Big Band Bash at Boone

Washed Out Photo by Evan Brandt

Representatives of all eight high school jazz bands await the announcement of ratings and awards Friday night at the 44th annual Daniel Boone High School Sound Spectacular Jazz Festival.

The 44th annual Sound Spectacular Jazz Band Festival at Daniel Boone High School Friday night featured competition by among two local high school jazz bands and an exhibition performance by a third.

As the hosts, the Daniel Boone High School Jazz Band was not judged.

In addition to the local middle school jazz band and three elementary school jazz band performances, which iPhone battery life did not allow us to record, the festival featured eight high school jazz bands in competition.

Full performance videos of Pottstown, Boyertown and Daniel Boone High School jazz bands are embedded in the Storify below.

The ratings were as follows:

• Pottstown High School Jazz Band  -- "Outstanding."
  
• Souderton High School Jazz Ensemble -- "Superior."
• Boyertown Area High School Big Band -- "Superior."
• West Chester East High School Jazz Ensemble -- "Outstanding."
• Souderton High School Lab Band -- "Outstanding."
• Quakertown Community High School Jazz Ensemble -- "Superior."
• Cheltenham High School Jazz Band -- "Outstanding."
• North Penn High School Columbia Jazz Band -- "Outstanding."

The following awards were also issued:

• Best Saxophone Section -- Quakertown Community High School Jazz Ensemble
• Best Trumpet Section -- Cheltenham High School Jazz Band
• Best Trombone Section -- Souderton High School Jazz Ensemble
• Best Rhythm Section -- Boyertown Area High School Big Band 

The following soloist awards were also given out:

• Honorable Mention: Lucas Naylor of West Chester High School East for keyboard;
• Honorable Mention: Marley Bryan of Pottstown High School  on tenor saxophone;
• Sean Gallagher of Boyertown Area High School for guitar;
• Jackie Favaroso of Quakertown Community Hgih School for trombone;
• Will Marchetti of Cheltenham High School for baritone saxophone.

Below you will find Tweets from the event as well as videos of full performances by Pottstown, Boyertown and Daniel Boone.

The Roots of Colonial Cooking

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Pottsgrove Manor.

Historic Pottsgrove Manor will present demonstrations of the type of open-hearth cooking with food that preserved well which was often on colonial menus at this time of year with the program, “Raiding the Root Cellar” on Saturday, March 14, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

While the wealthy Potts family could afford luxury items like imported citrus fruits, expensive spices, and fine spirits, their diet still depended greatly on Mother Nature. 

Foods that kept well in the cellar, such as root vegetables, would be on the menu frequently at this time of year. 

In this demonstration, historic cook Connie Unangst will use these hardy ingredients to prepare a late winter meal fit that would appear on a well-to-do family’s colonial table. 

Visitors can stop in the kitchen at any time during the hours of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to see what’s cooking. 

Guided tours of the manor will also be offered on the hour throughout the day, and the site’s museum shop will also be open. There is a suggested donation of $2 per person for this program.

Visitors can also take a guided tour of Pottsgrove Manor during regular museum hours: Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. 

Tours begin on the hour. The last tour of the day begins at 3 p.m.

Pottsgrove Manor is located at 100 West King Street near the intersection of King Street and Route 100, just off Route 422.

Pottsgrove Manor is operated by Montgomery County under the direction of the Parks, Trails, and Historic Sites Division of the Assets and Infrastructure Department. 

For more information, please call 610-326-4014, or visit the website at www.montcopa.org/pottsgrovemanor. Like Pottsgrove Manor on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pottsgrovemanor.

Housing Disappointment

Turn-out at a public input session on Montgomery County's plan for the next five years of low-income housing investment was sparse compared to last month's meeting.

So as it turns out, the plan the federal government requires Montgomery County to put together every five years to qualify for three streams of revenue will not do much more to keep low-income housing 

from being concentrated in Pottstown than is already being done.

Tuesday evening, the interim director of the Department of Housing and Community Development, Carolyn K. Mayinja, met with a handful of Pottstown residents who had hung with the process long enough to get to the public input portion.

Every five years, the county has to put together a large five-year plan in order to receive money from the federal government under three programs meant to be directed at low-income ares -- Community Development Block Grants, the HOME Program and Emergency Solutions grants.

Among the requirements the federal government has is that these programs not be used to concentrate low-income housing and poverty in specific areas of the county -- a situation which led to a long-simmering lawsuit with Westchester County, N.Y. (My old stomping grounds.)

