The Greater Berks Food Bank went public with its $3 million capital campaign for its new building Thursday during an open house at the facility.
The nonprofit has quietly been raising funds for the warehouse off Shillington Road in Spring Township since the beginning of the year.
It already has raised a little more than $2 million of the $3 million goal, according to Executive Director Peg Bianca.
Officials emphasized Saturday that the goal of a quarantine in some eastern Berks County communities is to immobilize the new bug in town, not residents.
More than 80 people came to Oley Valley Middle School to meet with municipal, county and state officials and get information on the spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect from Asia that made its first known U.S. appearance in Berks. The insect is known to harm grapes, hardwoods and ornamentals.
It could be a stalemate or the return of Pennsylvania’s signature brand of deal-making and compromises in politics.
The deciding factor, political observers and participants say, is going to be what sort of relationship Democratic Gov.-elect Tom Wolf and Republican legislative leaders will develop.
Both sides can look to the results of Tuesday’s election to say voters have their backs.
Wolf, a businessman and former state revenue secretary, defeated Republican Gov. Tom Corbett by a margin of almost 10 percentage points, making him the first candidate to unseat a sitting Pennsylvania governor in modern political history. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding synthetic marijuana, also called K2, but the certainty stressed by a panel of officials during a community forum Thursday night was that the drug is dangerous.
Law enforcement officials, medical personnel, state lawmakers, county officials and drug and alcohol specialists addressed about 75 adults and teens at Reading Area Community College about what makes the drug a menace.”
One thing is that we’re not quite sure what it is,” Reading Police Capt. Madison Winchester said of K2. “You don’t know what you’re putting into your body.
Cody, Roenick and Trooper showed off their new skills Sunday at their graduation in Bern Township.
They ran an obstacle course, tracked people through high weeds and found items in tall grass, located drugs, demonstrated total obedience and apprehended a “suspect” who came out of a car shooting after a high-speed chase.
The dogs joined the Reading Police Department on street patrols July 7, the Berks County Community Foundation said.The newest members of the K-9 unit impressed members of the crowd, who watched the results of their training over the last 12 weeks at the K-9 training center. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Pennsylvania needs to seize the exchange of pornographic emails between the state attorney general’s staff and a state Supreme Court justice as a teachable moment (“Pa. Supreme Court justice suspended,” Reading Eagle, Oct. 21).Sometimes sexual harassment is open and direct.
Sometimes it is hinted. Always its message is that the victim’s job includes destructive, demeaning challenges few men face. And in hostile workplaces, morale and productivity generally drop.
When so many top officials responsible for interpreting and enforcing our laws laugh and share smarmy retorts over these images, even in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child-abuse case, should any woman feel secure trusting authorities to understand her fears or to defend her rights? Surely the people involved in this scandal have women and even lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender family members. One wonders how they could not consider how people in their lives would feel knowing about their actions. Read More at The Reading Eagle →
Lance Vaccaro was born with a warrior’s heart and a drive to never quit, his family said.
It was those qualities, along with his smarts and strength, that helped get him into the Navy SEALs. He fought enemy troops and terrorists in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chief Petty Officer Vaccaro’s life ended at 35 when he was killed during a parachute training exercise on March 6, 2008. Read More at The Reading Eagle →
Berks County commissioners are poised to eliminate the Agricultural Coordinator’s office, as part of a budget cutting process.
Former state Rep. Sheila Miller, a Tulpehocken Township cattle farmer, has held the position since it was created by the commissioners in 2007. Miller’s chief role was to be an advocate for the county’s agricultural community and promote its interests.
Carl E. Geffken, Berks County’s chief operating officer, said the elimination will not be official until the budget passes in December.”Agriculture is very important to the county and commissioners, but so is making sure we do not need to overtax our residents,” Geffken said. “As it stands now we are looking to eliminate that position. It is not finalized yet.” Read More at The Reading Eagle →
State lawmakers on Thursday afternoon approved the creation of a vastly expanded database of prescriptions taken by Pennsylvanians in the hopes that it would help curb abuse of prescription drugs and heroin.Gov. Tom Corbett has 10 days to sign the bill into law. A spokeswoman said he was likely to do so.
The amended bill approved by the state House of Representatives on Tuesday and the Senate on Thursday would take a limited prescription drug registry, currently held in the attorney general’s office, and expand it. The database would be housed in the state Department of Health and include medications taken for a wide variety of ailments. Read More at The Reading Eagle →
More than 100 supporters of Berks Women in Crisis, families of domestic violence victims, police and case workers marched from the nonprofit agency’s headquarters at 255 Chestnut St. to the Schmidt Training and Technology Center on the campus of Reading Area Community College for the 13th Annual Silent Witness program.
Silent Witness is designed to remember those who lost their lives to domestic violence in Reading and Berks County. Some of the marchers carried wooden cutouts of the human form with brass plaques on them detailing the case of someone who lost their life to domestic violence. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
When fruit grower Jim Richards met Mark “Coach” Smallwood at Richards’ apple orchard in Ruscombmanor Township on Thursday morning, the two just could not stop talking.
That’s understandable. Both have the same interest: organic farming.
“We do spray our apples and peaches,” Richards said as he showed Smallwood the apple trees on his 3-acre farm, J&S Fruit Farm on Pricetown Road. “But we stop early in August. We minimize the spraying. If I could go organic, I would get away from spraying.” – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Recently I had an amazing opportunity to interview State Sen. Judy Schwank, 63, a Ruscombmanor Township Democrat. As you can imagine, I was very nervous, since it’s not every day I get to interview a senator. With an anxious feeling in my stomach that no amount of food would take away, I began to ask her my questions.
How important is it for teens to be informed about politics?
