Pottstown, Pennsylvania

Pottstown is a compact town of 22,000 along the Schuylkill River in southeastern Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It is lovely and historic, with tree-lined streets and a distinctive downtown

Although the town is not as financially healthy as it once was, it has the potential to become one of the most livable communities in Pennsylvania. Pottstown Citizens seeks ways we can best manage our resources for the common good.

The following essays have recently appeared as paid advertisements in the Pottstown Mercury:

Protests over budget cuts

Making cuts is never easy, but it’s more difficult at a school district than almost any other organization. Few members of the public recognize just how many state regulations school districts must follow.

School budget indecision continues

Last Thursday, the Pottstown School Board wrestled for more than an hour with ways to eliminate an anticipated $9 million deficit in the district’s proposed 2025-2026 budget.

The board came no closer to a resolution than it did in April.

Budget shock

The first draft Pottstown School District budget showed a deficit of $9 million, the highest ever. And that’s assuming the state subsidy to Pottstown will increase $2 million over this year’s subsidy.

Tree planting in perspective

With a 24 percent tree cover, Pottstown has one of the lowest canopies in Montgomery County, similar to Norristown, Conshohocken, and the Upper Perkiomen boroughs.

Pope led on poverty, climate change

Pope Francis accomplished as much or more than any world leader to focus humanity’s attention on its two most pressing issues: climate change, and the huge disparity between the rich and poor.

Planting trees for Earth Day

The Pottstown School District will celebrate Earth Day today by planting about 20 trees at Pottstown High School. It’s the last part of a two-year project to plant nearly 500 shade trees on all its properties, funded in large part by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

The world continues to burn

On Tuesday, we noted there are about 5,000 years of recorded human history. Civilizations have risen and fallen, but humans have survived.

The rise and fall of civilizations

Myriad civilizations have risen and fallen over the centuries, and the march of history never stops.

The erosion of trust

The internet and social media have fostered a culture of suspicion that has degraded our sense of community and coarsened public life.

Film explores fate of local newspapers

A documentary depicting the fate of local newspapers will be shown at The Hill School’s Center for the Performing Arts at 6 tonight, sponsored by The Hill School’s student newspaper, The Hill News.

Pottstown’s most valuable real estate tax-exempt

Pottstown has about 8,750 parcels, of which 327 are tax exempt. These tax exempt parcels account for more than 20 percent of the total value of Pottstown’s properties.

Employer, employee listings for 2024

Each year for the last nine years, we’ve published a list of Pottstown’s top 25 employers.

Reverence for life

The United States Agency for International Development was created in 1961 as an independent entity to provide health services and disaster and poverty relief around the world. President Trump has shut it down as a waste of money.

A moment of American greatness

America has had some proud moments and some shameful ones, but one moment of greatness that comes to mind is Sen. John McCain’s concession speech after losing the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama.

Wide variety of housing in Pottstown

On Tuesday, we noted that Pottstown housing prices have increased dramatically — more than doubling since 2018. Buyers are beginning to realize Pottstown's houses are bargain.

Pottstown housing prices, sales rise slightly

Pottstown housing prices and sales volume both rose slightly in 2024, although the number of sales was well below the average of three to six years ago.

County provides housing for homeless

Two of the three Montgomery County commissioners and the county director of commerce appeared before Pottstown Council last week to seek their support for a temporary homeless shelter at the Days Inn on King Street near Route 100.

My cousin Juan

My cousin Juan, who gained wealth, fame and to some, opprobrium, as the caretaker and beneficiary of famed modern artist Georgia O’Keeffe, died last month at 79. His life story shows the importance of intangibles like fate and personal chemistry that guide our destinies.

Eliminate parking minimums?

The urban parking phenomenon was authoritatively described in a landmark 2005 book, The High Cost of Free Parking, by UCLA professor Donald Shoup.

Parking, parking everywhere, but...

Last week, a proposal to convert the former Mercury newspaper building into 35 apartments received a setback from the Pottstown Zoning Hearing Board.

Mercury project needs more parking

Downtown Pottstown parking was originally needed for stores, but most stores have closed or moved out of town. Now the biggest need for parking is for new residents, as former stores, offices and warehouses are converted into apartments.

Pottstown’s largest apartment building

The largest residential impact on downtown Pottstown dates back 55 years, to the 1970 construction of Griffith Towers, now known as King Street Commons, the borough’s largest apartment complex.

Search for more parking continues

Despite acquiring or leasing seven downtown parking lots in the 1960s, Pottstown’s search for parking was not over.

Parking lots proliferate downtown

In the 1960s, as more stores relocated from downtown Pottstown to suburban malls, the borough went on a buying spree to create more parking for the stores that remained.

Borough builds parking lots

In 1957, Trinity Reformed Church, at Hanover and King streets, purchased a home behind the church to demolish for a parking lot.

Pottstown's parking variance saga

Since 2015, developers have had to go to the Zoning Hearing Board to request hardship variances to reduce spaces below the two-space rule.

Parking in wrong place

Two major adaptive reuse projects have recently been proposed in downtown Pottstown, and both will have difficulty meeting Pottstown’s parking requirements.

Making best use of historic assets

Since 1984, 28 historic buildings from stores to factories have been adaptively reused for apartments, offices, and college classrooms.

College is not a panacea

One of the governor’s biggest contributions to education — and the welfare of working Pennsylvanians — has been eliminating a requirement for a college degree for most state jobs.

Can we measure educational ROI?

More than 60 percent of local spending goes to the school district. But what about our ROI (Return on Investment)? How well prepared are Pottstown students to be successful as adults, to earn a living and contribute to society?

Skyrocketing spending

Spending per pupil in Pottstown has tripled in the last 50 years, even after accounting for inflation.

