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Week of April 28, 2008
Future finances could determine sewer sale
By: CHRIS ENGLISH, Bucks County Courier Times
Holding on to the township sewer system could prove expensive for Lower Makefield taxpayers.
The supervisors recently rejected a $17 million offer from Aqua Pennsylvania for the system. Their 5-0 vote came despite a presentation by township Manager Terry Fedorchak and finance director Brian McCloskey on how accepting the offer could have possibly saved taxpayers about 4.5 mills in taxes, or $500 over five years, starting in 2010.
If the offer, which included a two-year rate freeze, had been accepted, about $10 million would have been left after paying off $7 million in sewer debt, the administrators said.
Bush administration opposes housing package
By: JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
A top housing official said Thursday that the Bush administration "strongly opposes" Democrats' housing rescue package, calling it a bailout that would expose taxpayers to excessive risk.
Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Roy A. Bernardi also indicated that President Bush would veto a bill sending $15 billion to states for the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed properties.
The comments, in separate letters to lawmakers, were the most forceful rejection yet by the Bush administration of Democrats' housing aid plans. And they were the clearest indication to date that the White House intends to put up a vigorous fight against a bill to let the Federal Housing Administration take on as much as $300 billion in new mortgages for financially strapped homeowners.
Mega group joins planners
Bigger may not always be better, but more cooperation in planning can never be bad.
The Inter-Regional Planning Cooperative is a new entity comprised of regional planning groups that represent five regions, 32 municipalities and a population of more than 200,000 people in Montgomery and Chester counties.
The group of five regional planning groups includes the Pottstown group, along with the Upper Perkiomen Valley, the Indian Valley, the Central Perkiomen Valley and the Phoenixville Region.
The organization’s goal is to serve as “a clearing house for inter-regional planning.”
In some areas of the country, that might not be necessary, but here in Sprawlville, the idea has plenty of merit. As housing and retail developments have crawled along Route 422 and Route 100 through our region, the impact on traffic, infrastructure, schools, and the environment has been dramatic.
These are the quality-of-life issues that the regional group hopes to cooperatively manage. The organization is looking to identify common transportation and infrastructure needs and solutions; support planning and zoning “best practices” and identify legislative initiatives that support regional planning and cooperation.
But as with all large groups, not everyone agrees on everything. Initially, the agreement creating the IRPC would have had the expenditure of funds approved only by the IRPC itself, but that didn’t sit well with some representatives.
John Cover, who heads the community planning division of the Montgomery County Planning Commission and who advises the Pottstown regional planning group, said he understands the concern.
Saying Times Are Tough, Bush Urges Congress to Act
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
With consumer confidence falling and gasoline and food prices at record highs, President Bush delivered an unusually dark assessment of the economy on Tuesday, saying the nation is in “very difficult times, very difficult.”
There are no quick fixes, Mr. Bush said, to ease the pain Americans feel.
Mr. Bush used a Rose Garden news conference to go on the offensive against the Democratic-controlled Congress, accusing lawmakers of dragging their feet on bills that would address pocketbook issues.
Democrats pushed back, accusing Mr. Bush of trotting out old ideas and of favoring big oil companies at the expense of average Americans.
The sharp exchanges struck a different tone than one earlier this year when the two parties joined forces on an economic stimulus package, including tax rebates that are beginning to go out. In the months since then, the president and Congress have been unable to agree on measures to address the economic troubles, and by Tuesday they were mostly blaming each other.
Dems want tougher OSHA penalties
By: Jesse J. Holland, AP Labor Writer
People can get more prison time for mail fraud than for violating safety standards that can kill workers, Democratic senators said Tuesday as they called for tougher punishment for workplace fatalities and stricter enforcement from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The maximum OSHA civil penalty for a safety violation is $70,000 and the maximum prison sentence for a willful violation of a safety standard that leads to a worker’s death is six months, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. In contrast, mail fraud can draw a top sentence of 30 years.
“If you improperly import an exotic bird, you can go to jail for two years. If you deal in counterfeit money, you’re looking at 20 years,” said Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “But if you gamble with the lives of your employees and one of them is killed, you risk only six months in jail.”
Chris Satullo: Stop the gerrymander
By Chris Satullo , Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
I'm standing on gritty Hector Street in Conshohocken, between Righter and Walnut, across from Totaro's Tavern, home to some primo pasta dishes.
Next to Totaro's sit two single-family homes, separated by a two-car garage.
If the people in those homes, and the others along Hector, ever want to write to their congressman about a shared concern, things could get a little complicated.
You see, the line separating the Sixth District, represented by Republican Jim Gerlach, from the Seventh, represented by Democrat Joe Sestak, cuts across this block at a 45-degree angle. As best I can tell, the folks in the house to my right are represented by Sestak, but the cars in their garage are on Gerlach's turf.
To make it more confusing, folks on Hector used to be in the 13th District, now Democrat Allyson Schwartz's domain. In fact, look northeast with me up Hector. See those trees just past that traffic light? They're in the 13th.
I live a few minutes from the families in these houses. We send our kids to the same schools, shop at the same stores, and share a hatred of the traffic light at Butler and Germantown. But on Capitol Hill, we have three different representatives. Which is to say: Divvied up into politically trivial shards, we're hardly represented at all.
