2nd Annual Latino Fest, Sept. 23 in Riverfront Park

Last Year's Latino Fest highlighted Latino food, traditional clothing, dancing and more. This year's event will be held on Sept. 23 in Riverfront Park.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Centro Cultural Latinos Unidos.

Latin dancing lessons will once again be a feature of this year's
Latino Fest in Riverfront Park.

Centro Cultural Latinos Unidos will present Pottstown’s Second Latin Festival on Saturday, Sept. 23rd from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Riverfront Park.

The Festival celebrates Latino culture during the National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Some of this year’s highlights include delicious ethnic foods from Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Guatemala.

Pinatas will also be part of the festivities.

Dance performances will include Bachata, Merengue, Cumbia and more.

There will also be live music and a Zumba class for everyone.

Also count on piñatas with prizes, the announcement of the Second Writing Contest winners, a bouncing castle, soccer, a martial arts demonstration, nature experiments and much more.

The event coincides roughly with the Veterans Community Day in nearby Memorial Park.

A free shuttle bus will transport visitors from one event to the other.

 

Coventry Mall Hosts Monarch Butterflies Sunday

A Monarch Butterfly.

Ron Richael, local butterfly expert, from Pottstown, will conduct s special event Sunday, Sept. 17 at the Coventry Mall.

He will explain about the monarch butterfly, and its 2,000 mile journey to Mexico for the winter.

The event begins at 1 p.m. in the community room located in the mall;'s food court.

Those in attendance will tag the butterflies to trace their trip to the overwintering sites in Mexico. 

They will also get to hold a Monarch butterfly before it is released. 

Also Richael will have live Monarch chrysalides for viewing. 

You can come and see the jade monarch chrysalis with its gold trim.

A Boost for the Youngest Pottsgrove Students

The media landscape of the day can be very distracting.

And I would like to tell you that I was late to the Pottsgrove School Board meeting Tuesday night because I was working on an important story.

And that does happen.

I swear.

But not this time. This time I had burrowed into a Facebook hole on an issue which was neither immediate, nor important, but which indeed did make me late.

As a result, I missed what a helpful source later told me was the news that some financial software the district uses will expire within the year and that Business Manager Dave Nester said it will require a purchase of $200,000 to $300,000 of unbudgeted funds to buy a new one.

I don't have the particulars so you will have to keep up with The Mercury for news of that development.

However, given that unpexpected expense, one wonders at why some members of the school board -- Robert Lindgren and Bill Parker -- would raise a warning note about a free Pre-K Counts class being offered to 20 students at West Pottsgrove Elementary School.

Well, you don't have to wonder, you can see their reasons in the Tweets below.

Murals, Parades and Pledges of Peace in Pottstown

One might think that after news of the potential for a 23 percent tax hike broke last week -- news which had the Internet commentariat slinging its most colorful empty threats -- that someone might have showed up to talk about at the next council meeting.

One would be wrong.

Nope, it was business as usual.

Which is to say the usual Pottstown practice of shooting ourselves in the foot.

Council once again held off on adopting new zoning rules governing murals -- working hard to prevent problems that don't exist -- after Council Dennis Arms pointed out that the borough planning commission had not yet had an opportunity to review the rules or comment on them.

One can see why Marie Haigh is upset.

Marie Haigh speaks against the proposal mural restrictions

during Monday night's council meeting.

A group of volunteers gets together; convinces a property owner to let them paint a "Welcome to Pottstown" sign on the property; gets council's endorsement to go ahead; gets sponsors and buys supplies; only to have the whole thing come crashing to the ground because someone in borough hall decides to solve a problem that does not exist yet and has never presented itself before.

Councilman Dennis Arms has a point, that the worst thing that could happen to the borough is not having to paint over a mural.

He pointed out that requiring an agreement by the property owner to maintain or cover up the mural doesn't mean it's going to happen any more than having an ordinance requiring people to cut their grass makes that happen.

What it does mean is that there won't be a "Welcome to Pottstown" mural.

Good job borough leaders.

Way to lead, encourage people to get involved with their community, try to improve or beautify it, then pull the rug out from under them for the flimsiest of reasons.

And you wonder why no one gets involved?

The Pottstown Rotary Club's giant duck makes its way down 

High Street during this year's July 4th Parade.

Next up in the wounded foot parade? Squabbling over the July 4th Parade.

Having failed once to raise enough money to stage a parade and twice to raise enough for fireworks, Independence Day Ltd. is now bucking for another bite at the parade after the Pottstown Rotary Club -- which has never failed to put on a parade -- did it this year and has already applied for permission to do it next year.

