I’m starting a hyperlocal news blog about the Lower Heidelberg area

By Steve Reinbrecht

I’ve decided to neglect this blog, “Berks County needs better journalism.”

I’ve decided to start a new blog called “News in Southwestern Berks County.”

Please check it out if you live here or have an interest in watching a media startup project. If you like it, please recommend it.

I’ll try to report on Lower Heidelberg, South Heidelberg, Sinking Spring and Wernersville, which together have about 20,000 people.

I think the area deserves more media attention. It’s one place in Berks that bulldozers are scraping up topsoil to build new houses.

Sinking Spring has big plans – and has made progress – to rebuild its sclerotic road system. That will open up the western part of the Route 422 corridor to more businesses and make the borough more attractive to restaurants and shops – which we need out here.

Wilson School District has a great reputation but could always use more media scrutiny. Do you know the school board directors? I hope to get to know them through this project.

I won’t cover fundraisers or parades or festivals, even though I think such public events are great. I wish the organizers of such activities would send a few paragraphs and a couple of photos to me. I’d post them as “citizen journalism.”

I'll try to cover meetings but most importantly follow issues as they get resolved. And I'll try to maintain a police log and announce new businesses.

Hyperlocal news can be hyper-boring, and I’ll admit I have a rare, wonkish fascination with the most granular level of where government meets private life. I was trained in the importance of covering stuff that seems only important when it goes wrong -- municipal government, land development, traffic regulating, trash pickup, I believe that our public schools, roads, law enforcement, and land-use decisions depend on the quality of our elected officials, when just a handful of votes can matter.

Please check it out if you live here or have an interest in watching a media startup project. If you like it, please recommend it.

Sinking Spring residents vow to oppose PP&L power line

Please see my new blog, "News about Southwestern Berks County."

by Steve Reinbrecht

About 80 people sat or stood in Sinking Spring Borough Hall on Thursday to hear about PP&L’s plans to run a 69-kilovolt line through the borough and, officials say, fatally disrupt plans to improve traffic and shopping opportunities.

Appearing aghast, planner Sam Loth told the crowd that the electric company’s plans would flush eight years of work and $6 million of tax investment down the toilet.

Residents asked questions and vowed to fight the utility’s plans.

Borough Manager Michael Hart said he invited PP&L officials, who declined to come and said that they would arrange a meeting with residents. PP&L, based in Allentown, has about 10 million customers and saw $7.7 billion in revenues last year. 

In what they call BOSS2020, borough leaders have made plans to improve two bottle-neck intersections on Penn Avenue and make room for a downtown business district.

Residents and drivers will soon see concrete signs of the project, Loth said. Crews will demolish the former Lesher auto repair shop at the sharp corner of Cacoosing Avenue and Penn Avenue, and the former borough hall at the even sharper corner of Penn Avenue and Columbia Avenue. Then the intersection will be transformed into a normal 90-degree-angle type of intersection.

The plan is to eventually straighten the octopus-like Penn Avenue-Hull Road-Route 724 intersection and shift eastbound traffic heading to Shillington onto Columbia Avenue.

The borough has acquired the necessary commercial properties and plans to acquire about 16 residential properties, Loth said.

The power company would clear a right-of-way, perhaps 100 feet wide, Loth said.

At the meeting, resident Jan Roland said she is organizing opposition to the PP&L plan. The power line would loom over homes and playgrounds and be unsightly, especially because existing utilities are buried, she said. Residents are worried about reduced property values, purported health issues from living near high voltage, possible sinkholes, toppling towers and major disruption to the borough’s development plans.

Loth said PP&L only needs the line as a backup.

“It’s not something they even need right now,” he said.

Borough officials said state Rep. Jim Cox and state Sen. David Argall support the project and have a stake in it because they have obtained state funding, Loth said.

This week, the state announced a $1.1 million grant for work on Columbia Avenue.

In any case, the PP&L project would need approval by the state Public Utility Commission, and there are formal and informal ways to object, said solicitor Charles Haws.

Poles that carry 69 kilovolts are typically wooden and 50 to 70 feet tall. The cleared right-of-way is typically 70-100 feet wide, accordingto the Minnesota Electric Transmission Planning.