The cost of K-12 education

Last week, we reported that nearly 62 percent of local government spending in Pottstown goes to the formal K-12 education of about 3,400 children and youth.

Notre Dame’s greatest president

As a lifelong Pennsylvanian, I’ll be rooting for Penn State in the Orange Bowl tonight. But Notre Dame is one of the most admirable universities in the nation, thanks to the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, who was its president from 1952 to 1987 and died in 2015.

2025 Pottstown budget set

Pottstown Council last month adopted a 2025 budget that calls for a 3.49 percent tax increase. Quarterly trash collection fees, which are separate from the real estate tax, are going up 12 percent. That’s on top of an 11 percent trash fee increase in 2024.

Apartments proposed in Mercury bldg.

Dwight City Group, the New York developer currently proposing to convert a historic warehouse/factory complex on North Hanover Street into 85 market rate apartments, now seeks to convert the former Mercury building at Hanover and King streets into 35 apartments.

2024: tangible progress in Pottstown

Two new pedestrian bridges were installed over the Manatawny Creek in 2024. A $500,000 state grant will help fund the renovation of the old Harp Taxi building on South Hanover Street. Work continues on the conversion of the former Lastick Furniture buildings into apartments .

A quiet life in Pottstown

In 1915, James Fichtol opened his own tailor shop in Pottstown and found a lot of business right away, especially from Hill School men and boys.

Maurice Meier’s 76th anniversary

Maurice Meier, a German Jew who lost most of his family during World War II, emigrated to the United States in December 1948 and lived the next four decades at 160 N. Hanover Street until his death at age 94.

19th century elementary schools remain

For more than 50 years, most Pottstown elementary school students attended one of 11 two-story, two-classroom elementary schools built from the 1860s to the 1880s. Remarkably, six of these schools survive today as apartments.

Pottstown 1931: 18 neighborhood schools

Thanks to a 1931 report from a fire rating agency, we have an exact inventory of Pottstown’s schools. There were 18 elementary schools, most of them small two-story buildings with one classroom on each floor.

1926 Pottstown: compact, no parking lots

The photo above shows Pottstown from the air on Aug. 2, 1926, when it was home to 19,000 residents — nearly as many as today — who lived on a much more compact area.

Meadows and trees protect environment

A three-acre meadow, above, was installed at the Edgewood School in 2017, followed by more meadows at other Pottstown schools. These meadows consist of the same seed mix as the meadows at Longwood Gardens, the world-famous botanical gardens in Chester County.

Trees planted at school district

This fall, using a $440,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), the Pottstown School District began planting 415 trees on district property -- 176 in the fall, and 239 in the spring of 2025.

Trees Inc. 2024 report

Nothing has done more to enhance Pottstown’s environment and quality of life than its street trees, yet their total cost over the last 41 years —including tree trimming and sidewalk repairs -- has been just $1.5 million.

Holiday House Tour set for Dec. 8

The sixth annual Historic Pottstown Holiday Tour, scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, will feature homes in Pottstown’s North End.

Plenty of reasons to give thanks

If money and material goods are the criteria for the good life, we’re on top of the world.

More transparency helpful

In recent columns, we’ve listed the major grants given out by the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation since its inception in 2003.

Smaller health and wellness grants listed

Today we are listing 26 recipients who received anywhere from $87,500 to $188,500, for a total of about $3.4 million. All the other recipients, about 190 altogether, shared the remaining $47 million.

PAHWF: $50 million in 20 years

Since its inception, the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation has awarded about $50 million in grants to Pottstown area organizations. The chart below lists the organizations who have received the most money, cumulatively, since 2003.

More health and wellness grants listed

Today we are listing another 26 organizations that have received grants in the last 20 years, this time totaling from $191,530 to $511,571. These 26 groups received $7.7 million, about 15 percent of the Foundation’s total giving.

Unpleasant science is ignored

Humanity is on a "highway to climate hell,” says UN secretary general Antonio Guterres. “We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing … And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”
Read more

The No. 1 issue, barely considered

This year, all major polls forecast today’s election as a toss-up.
To me, the poll that has the most significant impact on Americans — and the rest of the human race — was taken last spring by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Penn rolls over in his grave

In the preface to William Penn's 1682 Frame of Government, Penn issued a warning:

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too.

Our best friend in Harrisburg

Ever since he was first elected in 2018, state Rep. Joe Ciresi has seemingly shown up everywhere, from neighborhood get-togethers to well organized rallies for fair school funding. ‘Tireless” is an overused accolade, but it does fit Ciresi rather well.

Truth under assault

The role of public education to help citizens discern fact from fiction is being overmatched by the internet free-for-all.

The man who poisoned politics

The new norms Newt Gingrich established of “anything goes to win and keep power” has grown so powerful that polarization now has a death grip on the American political process.

My favorite travel guide

In addition to Google Earth and Street View, there’s another fascinating way to tour far away places from the comfort of home, thanks to intrepid Dutch traveler Kees Colijn and YouTube.

See the whole world from home

Thanks to Google Earth and its ground-level cousin, Street View, you can tour 83 countries all over the globe from the privacy of your own home. Anyone with a computer can download it free.

Time for Council-School Board meeting?

One way to nurture a relationship between the borough and the school district is joint meetings of the school board and council.

What fits our educational mission?

Isn’t the school district best suited to resume responsibility for the Ricketts Center?

Right-To-Know empowers citizens

Another vitally important element of government transparency is not a website, but Pennsylvania’s 2008 Right-To-Know law.

More transparency than ever

Despite its downsides, the internet allows our local governments to provide a wealth of information on their websites.