Last week Mayor Sharon Thomas said Independence Day Ltd. was treated poorly by the borough and other groups which stepped in to provide what they could not -- a parade and events in Memorial Park.

And Monday, Councilwoman Rita Paez, in the mayor's absence, tried to table a vote to close High Street for that parade. After Borough Manager Mark Flanders explained that the Rotary Club does not yet have the parade permit, the vote went forward.

(In the midst of this, Marcia Levengood, the titular head of Independence Day Ltd., has somehow emerged as the new spokesperson for the Human Relations Commission, which Paez once headed, but from which she has recently resigned. It's all quite puzzling.)

The pledge to Stand Against Racism with Pottstown signatures on it.

But before I am accused of being too negative, there was a bright spot at last night's meeting.

Stacey Woodland, CEO of YWCA TriCounty and Jonathan Corson, head of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, presented council with a mounted pledge to stand against racism, signed by the hundreds of people who attended a quickly organized rally in Smith Family Plaza in the wake of the events at Charlottesville, Virginia.

Corson said he was worried he and Woodland would be the only ones there, but Pottstown turned out in force and restored his faith in the town.

Let's hope it's well founded.

Here are the Tweets:

Hopewell to Stage 'Fragile Freedom' on Sept. 17

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by the Friends of Hopewell Furnace.

The Friends of Hopewell Furnace invite the public to a commemoration of 9/11/2001 with a presentation of  "Fragile Freedom," an original play by the international playwright Christine Emmert. The free program is slated for Sunday, Sept. 17, at 2 p.m. in the Hopewell Furnace Conference Center.

On 9/11/2001, the crew and passengers of Flight 93 gave their lives to protect our American democracy and its rights. These rights are celebrated in "Fragile Freedom." 

Performing her own work, Emmert will take us on the journey from the country’s early history to the present day with tears, laughter, and many companions including Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others. 

Along the way there will be new names that are not so easily recognized, but are nonetheless, important spirits in shaping a true democracy.

Playwright/director Christine Emmert is a writer, actress, director and educator. She holds a Masters in Humanities. Her story "Lilith" is out on Kindle along with her novel, "Ismene."  

Christine came to Hopewell as a volunteer writing, directing and acting in "From Out the Fiery Furnace" which is in its final year after nine years of performance. Her plays are seen throughout the English speaking world. 

 In 2016, she was a finalist in the Jane Goodall competition for 10 minute plays about endangered species.

While at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site visitors are encouraged to go into the village, tour the buildings and learn about the iron making industry and why Hopewell Furnace is important to our nation’s history and the development of our democratic freedoms.

The park is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The park is located five miles south of Birdsboro, PA, off of Route 345. For more information stop by the park's visitor center, call 610-582-8773, visit the park's web site at www.nps.gov/hofu, or contact the park by e-mail at hofu_superintendent@nps.gov.

Seeing the Light in Pottstown's Grigg Stadium

Photos by Evan Brandt

As the sun set over Pottstown Middle School Friday night, the full glory of the new lights at Grigg Memorial field was evident to the capacity crowd which filled the home side stands.

I'll be the first to admit it.

I am not a football guy.

It was nice to see the home stands full again.

Didn't play it, don't watch it, don't care much who wins.

But for me, the return of Friday night football under the lights in Pottstown turned out to have very little to do with football.

Rather, it's about all the other things it enables and evokes.

First and foremost, it puts everybody in the same place. It's the place to be and as such it literally and physically brings the community together in one of the few places big enough to hold us all.

And it unites us in a common cause, even if it is to root for our young people to play a game that may lead to a lifetime of concussion damage. We all make choices.

And it's not just the current athletes.

Jennifer Jones and her son-in-law Lonnell Allen

I met Jennifer Jones in the stands, whose son Terrence Shawell was one of the Trojan's shining stars a decade ago, was back.

She came back because the lights were back, but also because she now has two grandsons on the field.

And their father, Lonnell Allen, played football there as well.

You can never have too much family tradition.

Then there are all the volunteers.

There are the PSMA parents hopping to it in the snack bar (a post I filled faithfully for the four years my son was in the band).

Pottstown High School Band Director Mike Vought knows his 

students are delighted to be able to perform under the lights again.

And out on the field, another set of parents runs the pit crew for the band.

Then there are the equally dedicated parents in the Gridiron Club who man the smaller snack bar on the home stand -- the only one that sells French fries.

Students in various clubs and activities have tables to raise money for their activities, knowing that a gathering of half the town is a good place to market your wares.

Alongside them, are Pottstown's many dedicated teachers, either as advisers of just because they think its important to support the school.

The Gridiron Club's snack bar was hopping.