The line would cross Penn Avenue cross Penn Street between Autozone and Paparone’s pizza shop, according to a map from PP&L.

PP&L spokesman Joe Nixon said earlier that the company has been in regular contact with the borough throughout the project.

The company thoroughly evaluated other routes for the line and concluded this route has the least impact on the “natural and human environment” and lowest financial impact on ratepayers, according to Nixon.

Company officials plan to continue to discuss the project with representatives from the borough, Nixon wrote in an e-mail in response to my questions.

Sinking Spring says 69,000-volt line will clash with development plans

Please see my new blog, "News about Southwestern Berks County."

By Steve Reinbrecht

Here is a small town with big plans to fix up its business district versus a utility giant that wants to hang a new 69,000-volt line through it – which could snarl plans to improve some of the worst traffic in Berks County.

PP&L Electrical Utilities plans to build a new electrical line through the borough. Sinking Spring-area residents are invited to a council meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday night. I couldn't find an agenda on the borough website, but I expect the topic to come up.

Sinking Spring officials say the line would disrupt plans to redevelop the downtown, plans in the works for a long time and already at considerable taxpayer investment.

The line’s 100-foot right-of-way will go through downtown and affect revitalization and hundreds of residents, eliminating a wide path of development, Borough Manager Michael Hart said at a meeting in June, according to the Reading Eagle.

Poles that carry 69 kilovolts are typically wooden and 50 to 70 feet tall. The cleared right-of-way is typically 70-100 feet wide, according to Minnesota Electric Transmission Planning.

The line would cross Penn Avenue between Autozone and Paparone’s pizza shop, according to a map from PP&L.

In all, the transmission line will stretch about two miles from an existing line in Spring Township to an existing line near the Berkshire Mall substation in Wyomissing, according to company spokesman Joe Nixon.

Building such alternate lines lets the company reduce the number and duration of outages, he wrote in response to my questions.

The company has been in regular contact with the borough throughout the project, he wrote.

“We will continue to work with them to the extent practical, but it is too early to speculate on potential solutions.”

On Reedy Road near Whitfield Road, north of Sinking Spring.

The company thoroughly evaluated other routes for the line and concluded this route has the least impact on the “natural and human environment” and lowest financial impact on ratepayers, according to Nixon.

Company officials plan to continue to discuss the project with representatives from the borough, Nixon wrote.

Of course puny mortals need to step aside when giant infrastructure has to go through their property. But through a whole town’s detailed plans for development?

I hope the utility officials continue to be open about how they are meeting their needs while keeping the project progressing.

A public meeting is a good place to start.

Also, you can send comments to Doug Grossman, a PP&L supervisor, at DJGrossman@pplweb.com.

And state Rep. Jim Cox has supported the project and should hear about this.

You can call his local office at 610-670-0139.

Don’t let murders fade from public attention

By Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle has used a lot of ink and pixels to tell the terrible story of Ryan Stevyn Benjamin, a young teacher apparently murdered and left in a pond in Chester County.

Headlines this month said:

• Her body was found (June 1)
• Her body was identified (June 2)
• The investigation continued (June 3)
• She was ‘so full of life’ (also June 3)
• Shock and sorrow at Juniata College (June 4)
• Police were closing in (June 5)
• A fundraiser (June 7)
• Suspect sought in Chester County death (June 15)

On the other hand, the award-winning local newspaper hasn’t had anything lately about another murder of a young person – that of Saxxon Hopkins, who was 20 when he was found shot to death in an alley in Reading more than two years ago. The paper didn’t write much about his death then and has had little if anything since.

Why pay so much attention this month to the dead woman in the pond in Chester County compared to the scant attention paid the dead man found in the alley in Reading on June 1, 2014?

Was it because no one tried to hide his body, as opposed to Benjamin’s killer or killers, who cold-bloodedly rigged a cinder-block anchor to hide her body? Was it because Benjamin was a college graduate, and worked with children? Was it because Hopkins had a police record? 

Benjamin’s story is sexier, but not representative of murder in Berks County.

The Reading Eagle should vigorously follow all murders – murders! the most horrible of crimes! – no matter the circumstances of the killing or the character of the victim.