Lots of ways to define “the good life”

On Tuesday, we reported on the enormous impact smartphones have had on our schools and our young people’s mental health.

Today, let us consider the reflections of an eminent world scholar on “the good life.”

Pottstown committee tackles smartphones

It’s become the biggest issue in public education: the proliferation of smartphones in schools since the iPhone was first introduced in 2007.

Who was Richard J. Ricketts Sr.?

The Ricketts Center is one of the oldest institutions in Pottstown. The center is located on the south side of Beech Street between Grant and Adams streets. But who was Richard J. Ricketts?

Who’s running the Ricketts Center?

Last week, Pottstown Council voted to delay, for one month, signing a new five-year contract with Boyertown Area Multi-Service, a nonprofit, to operate the Ricketts Community Center at 658 Beech Street.

Doing our part to preserve nature

Thirty years later, he’s squeezed 1,200 colorful plants into his 2,500 square foot backyard, each one cultivated to attract a specific species of butterfly.

Butterfly man publishes new book

Pottstown’s butterfly guru, Ron Richael, started planting a garden in 1994 to attract butterflies to the backyard of his house on West Beech Street.

Finding peace with our dogs

He was totally in the moment, not worrying about the past or thinking about the future, but completely, innocently, joyously, happy.

The fragility of life

It’s not surprising that people tend to feel more grateful and content as they age. Life is precious, and the closer we come to the end of it, the more we appreciate what we have.

Plans for homeless inch forward

Beacon of Hope has received a $1.3 million federal grant to construct a shelter. It's found a 2.3 acre site at High and Glasgow streets to build it.

Signs of homeless in Pottstown

A path through the brush just off the Schuylkill River Greenway in Pottstown, adjacent to Keystone Boulevard west of Route 100, leads to a homeless encampment along the river.

Costly bridge replacements on the horizon

Three bridges over the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks in downtown Pottstown are rapidly deteriorating and will need to be replaced.

Many bridges to maintain or replace

Pottstown Borough has a lot of bridges. The money is available to repair or replace four of them, shown on this page. It does not have the money for three other, very costly bridges (to be discussed Thursday).

Maintaining streets is important, too

Let’s suppose the borough issued a bond to fix all the streets that need to be milled and repaved. At the cost of this year’s work — $300,000 per mile — it would cost perhaps $7 million to fix all the borough’s streets.

“None of us just live in a silo”

Many in the school community believe “Whatever we’re doing is more important than anything else.” The tax-paying residents and property owners of Pottstown may have other priorities besides schools.

Green infrastructure lacking

Pottstown has spent nearly $85 million on bricks and mortar projects in the last 25 years, but virtually nothing on green infrastructure.

Should Pottstown schools go solar?

A growing number of Pennsylvania school districts are installing solar panels, according to Generation180, a nonprofit advocating for schools to generate all their electricity with green energy.

1997 facilities study = $80 million +

Pottstown's last facilities study, conducted by Hayes Large Architects in 1997, led to more than 15 years of tumult, as successive school boards struggled over the size and scope of renovations and new construction, grade level configurations, and whether one or more elementary schools should be closed.

$50 million for … what?

During the last five years, state subsidies to the Pottstown School District have increased 60 percent. The school district ended the 2023-2024 school year with a record-high fund balance of $27 million. What to do with all this new money?
Read more

School district should fund library

Now that the Pottstown School District is getting a windfall from the state, it’s time for the district to start funding the library, an educational institution that serves all ages, all year long.

School subsidies, spending skyrocket

The new state budget signed into law by Gov. Josh Shapiro on July 11 brings millions of new dollars to the Pottstown School District.
Read more

Apartment complexes a win for Pottstown

In 2015, the borough commissioned a study by Better Landlord LLC to calculate the cost of rentals versus homeownership in terms of police, fire, codes and public works services per housing unit.
The least expensive residential unit to service is not an owner-occupied house, but one in an apartment complex of five units or more.
Read more

Employer, employee listings for 2023

At its peak, Pottstown was host to numerous major manufacturers such as Bethlehem Steel, Neapco, Kiwi, and Mrs. Smith’s that have since either closed or moved out of town.

Today, Pottstown has only three employers in its top 25 that actually make things. Most Pottstown jobs are now in services.

Part 2 crimes stable, calls for service rise

On Tuesday, we reported that Part 1 crimes — considered the most serious ones — have leveled off in recent years after a long decline from their peak in the 1990s.
Today’s chart shows that less dangerous crimes, known as Part 2 crimes, are also stable.

Crime stays low after years of decline

Serious crime in Pottstown is down a third from 1997, the year crime peaked in Pottstown.

Repurposing great historic churches

There will likely be more conversions of historic church buildings in the next few years as mainline Protestant churches continue to lose congregants. Creative thinking will be needed to find their highest and best use.

Historic church sold for apartments

Rockwell Development Group, Pottstown’s premier developer of historic buildings into housing, has purchased the Invictus Church building (formerly Transfiguration Lutheran Church) at Hanover and Chestnut streets for conversion into market rate apartments.
Read more

Young people becoming less happy

The World Happiness Report, an annual barometer of wellbeing in 140 nations coordinated by Oxford University and the Gallup Organization, found that youth are now the “least happy” age group in North America.

More calls to restrict smartphone use

Last week, U. S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy proposed a warning label on social media platforms stating that “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

Millions for synthetic turf?

Last fall, a consultant commissioned by the Pottstown school district recommended spending up to $10 million to improve our athletic fields, mostly to install more than four acres of synthetic turf on two fields.

Sports galore

The Pottstown School District promotes sports as much as possible. Our district of 3,300 students fields 39 high school and middle school sports teams and wants to add more.

