winter that beat down hard on overtime budgets at the highway department.

(The citizen responded that taxpayers pay over-time too, and when those 14 missing police officers were replaced, that was unlikely to lower the police budget very much, but I digress).

Up until this point in the narrative, things have gone about as well as one would hope in a representative democracy. A citizen, who took the trouble to educate himself as best he could about a cost to all taxpayers, brought that concern to his elected officials in the hope of spurring a desired course of action.

The elected official responded that the local government had taken a look at the matter and did not quite see it the way the citizen did.

And then, with one word, "attack," the whole thing goes off the rails.

Instead of thanking the citizen for caring enough to take an interest in his borough, and go to the trouble to research a potential problem and form an informed opinion instead of just showing up to complain "my taxes are too high" as so many other speakers -- who are often thanked for their input -- often do, the elected council categorizes the exchange of views as "a direct attack."

 Why?

We know why.

Because the citizen raising those concerns is Tom Hylton.

And because Tom Hylton, a citizen of the borough of Pottstown, so often raises matters of public concern -- concerns elected and appointed officials often would rather not confront --  they respond defensively.

To be fair, the borough weathers a pretty staggering amount of criticism, whether in The Mercury, word of mouth, or the seemingly endless number of borough critics living in cyber space. Being a little defensive is understandable.

Nevertheless, the job council members are elected to do is to represent the citizens of Pottstown in overseeing their local government.

And there seems no more striking example of the kind of oversight with which they are charged than to hear concerns from the citizens about the costs of that government and its impact on the taxes they pay.

That's the job elected officials asked voters to give them, so they had better learn to like it.

But, "if you’re attacking the borough, or the finance department, you’re attacking me,” is how Dan Weand, the elected official, chose to respond, paradoxically, right after he said "I love getting comments."

Does that strike you as the kind of response that will encourage other citizens to get informed on subjects, and bring their informed concerns to their elected officials for a public airing, as those officials so often say they so desperately want?

Or rather, does it demonstrate exactly the kind of response that might convince a concerned citizen they shouldn't even bother because "they're never going to listen to what I have to say anyway."

While it is admirable to defend the borough's employees and endeavor to correct what you see as an inaccurate depiction of their pay, is it among the best practices for a local government to describe the raising of such inquiries or concerns by a citizen as "a direct attack?"

For goodness sake, if you can't show up at a public meeting and raise concerns about public spending without it being characterized as an attack, let's just do away with the pretense of living in a representative democracy.

One of the lesser quoted clauses of the First Amendment, I was recently reminded, prohibits the government from making any law that would abridge the right of the people "to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

While the elected borough council has passed no such law, as of yet anyway, the response would suggest council is not overly fond of citizens showing up to exercise their First Amendment rights -- particularly if they are Tom Hylton.

Budget Passes, Jobs Cut, Taxes Raised, Raises Approved

Red-Eye photo by Evan Brandt

After Monday night's school board meeting, the board and
executive team modeled their "Save the Lights" t-shirts.

Monday night, the Pottstown School Board met and approved a number of things.

First, they approved 1.5 percent raises for mid-level administrators, which is part of a contract agreement.

Then they approved a 2 percent for support staff, which was not part of a contract and which will put an additional $125,000 onto the district payroll.

The support staff have not had a raise in 24 months.

The board, after hearing from a few folks who objectd to eliminating 11 special education positions while at the sdame time bringing more special education students back from special schools, then also approved the $56. million 2014-15 budget.

The board also agreed to contribute $25,000 to the Foundation for Pottstown Education, but only if it is the last year the board makes a contribution.

Here are the Tweets from last night's meeting. As always, remember to hit the blue "Read Next Page" bar to make sure you see them all..