Reading doesn’t have many murders, based on state police records, far fewer than one a month:

• 2014: nine [eight by firearms], the year Hopkins died
• 2015: 13 [11 by firearms]
• 2016: one so far

Hopkins’ grandfather James Hopkins died in November. From his obit, it seems to me he might have commented on his grandson’s death. Born in Reading in 1943, James was a Marine, worked for 43 years at a local company and had two sons, six daughters and 18 grandchildren, including Saxxon Hopkins.

As a member of a family like that, Saxxon Hopkin’s unsolved death must still be reverberating.

To get to the truth, the Reading Eagle should give every victim the attention he or she deserves. To treat this young man’s death as non-news is shameful.

Besides a young person dying a violent death, it’s hard to think of an event that causes more shock, grief and pain, in wide ripples. So much so that it’s a public event.

I want to try to understand how a Exeter High School graduate was shot to death on a neighborhood street.

Reading Police Sgt. Jacqueline Flanagan told me Thursday, June 23, that police are investigating Hopkins’ death and had nothing new to report.

All but one state lawmakers from Berks vote to restrict abortion

By Steve Reinbrecht

Eight of the nine state representatives who represent Berks County voted Tuesday, June 21, to further restrict abortions in Pennsylvania. 

That’s interesting, because most Americans support legal abortion, and Berks County has more registered Democrats than Republicans, and Democrats tend to support reproductive freedom.

Of the Berks representatives, only Mark Rozzi, a Democrat, voted against HB 1948, which the House approved 132 to 65. 

If passed by the Senate and signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, it would prohibit abortions for women who have been pregnant for more than 20 weeks. Now the cut-off is 24 weeks.

It also would restrict the use of “dilation and evacuation” abortions, in which the doctor uses tools to remove the fetus, sometimes tearing it apart. 

Women who value their ability to make tough decisions without government interference shouldn’t worry – the bill has little chance. Reporters at the news organization in Lancaster, the next city over, asked Gov. Tom Wolf, who said he’d veto it for sure.

The grandstanding move is part of a national trend by state lawmakers to restrict abortion.

I see it as the American Talibanization – dark God-Squad efforts to gain and retain power by using fear and ignorance to enforce medieval religious-based laws, mostly oppressing women.

"There's no more hiding it, guys," said Rep. Matt Bradford, a Montgomery County Democrat, who opposed the bill and was quoted on PennLive. "You're either on the side of women, or you're on the side of those who want to project their views on every woman in Pennsylvania ... Supreme Court precedent be damned. My morality. My faith. Not yours."

Rozzi was not available for comment.

Rep. Kathy Rapp, a Republican from Warren County, sponsored the bill.

“Now, more than 40 years after Roe v. Wade, passage of this legislation [by the House] finally acknowledges what we’ve known from science and countless true stories, that the unborn child senses pain by 20 weeks gestation,” Rapp’s website says. "It recognizes that if advances in medicine are allowing thousands of micro-preemies — at 20 to 24 weeks — to survive and thrive, that our laws must change to accurately reflect the sanctity of all human life.”

I’m glad the Reading Eagle ran a wire story about this – I wouldn’t have known otherwise. But to be even more useful, it could ask our local elected officials about their votes on major issues.

Group plans to try vertical farming in Reading

By Steve Reinbrecht

A group of farm people and development people from Berks County plan to meet June 27 to continue discussing the creation of a vertical farm somewhere in Reading.

Vertical farming is the rather new method of growing food in racks or on walls in buildings, often where light, temperature, humidity and other variables can be controlled for the best productivity.

It demands a big initial investment but might pay off because of new light technology, lower utility costs, the demand for fresh produce in urban areas, and the opportunity to use vacant urban buildings.

Berks County Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt said he plans to meet with the group to decide how to find a good location in the city as well as identify investors, developers, and other supporters. They also plan to create a technology committee.

Members include Tom McMahon, a former Reading mayor; Tim Daley, executive director of Habitat for Humanity; Tami S.Hildebrand, executive director of the Berks agriculture department; and staff from St. Joseph Medical Center and ReDesign Reading, a community development agency.

In a quick Internet search, I found that Philadelphia CityCouncil is considering a resolution to support vertical farming.

One such farm seems to be succeeding in that city.

