Don’t be afraid to come to work, Berks County mushroom executive tells worker

by Steve Reinbrecht

A Berks County mushroom-farm executive told employees Thursday morning to not be afraid to come to work despite rumors of federal immigration efforts in the area.

The company leader spoke at a meeting at the company’s plant in Muhlenberg Township.

The boss lamented that the company has recently lost three work days – a “day without immigrants” protest Feb. 16, a snow day March 14, and Wednesday.

That’s when many mushroom pickers did not show up because of the rumors of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts.

One said, “I’d rather miss a day of work than go with ICE.”

The executive told workers that company officials would know beforehand of any immigration raids planned at the farm.

I couldn’t reach company officials, and really, what would they say?

Why would workers be afraid to come to work if they had proper documents?

How will coal comeback affect Berks County?

by Steve Reinbrecht

President Tweet said Tuesday that he is ending the federal government’s war on coal.

What will the revived industry look like in Berks County?

There are no mines in Berks.

1953 Ford Crown Victoria

But they used to burn traincarsful of coal, smack dab in the middle of the county. The Titus Generating Station, a coal-fired power station, started burning coal to turn turbines to produce electricity in 1953.

The 225-megawatt plant in Cumru Township closed in 2014 because of the high cost of keeping it compliant with new environmental regulations, the Reading Eagle reported.

NRG Energy, of Princeton, N.J., owns the 233-acre property, next to the Schuylkill River and railroad tracks.

But despite the president’s call for a revival of the black-gold mineral, NRG Energy has no plans “whatsoever” to resume using coal to make electricity at the Titus Generating station, David Gaier, a spokesman for NRG Energy, told me Thursday.

The plant can still produce electricity with smaller turbines powered by natural gas or oil when called on by the regional grid, Gaier said.

That’s how other power plants in Berks are producing electricity – with oil or gas, not coal.

For example, the Dynegy plant in Ontelaunee Township, powered by natural gas, has a capacity of 567 megawatts, twice Titus' capacity. And a Canadian company, EmberClear, has built a 450-MW natural gas plant in Birdsboro.

In any case, the demise of coal burning at Titus is good for local air quality, especially east of the plant, in the path of prevailing wind.

In 2005, the latest data I could find, Titus belched out 935 tons of particulates smaller than 10 microns, and 818 tons of particulates smaller than 2.5 microns – the really killer nano-grit that gets lodged deep in your lungs. In 2007, the plant emitted 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide.

President Tweet’s scheme won’t do much for economic development in Pennsylvania.

In 2015, the coal industry employed 6,633 people in Pennsylvania [“includes all employees engaged in production, preparation, processing, development, maintenance, repair shop, or yard work at mining operations, including office workers”].

That was down about 16 percent from 2014, when the industry employed 7,938, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For comparison, about 125,000 public teachers work in Pennsylvania.

Coal was historically important in the region, especially north of Reading, but production has declined.

In 2000, Pennsylvania produced about 64.8 million metric tons. Schuylkill County, directly north of Berks, produced about 1.1 million tons of that. 

In 2015, Pennsylvania produced 45 million tons, with Schuylkill producing 900,000 tons of that.

Here’s what the president said:

“The miners told me about the attacks on their jobs and their livelihoods.  They told me about the efforts to shut down their mines, their communities, and their very way of life.  I made them this promise:  We will put our miners back to work.  (Applause.)  We've already eliminated a devastating anti-coal regulation -- but that was just the beginning.

“Today, I'm taking bold action to follow through on that promise.  My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.  We're going to have clean coal -- really clean coal.  With today’s executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations.”

Reading and city agencies are in the real-estate business

by Steve Reinbrecht

Reading, the Reading Redevelopment Authority, and Our City Reading, a development agency formerly run by Albert Boscov, who died last month, own nearly 250 properties among them, mostly residences.

Here is a list, from Berks County records.

The city owns 110 properties.

Our City Reading owns 63 properties.

The redevelopment authority owns 67 properties.

• Do people live in them?
• Are they paying rent?
• How many are vacant?
• How do the city and agencies maintain them?
• When is the last time one was sold?
• Do the city, authority and OCR have a strategic plan for all these properties?

The Reading Eagle could try to find out.

Few non-whites show up in Reading Eagle's Business Weekly

The Reading Eagle’s Business Weekly is full of photos illustrating its stories and ads.

Reflecting Berks’ power structure and its lack of interest in presenting a diverse and welcoming image, only two of the 82 photos where I could judge ethnicity were non-white men, and each was in bank ads on pages 30 and 32.