Demographics to bring change

There's a demographic tsunami coming to Pennsylvania. Already home to one of the nation’s oldest populations, Pennsylvania will see its elderly — age 60 and older — grow to a third of its total population by the end of the decade.

Foundation boosts college-bound

Twenty-one recent Pottstown High School graduates have a head start on college, paid in part or in full by the Foundation for Pottstown Education. That’s the highest number since the program began ten years ago.

Two ways to experience nature

To connect students with nature, the Pottstown School District recently bused middle school students to NorthBay, an environmental education center at Elk Neck State Park along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Staring at screens robs us of real life

Teenagers spend eight and a half hours daily on “entertainment screen use,” according to the non-profit Common Sense, and children aged 9 to 12 spend five and a half hours.

Wide variety of housing in Pottstown

On Tuesday, we noted that Pottstown housing prices have increased dramatically — almost doubling over the last six years.

Pottstown housing prices up, sales down

Housing prices are higher than ever. The median price of a Pottstown home has almost doubled in the last six years, from $110,000 in 2018 to $215,770 in 2023. And houses are selling fast!

What to do about smartphone mania

According to New York University sociologist Jonathan Haidt, there are four norms that would roll back the phone-based childhood. Any community that adopts all four will see substantial improvements in youth mental health within two years.

Teachers: Cell phones disrupt learning

At last Thursday’s meeting of the Pottstown School Board, the president of the Pottstown Federation of Teachers, Beth Yoder, asked the school board to consider restricting the use of cell phones in school.

Young lives absorbed by smartphones

In 2011, only 23 percent of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73 percent, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.” It was in this brief period, from 2010 to 2015, that childhood in America (and many other countries) was rewired into a form that was more sedentary, solitary, virtual, and incompatible with healthy human development.

Virtual world saturates childhood

It was not until the introduction of the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and high-speed internet (which reached 50 percent of American homes in 2007)—and the corresponding pivot to mobile made by many providers of social media, video games, and porn—that it became possible for adolescents to spend nearly every waking moment online.

Do smartphones degrade learning process?

What is childhood –– including adolescence –– and how did it change when smartphones moved to the center of it?
Smartphone-based life, it turns out, alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.

Are smartphones ruining childhood?

Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s— rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019.

Parking lots proliferate in Pottstown

A Wind Gap company has submitted a plan to expand an existing truck parking lot on Keystone Boulevard by another 50 spaces. Pottstown already has 43,602 parking spaces along its streets and in parking lots, but apparently we need more.

Degrading downtown Pottstown

When laying out his town in 1752, John Potts donated a lot on King Street to the Society of Friends, which built a meeting house with the Potts family burial ground behind it, extending to Chestnut Street. The Potts burial ground is still there, but the meeting house was torn down for a municipal parking lot.

Trees can live a long time — if we let them

95-YEAR-OLD TREE — This tree in front of the former Mercury building on North Hanover Street was planted when Calvin Coolidge was president. Street trees can live a long time — if they are not cut down prematurely.

Earth Week 2024: Hottest in human history

This is Earth Week, and our planet has never been in worse shape since the beginning of human civilization.

No tax increase in preliminary school budget

Tonight, the Pottstown School Board is expected to pass a tentative $84.8 million budget for 2024-2025 that raises spending a little more than 5 percent over the current school year.

Business improvement district proposed

At Council’s April committee meeting, PAED executive director Peggy Lee-Clark proposed the creation of a Business Improvement District (BID) to pick up the cost of sidewalk cleaning and other services.

Blighted property for sale: $750,000

In 2015, Norristown businessman Jeff Livingston bought the deteriorated hulk of the former Levengood Dairy at Chestnut and Washington streets for $31,000 and soon filled the property with junk.
Read more

Street paving: 2.67 miles to be done

More than 7 miles of Pottstown streets have been classified by the public works department as cracked, patched, uneven, and potholed, but only 2.67 miles of the worst streets will be paved in 2024.

Spring comes to Pottstown

About 350 ornamental callery pear trees were planted along Pottstown streets in the mid 1980s, when it was the most popular tree in the mid-Atlantic. They look spectacular in the early spring.

MCCC: From parking lot to park

For the first time in memory, a Pottstown parking lot is being removed and replaced with a park. The new park will face the community college North Hall on High Street and consist of turf, trees, and a pergola overlooking the Manatawny Creek.

YWCA expands its mission

The YWCA was awarded $5.5 million in federal funds , far more than any other Pottstown area applicant, which was used in part to purchase the former Pottstown YMCA building on North Adams Street for $3.2 million and the former First Baptist Church building for $850,000.

Growing by leaps and bounds

Pottstown’s fastest growing enterprise is not a private company, but a 115-year-old non-profit that has recently evolved into a $12 million operation: the former Pottstown YWCA, which changed its name in 2007 to the YWCA Tri-County Area.

Can we avoid the tipping point?

Generous social services, together with older, high density housing and a walkable infrastructure, make Pottstown a magnet for the poor and troubled.

Borough reports on housing

At Pottstown Council’s committee of the whole meeting last month, Borough Manager Justin Keller provided a detailed overview of Pottstown’s housing situation with the aid of numerous charts and graphs.

Berks foundation helps churches

Five years ago, the Berks County Community Foundation launched a “sacred places” project to catalogue Reading’s churches.

Painful process of merging churches

It was only after retiring as pastor of Pottstown’s Emmanuel Lutheran Church in 2009 that the Rev. Burlington Latshaw faced one of the most difficult tasks in his career: facilitating the merger of four Lutheran churches in Reading that could not survive on their own.

Two repurposed churches

With housing in short supply throughout the region, converting churches to apartments and condominiums is a practical way to preserve and maintain our most beautiful buildings and create more homes at the same time.