On the other hand, I found stories about an apparently failed project to grow basil and other produce in a vertical farm near Scranton. It had high hopes when it opened in December 2013, according to Farm and Dairy.

“Green Spirit Farms LLC will establish a vertical farm system that will grow leafy vegetables, peppers and tomatoes in East Benton Township, Lackawanna County. The company is projected to invest more than $27 million to acquire an existing 300,000-square-foot building and is expected to create at least 101 jobs.”

And then it failed, because of problems getting funding, the operator said.

“Green Spirit Farms was producing basil, gourmet radishes and other greens at the former Corning facility in East Benton Township, but the effort never expanded beyond a sizeable demo project, and in March 2014 called it quits.

“The problem was financing, said Milan Kluko, executive director of Green Spirit Farms, blaming a private backer for backing down.

““We brought the know-how and the equipment to demonstrate the project,” he said. “The financial deal didn’t come together.””

Barnhardt mentioned the idea May 10 at a forum about community development.

“Calling Reading the "hub" of the county, he said county government and other municipalities need to "reach in and help" where they can.

“One example, given in response to an audience question about a specific project each of the panelists would like to see get done, was about a new concept called "vertical farming."

“Barnhardt said a man in Philadelphia has been turning abandoned warehouses into hydroponic farms, an idea that could work for a building such as the Penn Optical building in Reading.

“Barnhardt said such an effort - which could be done with county and city support - would provide jobs, fresh food and restore a blighted property.

On Friday, Barnhardt said the group is considering other buildings, as there are many to choose from.

No budget or timeline has been set, he said.

Maybe Reading’s indoor horticulture future is medical marijuana.

Two men want to start growing medical cannabis in an unidentified building in Reading.

Once again, Reading Eagle article about turkey farm is a turkey

by Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle has been trying to cover this interesting issue, where neighbors are opposing a proposed turkey-breeding operation in Amity.

The conflict has gotten a lot of attention, as it should, pitting property rights against quality of life in the surrounding community.

But the Reading Eagle coverage is more confusing than enlightening.

For example, the article states that 32,000 birds will produce 10 million tons of manure a year.

Imagine a pile of 10 million tons of turkey shit. That means each bird would be producing more than 1,700 pounds of manure a day.

Those would be some pooping turkeys.

Reporters and editors must use common sense and check their math when publishing the news on important issues. Otherwise your newspaper, even award-winning, will lose credibility.

According to the Reading Eagle:

Kathy Martin, a licensed professional engineer with Oklahoma-based Martin Environmental Services, and an expert witness in poultry waste management, said she estimated "the amount of waste produced by Shirey's birds to be a little over 10 million tons.”

I still don’t know basic facts about this story.

• Why is the hearing necessary?
• What conditions is the property owner seeking?
• Did the opponents know it is zoned for agricultural use when they moved there?
• How large of a poultry building could be built with no conditions?
• What's the expected project cost?
• How much property tax would the improvements generate?
• Doesn't Berks County want economic development?
• Isn't this economic development?

Poultry farms in Berks are getting big loans from the state to expand.

Reading Eagle story about new Berks GOP chief doesn’t mention Trump

by Steve Reinbrecht

Why did the Reading Eagle publish an interview with the new Berks County Republican Party chairman – but didn’t publish his comments on Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is the leader of the national Republican Party.

Media of all sorts have been writing about Trump.

You might think readers want to know: Does the new Berks GOP chairman, Joseph E. Rudderow III, support Trump?

Not all Republicans do. Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday that he will not vote for Trump.

Lancaster Online asked Dave Dumeyer about Trump after Dumeyer was elected chairman of that county’s GOP on June 3.

“This year, he [Dave Dumeyer] will lead the committee’s efforts to gather support for candidates in the heated November elections — including the controversial GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and, in the highest-profile local race, state Sen. Lloyd Smucker in his bid for the county’s congressional seat.

“About a month after Trump’s last two GOP competitors dropped out, Dumeyer said he thinks local Republicans are warming to the idea of Trump’s candidacy and will see him as a better alternative to likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

““People are coming around, people who were supporting another candidate are saying, ‘Well, OK, he wasn't my preference but I can vote for him,'” Dumeyer said.”