“I think it’s critically important for teens to be more engaged in the political arena from the standpoint of understanding legislation,” Schwank said. “That impacts them, of course, but also in terms of thinking about it as a career or avocation.”
The senator also said, “So many things affect teens in terms of what local government, state government (and) federal government do. It’s really important for teens to be aware of it.” – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Sen. Judy Schwank spoke about pension reform and property tax reform during a recent Northeast Berks Chamber of Commerce breakfast Sept. 19.
“We do need to look at (pension reform) in Pennsylvania… We definitely need to do something about it,” said Schwank during her update about legislation to chamber members. “Anything worth doing is worth doing right. And when you’re talking about billions of dollars in investments in the state pension funds as well as the lives of at least 5 billion people in terms of retirement, it’s critical we get this right.”
Reading residents could see new and higher taxes beginning next year, and the city could lose its Act 47 status in as little as three years.
Those are some of the ramifications of a bill that would change the Act 47 program to aid distressed cities. The state Senate passed the bill with a unanimous vote Wednesday.
The bill would give cities in the state’s financial recovery program some new revenue tools, but also would kick them out of Act 47 at the end of whatever five-year plan they’re currently in.
No city has ever left Act 47 and some have been there for decades – Farrell in Mercer County and Aliquippa in Beaver County have been in since 1987. The changes are intended to force cities to leave sooner. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Lives of heroin users will be saved if friends and others can call for emergency help without fear of prosecution, according to supporters of a bill that unanimously passed the state Senate on Wednesday.
The measure, also known as the “Good Samaritan Bill,” moves to Gov. Tom Corbett, who is expected to sign it.The bill would provide limited immunity from criminal prosecution for those who assist victims of drug overdoses. The legislation was spurred in part by a rash of heroin-related overdoses. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
“We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
The statement made repeatedly by Berks District Attorney John T. Adams became the theme of a statewide report issued Tuesday on Pennsylvania’s heroin epidemic.
“It was riveting. It speaks, in my mind, to the reality that we really need to educate people about this problem and this crisis,” said Barry Denk, director of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, which put out the 23-page report and hosted the hearings that included testimony from Adams. “John said it very succinctly.” – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
About 40 people attended a rededication ceremony for the Mohnton Keystone markers Saturday morning at the northeast end of town.
Borough historian Paul L. Beavens Jr. gave a short speech before unveiling the sign at Wyomissing Avenue and Mohnton Boulevard. Another one stands along Wyomissing Avenue at the southern end of the borough. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
When state Sen. David G. Argall shows up at a public event or town hall meeting, he knows he’d better be prepared to talk about property tax elimination.
“It’s almost always the first question that comes up,” said the Schuylkill County Republican, who represents part of Berks County.
Berks has long been a hotbed for the movement to end school property taxes. – Read more at The Reading Eagle →
It could be the jolt supporters of wine and liquor privatization are looking for to uncork a stalled debate.
But some analysts and lawmakers expect the pitch to hike the markup on state stores’ prices to be just one of several factors in play in the privatization debate.
“I think it will give the supporters of (privatization) an argument to make for the fall session,” said Dr. G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “I still think liquor privatization faces a steep climb.” – Read More at The Reading Eagle →
Why the Y?
That was the question addressed at an awareness-raising session for invited politicians Friday at the Reading branch of the YMCA, 631 Washington St.
The answer: The branch is deemed an integral part of the city, providing a variety of vital social services that might not be able to continue in a 1912 six-story building that needs an estimated $5 million in improvements, a new roof, scores of windows and an elaborate heating system. Read more at The Reading Eagle →
From what Elad Strohmayer has seen the last few weeks, the American people have Israel’s back.
Israel’s deputy consul general to the Mid-Atlantic region spoke before about 100 people Wednesday night at the Jewish Cultural Center in Wyomissing, where the Jewish Federation of Reading held a gathering to show support for Israel.
He said he’d spoken before similar groups the last few weeks. Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Middle income families — not the poor and not the wealthy — are the ones that are spending the most in the battle against heroin addiction. State Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Ruscombmanor Township, made that point Tuesday morning at a public hearing in Reading focused on creating new measures to curb the ongoing heroin and opiate abuse crisis.
“I talk to families where they are bankrupting themselves,” Schwank said. Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Here are excerpts of what most state lawmakers who represent Berks County had to say about the $29.1 billion budget that was passed late Monday. The vote in the House was 108-95. The vote in the Senate was 26-24. The votes were mostly along party lines in both Republican-controlled chambers.
Sen. Judy Schwank, Ruscombmanor Democrat: “We have worked hard in Harrisburg to help Republicans and Gov. Tom Corbett understand that Pennsylvania is deeper in its financial quagmire because of the policies of the past four years. If all parties would have been at the table, perhaps a consensus could have been found to find real solutions. Instead, partisan politics took center stage to the detriment of our commonwealth and our residents.” Read more at The Reading Eagle →
Two state senators Friday announced they’ve proposed changes to Pennsylvania law following the death of a Reading woman who’d been jailed for failing to pay truancy fines.
Sen. Judy Schwank, a Ruscombmanor Township Democrat, and Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, perlengkapan bayi a Montgomery County Republican, proposed legislation that would remove the requirement that a person serve up to five days in jail for not paying truancy fines.
Instead there would be a requirement that school districts set up individualized truancy elimination plans to deal with those cases before they are referred to courts or juvenile authorities. Read more at The Reading Eagle →
When the Boyertown School District passed its 2014-15 budget this month, it included about $900,000 in increased state funding.
The money is slated to be put to good use.
A large portion of the funds, mostly provided through the new Ready to Learn Block Grant, will pay for seven new teachers to support struggling first grade students as part of the district’s Literacy First program. Other new state dollars are set to cover instructional or technology coaches who will support teachers and students. Read more at The Reading Eagle →