Four of the photos were non-white women – two the same image of Luvleen Sidhu.

The answer is not to pad the edition with minorities. But does anybody at the Reading Eagle even consider this stuff?

It should be easier to find out about ICE detentions in Berks County

by Steve Reinbrecht

A young man told me that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers grabbed a friend of his off the street in Reading on Monday and took him to a facility in York.

My friend knows his two brothers as well. The detainee, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, has a baby born here, and has no criminal history, according to my source.

I could not find him on the ICE “detainee tracker” website.

I sent an e-mail to ICE spokesman Adrian Smith, providing the details – the detainee's name, his country and when and where he was nabbed.

Smith called me Thursday. He helped me confirm that I was looking at the proper tracking page. But he said he could not provide information about the incident I was asking about.

He said to make sure I had the proper spelling for the man’s name.

I asked, what if an ICE agent had entered it improperly?

I told him it’s very important for the public to be able to quickly find out about anybody detained or arrested by the government, at any level.

We don’t want people disappearing. That would have been laughable to consider a couple of years ago, but anything seems possible now.

Smith told me he would check and call me back. I didn’t here back by Thursday night.

I also requested, under the federal Freedom of Information Act, a list of everybody ICE has detained in Berks so far.

On the phone, he said he couldn’t give that to me. I hope he sends me a more-formal response to my formal request. 

I find the whole method of getting public information from a government agency shockingly difficult.

I think Smith is trying to do his job within its restraints – he always calls me in response to my queries, in just that doing way more than many public servants have for me on this issue of recent federal immigration activities in Berks [District Attorney John Adams, Reading Mayor Wally Scott, Reading Police Chief Andres Dominguez Jr., and City Council President Jeff Waltman haven't got back to me, if my calls and e-mails are reaching them.]

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.

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 is wrong that 'leaders' should choose which businesses open

by Steve Reinbrecht

I was surprised at the Reading Eagle’s editorial’s call for Reading leaders to try to pick the businesses that should open downtown. 

These fake people are NOT in Reading.

“As Reading redevelops and brings in new businesses, as we hope will happen, leaders must do all they can to make sure new downtown tenants are a good fit," it said.

I say, let the market do its job. Nobody in Reading is qualified to pick the winners, or arbitrate taste.

Remember when city leaders tried to get an S&M mannequin off Penn Street, objecting to the image it was portraying?

In April 2013, the Eagle ran an editorial about how “a chained nude figure in bondage paraphernalia managed to get a remarkable amount of attention from City Council last week.

“The mannequin had been posed outside the Little Paris store at 523B Penn Street, in the heart of Penn Square, until city leaders took issue with it.

“Members of City Council expressed outrage at the inappropriate display, especially in such a high profile location.

“Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz pointed out that the store already was pushing the boundaries of good taste by keeping mannequins modeling see-through negligees in its window. Advertising a set of chains and straps on the street simply went too far.”

Following the Eagle’s notion, which leaders would decide what’s a “good fit”?

Economic-development leaders? Al Boscov?

Just set good rules and enforce them.

Maybe sexy mannequins are what Penn Square needs.

I really hope no city leaders are discouraging businesses based on some sort of values.

Reading suffers from poor planning. Maybe it’s time for an organic approach, bottom up from the people who live there.

Berks County had no Keystone Innovation Zone credits in 2015

by Steve Reinbrecht

I want to know why the tech-entrepreneurial tidal wave that is obviously washing through many other small cities is passing Berks and Reading by.

In 2015, the state awarded almost $18 million to 239 companies across the state as part of the state's Keystone Innovation Zone.

They included companies in Johnstown, Erie, Williamsport, Harrisburg, Selingsgrove, Lancaster, Bloomsburg, Carlisle, with lots in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and Erie and Doylestown.

Reading has a KIZ. 

How much did Berks get?

Zero.

Two Berks companies got KIZ credits in 2014.

The Reading Eagle had a story on its website about companies in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties getting tax credits.

But even though the Eagle is the major newsgathering organization in Berks and Beyond, it doesn't mention Berks' failure to incubate tech companies.

Why, other than the Eagle knows how to LOOK like a newspaper but the newsroom leaders don't know how to produce a REAL newspaper? Or is it the newsroom leaders' compulsion to assure everybody that everything is fine in Berks, so buy a new car?

The KIZ is an incentive program that provides tax credits to for-profit companies less than eight years old operating within specific targeted industries within the boundaries of a Keystone Innovation Zone, the state says.