So why did a string of Reading Eagle editors accept a story about the Berks GOP with no mention of the most recognizable man in the world?

The newspaper is fascinated with politics, right? It devotes a page every Monday to “The Briefing,” a “weekly report on government & politics.”

It routinely sends reporters to follow the herd in Harrisburg to cover state issues, like research for childhood cancer and time limits on prosecuting child-sex crimes.

On local politics, the reporter elicits this from Rudderow:

"Yes, it's exciting there's a national election going on, and sure, Berks County's going to be a part of it.”

Do the Reading Eagle newsroom leaders believe local politics doesn’t matter? That county parties are irrelevant? That no one cares how candidates for local positions are chosen and supported?

Maybe Rudderow didn’t want to comment about Trump. Who could blame him? But the Eagle should explain that it at least asked.

Is the media leadership trying to avoid embarrassing links between Trump and Berks County?

Is it because the Reading Eagle is scared or has no ability to cover sensitive, divisive and powerful events?

Report on Leinbach’s trip to Washington is worse than hot air

by Steve Reinbrecht

What kind of reporting is this, in this muddled Reading Eagle story about Republican Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach going to Washington?

He was there to oppose a federal law forcing regions to cut ozone levels by 6.6 percent.

The first paragraph says Leinbach visited the U.S. Senate environment committee's oversight subcommittee “to discuss how important infrastructure projects have been impacted by federal regulations.”

The story never mentions any of these infrastructure projects.

The article degenerates into an uncredited complaint about over-regulation.

"In 2015, 3,140 rules that were issued by federal agencies,” the text continues [with the badly edited bumping numbers.] “Those unfunded mandates cost local governments between $57 billion and $85 billion a year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget."

If the anonymous writer is going to insert these factoids into his or her news story about Leinbach, it would be SO easy for the Reading Eagle website to link to the sources, here in the digital age.

That way we could check for ourselves how many of the 3,140 rules that were issued by federal agencies had to do with the topic at hand [the environment].

We could check to see if it really was the White House Office of Management and Budget that called the rules “unfunded mandates,” or if not, attempt to surmise who really is using those words, like the reporter, or a Leinbach press release.

We could try to figure out why, speaking of 2015, there was confusion about “between of $57 billion and $85 billion a year.”

According to the article, Leinbach said county officials “are concerned that the rule-making process and the enforcement mechanisms fail to consider the capacity of local communities to absorb the costs.”

The award-winning newspaper seems to quote Leinbach’s officialese verbatim, but here’s the translation:

“County officials think the federal government doesn’t fairly make or enforce rules to force people to stop polluting water and air.”

I’d really like to know what our elected county leader is saying, but I have to wonder, are these sentences in the Reading Eagle supposed to make sense, or are they just things to fill in the wide white spaces between ads?

In any case, it seems healthy to reduce ozone, according to the state:

“Maintaining concentrations of ground-level ozone below the health-based ambient air quality standard is important because ozone is a serious human health threat, and also can cause damage to important food crops, forests, and wildlife.

“Repeated exposure to ozone pollution may cause a variety of adverse health effects for both healthy people and those with existing conditions including difficulty in breathing, chest pains, coughing, nausea, throat irritation, and congestion. It can exacerbate bronchitis, heart disease, emphysema, and asthma, and reduce lung capacity. Asthma is a significant and growing threat to children and adults.”

For the good of Berks, Reading Eagle should admit the GOP screwed up

by Steve Reinbrecht

The editorial board at the Reading Eagle needs to have its collected heads examined. It wrote, for all the world to see, that Berks and Beyond residents have a “tough choice” for president this fall.

What sort of moral compass do they use?

I’m not going to defend Hillary Clinton. But by even saying it’s a “tough choice,” by opining that Trump is a viable candidate, the editorial board is giving a quasi-endorsement to the anti-POTUS.

The truth is: Thoughtful people along the entire political spectrum agree on one thing: Trump is unfit for the job. That our local newspaper would not condemn Trump in its editorial – especially because of the makeup of our residents -- is disgraceful. For a long time after the election in November, researchers will be checking which U.S. counties voted for Trump, and I hope Berks is not counted among them.