There are a few Pottstown Police officers, keeping the peace but generally having an opportunity to
meet and talk with people in town who are not in the midst of a crisis requiring police services -- no one is at their best then.

But Friday night, Pottstown was at its best.

It took three years, but the money for the new lights was finally scraped together, by people working together, so on crisp autumn Friday nights, they can all get together.

Here are the Tweets, mine, other Mercury staff, and the school community. We all worked together.

New Hanover Zoning Board OKs Quarry Expansion

This map, from a previous zoning hearing, shows the proximity
of the quarry expansion approved last night to the pollution site
at Good's Oil, identified inside the red circle.

The township’s zoning hearing board unanimously approved the expansion of the Gibraltar Rock quarry into a parcel adjacent to a groundwater pollution site Thursday night.

The 4-0 vote came with more than 15 conditions that will be imposed on the expansion, which is not likely to begin actual operations for four to five more years, according to an estimate by Stephen Harris, Gibraltar’s long-time attorney.

“We can’t vote how we feel about this application. We are bound by the constraints of the law,” said Zoning Chairman Mark Wylie in announcing the decision.

Ultimately, the question came down to the threat posed by polluted groundwater pollution at the former Good’s Oil site off Route 663, and what impact the expanded quarry operation would have on its movement underground, said Wylie.

He said the testimony offered over about two years of testimony by experts for Gibraltar, the township and Paradise Watchdogs/Ban the Quarry was all credible.

Because the pollution plume is moving slowly southwest underground, away from the quarry expansion site, Wylie it would have been legally difficult to deny permission to expand based on any potential risk.

Rowan Keenan, attorney for the Ban the Quarry group said he understood why the zoning board made the choice it did — because it allow them to impose numerous conditions, such as screening, replacing well water and complying with a federal limit on the suspected carcinogen 1,4 dioxane should the Environmental Protection Agency ever get around to imposing one.

Had they denied the “special exception” required, Gibraltar could have appealed that decision and over-turned it, and there would be no conditions at all.

Celeste Bish, president of Paradise Watchdogs/Ban the Quarry — a citizens group which has opposed every stage of the quarry for nearly 20 years — agreed with Keenan’s analysis.

“We’re certainly disappointed, but we understand why the zoning hearing board made the decision it did, to be able to impose conditions,” she said.

Although, Keenan pointed out, not only can he or the township’s special solicitor Robert Brant appeal the decision, but they or Gibraltar can also appeal the conditions.

Harris said he had been “cautiously optimistic” about the decision coming into the final lap, adding “although it wouldn’t surprise me if Ban the Qaurry filed an appeal.”

These maps show Hoffmansville Road running between the quarry pits.

In addition to the next requirement being to amend the quarry’s state mining permit to include the expansion, the quarry will also have to go through the land development process.

Earlier this week, Gibraltar submitted its final site plan for the original parcel south of Hoffmansville Road, known as GB-1, over which many legal battles and public hearings have been fought.

In 2007, the township’s zoning board of appeals granted the company permission to open the quarry on 163 acres bounded by Route 73, Hoffmansville Road and Church Road, but with a number of restrictions to which the company objected.

The company went to court, arguing among other things, the state’s non-coal mining law pre-empted the necessity of going through the township’s land development process, but lost that fight.

The preliminary site plan approval for the first quarry site dates back to 2015.

The quarry has a second digging site north of Hoffmansville Road and a tunnel will be dug beneath the road to move rock from this second site to the crushing machine on the first.

What the zoning hearing board approved Thursday is a third site, also north of Hoffmansville Road and adjacent to the second on one side, and to the former Good’s Oil property on the other.

It is located on 18 acres Gibraltar purchased for $800,000 in November, 2014 from a trust owned by the Good family.

New Hanover Zoning Hearing Board Chairman Mark Wylie

Next to it is the Good’s Oil site, where contamination from the former operation there infiltrated the groundwater, polluting numerous household wells and ultimately necessitating the installation of a $2 million public water system in 2013.

The affect the most recently approved operation will have on that contamination has been the focus of most of the hearings.

Wylie noted it will be approximately 15 years before the digging there is deep enough to reach groundwater and require the pumping some fear will alter the course of the pollution plume and release it into a tributary of Swamp Creek.

With 15 years of monitoring well data in hand before the problem emerges, Wylie said the township, the state and Gibraltar can be ready.

“Of course we don’t think that de-watering will draw in the pollution, but we’ve spent years asking ourselves ‘what if,’” Harris said, noting that treatment systems exist and would be implemented for whatever type of pollution, if any, ultimately appears.

Here are what few Tweets there were from the all-too-brief meeting.