“The KIZ tax credit program significantly contributes to the ability of young KIZ companies to transition through the stages of growth.”

Good catch, Don. Thanks for reading!

I had the wrong map on my blog about Al Boscov, posted on Feb. 12, which has been corrected. 

The mistake was highlighted in Reading Eagle City Hall reporter Don Spatz’s column Tuesday, Feb. 17. 

I’m honored that Spatz called this blog “an alternate news outlet.”

I’m so glad he reads it!

I’m not doing journalism – I rarely try to contact people I mention in the blogs, and I certainly have no editorial oversight, as every proper journalist needs.

I do think Berks needs more coverage of economic development efforts, government openness, the local environment, libraries and public schools.

Spatz also says Boscov is not pulling out of the project in the 400 block of Penn Street. We’ll see. The meeting between him and Mayor Wally Scott is Thursday.

As a professional courtesy, Spatz might have given the address to my blog. I need the hits. I always link to his articles.

Boscov backs out of major downtown Reading project

by Steve Reinbrecht

UPDATE: As noted by Reading Eagle reporter Don Spatz, the map was wrong on this story, and has been corrected.

Albert Boscov no longer wants to fix up the once-glorious, now-dilapidated [kind of a Reading theme] buildings in the center of downtown Reading.

Our City Reading – the nonprofit agency that Boscov runs, in part with federal Community Block Grant Funds – has sent a letter to Reading City Council announcing it is withdrawing from its agreement to develop buildings it owns in the 400 block of Penn St.

They include the nine-story brick “Callowhill” building on the corner [the "Archive" clothing store there said in December it will close] and the former bank building next to it. According to the letter, the agency doesn’t want the project without the support of the mayor and Council.

As Council has given Boscov support, this implies Boscov doesn’t want to work with the new mayor, Wally Scott.

“The logical question would be, ‘So what is the plan now?’ ” my source said. “I think if anyone said they knew they'd be lying.”

When the city first asked for bids, only Our City Reading and private developer Alan Shuman responded. Shuman said in November he was still interested. His original plan offered $1 for the properties, maybe not a bad deal at this point.

The city bought the properties in August 2013 for $2.5 million from New York owners who had let the buildings deteriorate. They comprise the eastern half of the block – from Penn to Court streets and from Fifth to the former CNA building.

At the time, former Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer said the purchase was urgent. He worried the owners would raise the price once the hotel opened across from the hockey arena.

Former mayor defends Reading’s Act 47 status

by Steve Reinbrecht

Last week, Reading Mayor Wally Scott blamed predecessor Tom McMahon, who served Jan. 5, 2004, to Jan. 2, 2012, for the city’s financial problems.

Real-long-time Reading Eagle City Hall Reporter Don Spatz duly reported Scott’s dissing of McMahon during his rambling hour-plus State of the City speech, but didn’t ask McMahon to respond. That’s shoddy reporting no editor should accept.

“He [Scott] said former Mayor Tom McMahon put the city in the financial stress it's in, and got it into Act 47, so the city's problems are the fault of this council and that mayor,” Spatz wrote.

In response, former Mayor Tom McMahon said Saturday that Scott doesn’t understand the city’s position.

“He clearly has not understood the financial history of the city, including budgets, contracts, pensions, negotiated or arbitrated settlements over the past 30 years, or he would know at least some of the reasons why act 47 made so much sense,” he wrote in an e-mail.

McMahon referred to then-state-Economic Development Secretary George Cornelius’ remarks about his decision to accept Reading into Act 47.

In November, 2009, Cornelius told Reading leaders:

“Act 47 isn’t a cure; it’s merely life support. Don’t sit back and think some state coordinator will fix things, or that the problems will resolve themselves. If Reading is to thrive as a vibrant economic driver for Berks County, if the city is to be self-sustaining, everyone in Berks County will have to work hard to make it happen.”

McMahon said he still believes the city needed to enter the Act 47 program.

“But I don't believe he [Scott] has the capacity to be able to visualize how to emerge from Act 47. 

“It was meant to give us a breather to avoid bankruptcy, which any sane person would want the city to avoid.

“It will be hard to replace the revenue stream it brought.

“I actually feel sorry for him in a way that he does not seem to have the tools to be able to deal with the job at hand.”

McMahon said Scott doesn’t understand Act 47, including the benefits it brought to the city by way of commuter tax.

“Wally's first month of childish blathering does not bode well for this city.”