The editorial board is not using its bully pulpit for the best of the community. The problems plaguing Berks and similar rust-belt regions will be better addressed by someone not so apparently a “hater” of Mexicans, immigrants and Muslims.

“Trump has not consistently shown the sort of temperament we expect in a president,” the newsroom opinion leaders write.

What mush-mouth weasel words are these, coming from an institution whose tradition demands cutting the bullshit and stating the truth clearly for the benefit of society?

Where does the editorial board get its information about Trump’s temperament? Liberal and conservative media have generally agreed on a description of Trump, more truthful than the Eagle’s: a vicious, cruel, remorseless con-man who has scammed many Americans into believing he will somehow make life better for them.

ICYMI, in the midst of his campaign, with all eyes watching, he has gleefully mocked a person with a physical disability, used facetious arguments to impugn federal judges, and promised to use torture and kill innocent people. 

The Reading Eagle editorialists say they “still have many questions about the specifics of his policy proposals.”

Again, what sources do they read? It’s clear to the world Trump has no policy. The man says anything to get a headline and cheers or jeers at a rally, and that seems to be fine with his supporters.

The Eagle has more praise for Trump than criticism: “Despite skepticism from so-called experts at every turn and attempts to derail his campaign by GOP leaders, Donald Trump became only the second businessman without political experience to earn a major party presidential nomination.

“Wendell Willkie, who ran against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940, was the other.

“It's worth noting that Trump, if elected, would hardly be the first to gain the presidency without previous political experience. The most recent was Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

But I don’t really believe the Eagle thinkers are as deluded as a plurality of the Republican voters seem to be. There are explanations other than ignorance for why people support Trump, which may explain the Eagle’s editorial.

Some want to retain the privilege and deference that white men have enjoyed here for centuries but they see as slipping away.

Some politicians think their support for Trump will at least keep their jobs secure, so they are making deals with the devil, from those at the highest levels of government down to the local yokels. They are putting their own interests over those of the people they serve.

The other sort of people who support Trump, even though they know he would be a terrible president, are those who are bigots themselves but have been repressed to say the things Trump spouts, outside of their close circles.

The U.S. – and I hope Berks County -- will yield to a progressive history, a world in which understanding and embracing tolerance, inclusion, plurality, globalism, technology, education and reliable infrastructure will be the only paths to middle-class quality of life.

Does Donald Trump really represent Berks County’s values?

by Steve Reinbrecht

Trump has made me realize how conservative I am.

Conservatism as an ideology values traditions, laws and mores that pass down through generations. Conservatives recognize the importance of time-honored customs including self-reliance, the rule of law, fundamental religious edicts, maintaining strong family relationships, and standards of speech and commerce and behavior.

Promoting such values, as many conservative leaders do, serves to keep society stable and preserve its accomplishments. Conservative practices engender the stability and confidence that business and carefree consumption depend on.

I'm glad many thoughtful conservatives have played important roles in United States leadership.

On the other hand are progressives -- inventors, visionaries, experimenters, entrepreneurs, artists, explorers, complainers, critics and disruptors. If not for these sorts, we'd have been hard-pressed to ever learn to control fire.

Balancing these strong currents of thought has made the United States great.

Enter Trump, the anti-conservative AND anti-progressive. Because he doesn't formulate his ideas, there is no way to consider them to see if they would work – the antithesis of thoughtful conservatism. And if he’s a progressive – the sort who have also led the fight for human rights – why is he so roundly rejected by Democrats?

Hillary Clinton is much more conservative than Trump. Republicans and Democrats alike respect things on my list here, though they argue over degree. Trump has molested each of these ideals.

And -- these are ideals I see proclaimed and followed by most people in Berks County. I’ll be very disappointed if we vote to make a deal with the devil.

• Sincere faith
• Fiscal prudence
• Not harming people because of their religion
• Not sexualizing one’s young daughters
• Not boasting of having slept with other people’s spouses
• The value of science
• Ethical business behavior
• Separation of governmental powers
• Deference to judges
• Polite discourse
• Sophisticated diplomacy
• The importance of good will and consensus in decision making
• Teaching people to respect other people
• Protecting the weak and vulnerable
• Having a government too small to find, apprehend and deport millions of residents mixed throughout the general population
• Keeping an American presence across the world