Pottstown congregations downsizing

In 1975, nearly 30 percent of Americans belonged to traditional churches such as Baptist, Lutheran, and Methodist. Today it’s about 10 percent. This trend is reflected in Pottstown.

Magnificent church buildings at risk

As the middle class moved out of Pottstown for the suburbs, and as membership in traditional churches has declined everywhere, dwindling congregations have found it increasingly difficult to maintain Pottstown's magnificent church buildings.
Read more

Factory/warehouses to housing

Pottstown has a dozen multistory factories and warehouses that are no longer viable for their original purpose and have been converted into other uses, mostly offices and apartments.
Read more

Who is Dwight City Group?

In a preliminary presentation to Pottstown Council last June, Dwight CEO Judah Angster said the company specializes in revitalizing existing buildings, including old warehouses.

43,602 parking spaces

In recent decades, Pottstown’s fixation on parking has led to the creation of far more parking spaces than we’ll ever need.

Parking variance sought

Pottstown’s zoning ordinance requires two parking spaces for each apartment unit. Dwight City Group, the Manhattan-based developer proposing the residential conversion of a landmark factory/warehouse complex, needs a variance to proceed.
Read more

Warehouse lofts project proposed

A New York developer has proposed the conversion of a historic warehouse/factory complex on North Hanover Street, next to the Pottstown Cemetery, into 85 one and two bedroom market rate apartments.

Preserving Pennsylvania farmland

Farmland preservation has been much in the news, with Berks and Montgomery counties allocating more than $1 million and Chester County more than $2 million to preserve farmland.

Tax payments should be public

Last week, a former IRS contractor was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing the tax returns of Donald Trump and other wealthy people and sharing them with the media.
It was a crime, but why?

Pottstown’s 2024 budget in brief

Pottstown Council last month adopted a 2024 budget that calls for a 2.96 percent tax increase. Quarterly trash collection fees, which are separate from the real estate tax, are going up 10 percent. Together, the borough and the school district are set to spend more than $132 million this year.

Enterprising government saves money

On Tuesday, we published a line item summary of Pottstown Borough’s projected spending in 2024. More than 20 percent of the budget is funded not by local taxpayers, but by state and federal grants.

$25 million investment in Pottstown

Last week, we discussed a $2.5 million proposal by Rockwell Development Group to rehabilitate two Lastick Furniture Store buildings at High and Charlotte streets into retail and market rate apartments. No entity has a better record of development in Pottstown, which currently totals more than $25 million invested.

Paying too much for your whistle

January marks the 318th birthday of Pennsylvania’s greatest citizen, Benjamin Franklin. Arguably the 18th century’s most brilliant scientist, diplomat, and philosopher, Franklin has never been more relevant than today.
Read more

High Street restoration proposed

A $2.5 million restoration of the two former Lastick’s Furniture Store buildings at High and Charlotte streets has been proposed by Rockwell Development Group, the same firm that restored the 19th century Meyerhoff Shirt Factory into market rate apartments in 2021.
Read more

Project will enhance downtown

The proposed $2.5 million conversion of two Lastick Furniture Store buildings at High and Charlotte streets into mixed-use buildings — retail, market rate apartments, and subgrade parking — will significantly enhance the appearance and livability of downtown Pottstown.
Read more

Wyomissing epitome of good design

About the same time Milton Hershey was building his ideal community near Harrisburg, two German- American businessmen, Henry Janssen and Ferdinand Thun, were establishing their own “model community” just outside Reading, called Wyomissing, to accommodate their fast-growing industrial enterprises.

Adaptive reuse key to Pottstown’s future

In recent columns, we discussed Pennsylvania’s two “model communities,” Hershey and Wyomissing, which were built on virgin land by idealists to be clean, safe, functional, and beautiful. Pottstown’s history has been quite different.
Read more

Build a city from scratch?

San Francisco Bay Area residents are aflutter over a proposal by several Silicon Valley moguls to build a new city, about 50 percent larger in size than Pittsburgh, in rural Solano County, California, northeast of the bay area.
Read more

Pennsylvania’s best town builder

More than 75 years after his death, it’s still hard to tell whether Milton Hershey built a town to support his chocolate factory, or a chocolate factory to support his town.

Not ready to go at 75

This month marks two personal milestones. I turned 75 last week, and I also published my thousandth Mercury “advertorial.”

Letters help connect us to the past

Christmas is a time of family and reflection. I spent a nostalgic holiday organizing scores of family letters, going back to the 1930s, scanning them and sharing them digitally with my brother and sister.

Real towns have holiday feel

It was only November, and the Pennsylvania Lottery already started airing the same Christmas commercial it has used for 31 years.
Read more

What was best about ‘A Wonderful Life’

Pottstown could use a few graduates like George Bailey — committed to living and working in our town for the long haul.

Burden of homeless falls on Pottstown

Homelessness affects few residents in Montgomery County — just 329 people were homeless in a county of 860,000 residents, according to a county survey — but it’s a huge problem in Pottstown and Norristown, where homeless people congregate.

Countywide ills deluge Pottstown

Pottstown has a bus service for those without cars. It has churches which shelter the homeless at night. It has drug rehabilitation facilities, free food offered by numerous groups, medical outreach services provided by the hospital, and free counseling. Non-profit organizations pay no real estate taxes.

These generous social services, together with older, high density housing and a walkable infrastructure, make Pottstown a magnet for the poor and troubled.

Is the internet changing our brains?