On Feb. 24, the first of two public input sessions was held at Montgomery County Community College's West Campus in Pottstown and attracted nearly 50 people -- which the staff said was the largest they had ever seen and was probably due to "that newspaper article."

But by the March 10, public input session, the turn-out had dwindled to about seven (if you include the newspaper reporter there, and they don't really count.)

And in terms of the primary question: What can be done to de-concentrate low-income housing from areas like Pottstown and Norristown, which is one of the plan's set goals? The answer is not much.

Or at least not more than is being done now.

Mayinja explained that the department has no control over housing vouchers (Section 8) and has funded low-income housing projects in places other than Pottstown, including Limerick, Lansdale and Lower Merion.

But the department does not initiate projects, it can only provide support for the projects brought by developers or municipalities.

When those projects do come, and they receive more applications than they have money to fund, extra points are given to the applications that are outside areas where low-income housing is concentrated.

Among the few speakers there Tuesday was Steve Kambic, the executive director of Petra Community Housing. He said he has tried for years to establish a low-income housing project along the county's bus routes, and close to shopping, but zoning laws and profit motive have made it nearly impossible.

So, on that cheerful note, here are the Tweets from the meeting.

On Bonds, Budgets & a Surprise Move on Grades

Prior to the public meeting, the school board held a closed-door
executive session and interviewed Jeff Cardwell, 

who was subsequently hired as the district's new facilities director.

Last night the Pottsgrove School Board approved the re-financing of a bond, saving about $90,000 on the remaining $3.3 million debt left on borrowing to renovate Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, which is where the meeting was held.

The board also reviewed Gov. Tom Wolf's budget proposal and learned it would mean nearly $1 million in additional revenue if it were to be adopted unchanged b the Republican legislature.

There is fat chance of that.

They also grappled wit the puzzle of how to digitize thousands upon thousands of school records that must be kept by law and are currently occupying way too much space in the district.

And, in a surprise move, board member David Faulkner tried to reverse the district's course on converting from a 7-point grading scale to a 10-point grading scale.

However, his motion was stalled until the next meeting by a successful vote to table it.

Its all here below in the marvelous and often misspelled Tweets issued to you live during the meeting.

Fire Merger Deadline Unanimously Extended

Monday night's meeting saw another chapter in the fire company merger saga with the focus of public comments now turned toward borough council.

Two speakers, former Borough Council President David Garner and Charles Hermansky Sr., talked about what they called the flawed process by which the merger is being approached.

"I've heard the 2009 merger study touted as the reason for this merger," said Garner. "Did any of you actually read the study?" he asked.

He pointed out that the study calls for several steps to be taken for the merger to be pursued, none of which are evident in the current process.

Garner said council should be driving the process, not "those with a vested interest in controlling things."

Similarly, Hermansky said he has noted a noticeable lack of detail and analysis coming from the borough side of the equation.

"A position paper is not enough," Hermansky said.

Council also approved, unanimously, the plan for rental inspections to occur every two years.

Councilwoman Sheryl Miller, who said she was shocked to find out how many unregistered rentals there are in Pottstown, said the lengthy lead-in time will give the borough's Licensing & Inspections department  time to make headway on that issue.

On a lighter note, Mayor Sharon Valentine Thomas and Councilwoman Carol Kulp chided The Mercury for not presenting enough positive news about the borough.

In the mayor's case, she said "Grease," Pottstown High School's first musical in six years, was a "landmark" event which was an opportunity to present a positive image of Pottstown, was missed by The Mercury.

"Instead, we got a big headline questioning Pottstwn's safety," she said in apparent reference to The Mercury's "Criminal Elements" series which began Sunday.

We're presuming that the fact that as mayor, Valentine is responsible for oversight of the police department, and the fact that her son Seth had a major part in the play, which she failed to mention to the crowd, are irrelevant to her bringing the subject up.

(She is right, as she indicated to a Digital Notebook staffer after Saturday's performance, Seth was among the very best in the show. Sadly, video of numbers from the show, surreptitiously shot by said staffer, could not be posted here as intended due to stern warnings in the program about the illegality of that sort of thing. Also, in the interest of fairness, the mayor had heard that some publicity for "Grease" did appear "on social media, but not in print.")

Not one to lose out on an opportunity to settle an old score, Kulp said that when her son's wrestling team went to the state championships, "we had to beg The Mercury" to cover it.)

That was 25 years ago, she conceded. "It's a shame nothing has changed since then," Kulp said.

Anyway, here are the Tweets from the meeting.

(We apologize in advance for any perceived absence of positivity.)