Almost everyone uses the internet continually throughout the day.
Are there downsides to this? Of course, and one of them has been articulated by writer Nicolas Carr in The Atlantic, as follows:
Read more

Many people won’t get past the headline

On Tuesday, we discussed how the internet has rewired our brains to dramatically reduce our attention span.
When it comes to newspaper and magazine articles online, many people read just a few paragraphs and then it’s off to something else.
Read more

Holiday House Tour this Sunday

This year’s Historic Pottstown Holiday House Tour, scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, will feature homes around the “Chicken Hill” section of town featured in James McBride’s new novel, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.”

Middle school 90 years old

Pottstown Middle School, which will be featured on Sunday’s Historic Pottstown Holiday House Tour, was originally built as a junior high school in 1933.

Simplify, simplify

Most of us spend a significant portion of our days sitting in cars going from place to place. At work and at home, we spend much of our time looking at television screens, smart phones, and computer monitors.
Rational people must wonder if all this commotion is really progress.

Thanksgiving then and now

It’s easy to think Pottstown is worse off now than for previous generations, but this ignores the enormous improvements in daily life we quickly take for granted.

Pottstown success story

D.J. Pallets is setting up a wooden pallet manufacturing and reconditioning business in the former Pottstown Plating Works at South Washington Street and Industrial Highway. The works complex was vacant for nearly 15 years, contaminated and decaying, until Pottstown entrepreneur John Jones invested millions of dollars to clean up the property and transform it into a modern facility.

Demolition by neglect

Perhaps the most visible blighted building in Pottstown is 542 High Street, on the same block at the Pottstown Regional Public Library. As buildings deteriorate, they become prey to vandalism and even arson. They become far more expensive to rehabilitate. They often end up being demolished.

Democracy is more than voting

Today is Election Day, and if this day is anything like the most recent general election for local government offices, in November 2021, about 2,800 Pottstown residents will cast a vote. That’s out of some 14,000 registered voters.

School mergers? Not necessary.

School district consolidation?
Every few years, a politician will propose legislation to enlarge existing school districts through mergers.

Trees Inc. 2023 report

For 40 years, Trees Inc., a non -profit incorporated in 1983, has done almost all the tree planting and maintenance in Pottstown.
More than two-thirds of Pottstown’s current street trees were planted by Trees Inc.

Flexible sidewalks work best

At his 2024 budget presentation to Pottstown Council at its October meeting, Borough Manager Justin Keller suggested establishing a $100,000 grant fund to help Pottstown homeowners repair sidewalks damaged by tree roots.

Streets as greenways

Every trip — going to work, shopping at the grocery store, visiting friends, even walking the dog — involves using one or more streets. Trees can help make these daily activities park-like — green, pleasant, and tranquil.

Pottstown streets with a “green roof”

Pottstown streets before and after trees

Street trees planted in the 1980s have transformed the appearance of many Pottstown streets.

Street trees save energy

Studies show the most cost effective way to alleviate climate change in urban areas like Pottstown is planting lots of shade trees.

Trees Inc. marks 40th anniversary

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the incorporation of Trees Inc., the Pottstown non-profit that has planted 2,816 new and replacement street trees in Pottstown and trimmed thousands more (many more than once).

Pottstown in 1983: bare and bleak

It’s easy to forget just how stark and bare Pottstown’s streets looked prior to the incorporation of Trees Inc. in October 1983.

Montana students protect the environment

In March 2020, a group of 16 Montana young people, aged 5 to 22, sued their state for its failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects.

Young people concerned about fossil fuels

Young people are far more open to phasing out fossil fuels than their elders, because they are the ones who will face the brunt of a warming planet.

Edgewood walking tours set

Just a handful of tickets remain for a guided tour of the Edgewood Historic Cemetery on High Street Saturday afternoon, Oct. 7.

Cemeteries as passive parks

In the 19th century, especially, cemeteries were viewed as parks and arboretums — a quiet place for walks or even picnics.

Fix the outside as well as the inside

Developers, especially rehabbers, have greatly improved the quality of life in Pottstown. Many magnificent homes have been restored, and former factories repurposed, to become great places to live.

20 years, $44 million in grants

Pottstown government relies heavily on grant funding for many of its operations.

Trash collection expands

Pottstown residents, the homeless, and other visitors to town generate an enormous amount of trash, especially downtown.

Street paving: 5 miles done, 25 to go

On Tuesday, we discussed how the Pottstown community is increasing its efforts to clean up Pottstown’s ubiquitous trash. Another significant problem is deteriorated streets.

Retail moves to your door (1)

Changing technology has led to transformations in where we live, work, and shop. One of the most recent changes is retail commerce.

Retail moves to your door (2)

Internet commerce is great. There’s no limit to the number of items you can buy online and have it delivered to your door. Of course, now we’re more isolated than ever.

Pottstown needs investors like Jones

Beyond the plating works, Jones has invested millions of dollars to rehabilitate seven other commercial properties. They generate almost $200,000 annually in real estate taxes.

Home rehabbers enhance Pottstown

Pottstown benefits from entrepreneurs who buy tired old houses and turn them into gleaming showplaces.

Can we make this happen?

The proposed pallet manufacturing project will have no adverse impact on Pottstown residents. We need the jobs it will create.

Pottstown zoning needs flexibility

I can speak with some authority on the zoning issue, because I wrote Pottstown’s current zoning and subdivision ordinance with borough solicitor Chuck Garner in 2003. Right from the get-go, we knew a lot of variances would be needed to make it work.

Rich man’s epiphany

Last week, we pointed out that Pottstown school taxes are the seventh highest of 500 school districts in Pennsylvania.
What’s our return on investment? We don’t know.

Rich man’s epiphany (p 2)

On Tuesday we published excerpts from a multi-millionaire’s essay in The Atlantic magazine regarding public schools and children in poverty.
He made (to him) the startling discovery that schools can’t solve inequality in America.

Schools can’t do it all

Consider the Farrell Area School District, which serves a small steelmaking town, Farrell, and Wheatland Borough, in northwest Pennsylvania along the Ohio border. For decades, Farrell has been one of the state’s most economically depressed communities.

How to uplift Pottstown

What is the Pottstown School District? Some people think the school district is its students and staff. But they are all temporary. People come and go. What does have staying power is geography.

Vouchers will degrade public schools

The voucher plan would, in effect, cherry pick the best students out of low performing schools, leaving the rest of the students worse off than ever.

Excess spending doesn’t help

In Pennsylvania, there is no evidence than any school district has pulled substantial numbers of students out of poverty.

Crime levels off after years of decline

Despite a slight uptick last year, crime in Pottstown continues to be lower than it’s been in recent decades.

Part 2 crimes lowest in decades

Less dangerous crimes, known as Part 2 crimes, fell to their lowest level in at least 30 years.

PAED starts downtown street cleaning

For years, the greatest stain on Pottstown’s daily quality of life downtown has been the unending stream of trash tossed on our streets and sidewalks.

PAED’s key role in Pottstown

In recent weeks, we’ve recounted the history of Pottstown Area Economic Development Inc. (PAED) since its founding in 1965.

LERTA helps fund two projects

In 2016, after two years of meetings and discussions, Pottstown Council and the Pottstown School Board agreed on the borough’s first LERTA ordinance.

Land Bank gains traction

It took five years of organizing, but the Pottstown Land Bank is finally gaining traction.

Pallet factory proposed for plating site

Until recently, the former Pottstown Plating Works, at South Washington Street and the Industrial Highway, comprised the most blighted and contaminated buildings in Pottstown.

KEEP land offers new opportunities

Nearly 50 years ago, in 1976, a panel from the Urban Land Institute identified about 100 acres of mostly vacant land along the Schuylkill River in Pottstown west of Route 100 that provided excellent opportunities for development.

Five acres of blight — gone

For years, the decaying relics of two Pottstown industries — Pottstown Nipple Works and Pottstown Plating Works — constituted five acres of blight between Laurel Street and the Industrial Highway.

Pottstown Plating still a work in progress

Until recently, the former Pottstown Plating Works, at South Washington Street and the Industrial Highway, comprised the most blighted and contaminated buildings in Pottstown.

PAED reorganizes with its own director

In 2010, as recommended by the ULI, a memo of understanding was drawn up between Pottstown Council, the Pottstown School Board, and the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority to designate PAED as the “single authoritative entity” to “facilitate, manage, and implement” Pottstown’s economic development initiatives.

Anchor bank building restored

TOP THREE FLOORS of the original First Federal Savings and Loan building at High and Hanover streets were vacant for decades because of asbestos contamination.
With the assistance of PAED, April Barkasi, CEO of Cedarville Engineering Group, bought the building with partners and remediated it with low interest loans from Montgomery County.

PAED saves historic bank building

Ever since its construction in 1888, the Security Trust bank building at High and Hanover streets has been the anchor of downtown Pottstown.

PAED closes bars, attracts playhouse

PAED bought the former Newberry 5&10 building in 2005 and held it until the TriCounty Performing Arts Center could raise the money to buy the building at cost from PAED.

PAED brings ULI to Pottstown

Using proceeds from the sale of lots at the Airport Business Campus, PAED funded a study by the Urban Land Institute in 1989 to recommend economic development strategies.

ULI plan leads to new town center

The most significant improvement to downtown Pottstown in the last 50 years was the construction of a new Borough Hall and town park.

Employer, employee listings for 2022

Each year for the last seven years, we’ve published a list of Pottstown’s top 25 employers.

PAED’s role grows in Pottstown

The closures of Bethlehem Steel and Firestone cost the borough more than 3,000 good-paying jobs, and Pottstown began the difficult transition from a manufacturing powerhouse into an agglomeration of small, widely diverse industries.

Foundation boosts college-bound

Twelve of the students who will graduate from Pottstown High School next week have a head start on college, paid in part or in full by the Foundation for Pottstown Education.

Let’s cut the real estate tax

With the seventh highest tax effort in Pennsylvania, and a whopping $25 million fund balance, the district can and should start cutting the real estate tax.

Before “fair funding” — “costing-out”

Long before “fair funding,” the Pennsylvania legislature had already adopted a formula based on the same factors, called “costing-out.”

Unfair funding

While the Pottstown School District is in excellent shape, the borough is not. It does not receive generous state subsidies, even though it has the same demographics as the school district.

Education spending perspective

As measured on a global scale, a national scale, or a state scale, Pottstown is spending more per pupil than the vast majority of public schools anywhere.

Pottstown school spending skyrockets

The Pottstown School Board last month passed a preliminary 2023-2024 budget that raises spending 16 percent over the current school year.
Read more

Our wealth in perspective

If money and material goods are the criteria for the good life, we’re on top of the world.

Is there ever enough?

“In America I have seen the freest and best educated of men in circumstances the happiest to be found in the world; yet it seemed to me that a cloud habitually hung on their brow, and they seemed serious and almost sad in their pleasures,” because they “never stop thinking of the good things they have not got.”

Tax subsidies help wealthy homeowners

There are lots of ways the government subsidizes the wealthy. The home mortgage deduction not only helps the rich, but it also helps isolate the poor in older communities.
Read more

Should tax payments be public?

Government at all levels requires money to operate, and every citizen is expected to pay his fair share. Income taxes are a major revenue source for both states and the federal government, so why shouldn’t individual payments be made public?

Rich not who we think they are

We now know who is rich in America. And it’s not who you might have guessed.

Money and happiness

Does money actually make people happy?

It’s not going to stay this way

There are nearly 8 billion people on the planet, and they all want the same high quality lifestyles people in the developed world enjoy.

America’s income inequality

The distribution of wealth in America is even more unequal than the worldwide distribution of wealth. The richest 20 percent of Americans own 85 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Demographics changing the world

Birth rates are creating a very different world from the one we’ve experienced in recent generations.

Immigration brings change

Last week, the Census Bureau reported the number of immigrants nearly tripled in the nation’s 20 most populous counties from 2021 to 2022, as immigration returned to pre-pandemic levels

Problems of the affluent and the poor

Homelessness has been much in the news. Pottstown’s North End residents have been complaining to Borough Council about a temporary homeless shelter for 30 persons in the basement of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ.

LED lights a small, easy step forward

New state grants totaling more than $1 million were announced this month to pay for replacing all the borough’s street lights with LED bulbs.

This kind of sustainability initiative was easy because it didn’t cost any local dollars and didn’t ask people to accept change.

Homelessness touches North End

Pottstown has numerous churches with excess capacity because their congregations have dwindled as parishioners of means moved to the suburbs in recent decades. Many of these churches have become havens for the poor to receive food, clothing, and other necessities.

Open space, covert decision- making

An engineering firm hired by Upper Pottsgrove Township makes a lucid argument for building a $5.5 million municipal complex on the former Smola farm at Evans and Moyer roads.

Pottstown housing prices higher than ever

Although Pottstown has major problems with vacant storefronts, trash-strewn streets, and homelessness, housing prices are higher than ever.

Wide variety of housing in Pottstown

On Tuesday, we noted that Pottstown housing prices have increased dramatically — more than 70 percent over the last five years.

Excessive compensation stains Tower Health

Quoting a lower court decision, Commonwealth Court stated “[the CEO] and the Board of Tower Health were no more tha[n] corporate health care raiders . ... The goal as evident from the financial documentation offered at trial was simple and direct—drain the juice out of the hospitals until there was nothing left but a dried-out husk and then leave, close the doors, or sell what was left.”

Challenging tax exemptions

The recent Tower Health ruling shows the court’s willingness to rethink which organizations are truly non-profit and which ones have been categorized more by past practices than logic.

In an age of increasing income inequality, why is a poor town expected to subsidize a school with a $188 million endowment and lavish facilities that primarily serves the national and international moneyed class?

Pottstown housing now integrated

Pottstown is one of the most integrated municipalities in Pennsylvania. Pottstown has 20 census blocks, as shown in the map above. The racial demographics of each census block are shown in the chart. It’s clear Pottstown is integrated in all its neighborhoods.

Pottstown area highly segregated

On Tuesday, we published a chart of all 20 census blocks in Pottstown demonstrating that Pottstown is integrated at a neighborhood level. But the Pottstown area, encompassing the borough and its surrounding municipalities, is highly segregated.

Elementary schools desegregate in 1980

In 1978, The Mercury published a 16- page special edition suggesting the district could desegregate its elementary schools and reduce excess classroom capacity by closing Jefferson School and redistricting the remaining schools.

Demographics have dramatically changed

By far the greatest change in the Pottstown School District in the last 50 years has been a dramatic increase in the district’s minority enrollment and in student poverty.

Racial segregation redux, 1963

Nine years after publishing a weeklong series of articles in 1954 about racial discrimination in Pottstown, The Pottstown Mercury ran an even longer series of articles in 1963 about what progress had been made.

Housing strictly segregated in 1963

“Realtors in Pottstown do not talk about segregation and discrimination — except to deny it. But it does exist — sharply, and clearly defined."

Committtee on Human Relations formed

In 1954, following a week-long series of articles in The Pottstown Mercury about racial discrimination in Pottstown, a group of concerned citizens met at a local restaurant to form a Committee on Human Relations.

Black pioneers

Although de facto racial inequity was the rule in 1950s Pottstown, there were some notable exceptions. Chief among these was the Corum family.

Mercury confronts segregation in 1954 (2)

BLACK COMMERCIAL graduates of Pottstown High School in the early 1950s. None were sent out for job interviews, but white girls were placed.

Mercury confronts segregation in 1954 (3)

In 1954, ending a week-long series of articles about racial discrimination in Pottstown, The Pottstown Mercury concluded with plea to bring about racial equity in Pottstown.

1954 court ruling leads to Mercury series

One month after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, The Pottstown Mercury published a week-long series of articles about racial segregation in Pottstown.

Mercury confronts segregation in 1954 (1)

Mercury editor Shandy Hill championed racial equality, and he wasn’t afraid of being unpopular. The Mercury series highlighted some uncomfortable truths.

Broadening school district's mission

The Pottstown Public Library would be much more appropriate for the school district to oversee and financially support than the borough.

The library: education for all

Books, videos, internet resources — everything’s available at the public library. You can go on-line from home and browse the entire collection — not just Pottstown’s, but almost everywhere in Pennsylvania

Preserving our natural capital

Natural capital is everything nature provides us for free. It is what our economy is built upon.

Where your local taxes go

Together, Pottstown Borough and the Pottstown School District are set to spend more than $118 million this year.

Thoughts for 2023

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.

New epoch in world history

By the 1950s, the world’s humans grew so numerous, and started making so much impact on the planet, that the geologists believe a new epoch is warranted: the Anthropocene.

For previous years' columns, see the home tab at the top of the page.

More than 60 percent of local

spending goes to the school district.

But what about our ROI (Return on

Investment)? How well prepared are

Pottstown students to be successful as

adults, to earn a living and contribute

to society?

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse