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.

New Wilson schools chief should answer to public

by Steve Reinbrecht

If Wilson School District’s last superintendent, Rudy Ruth, was a paragon of longevity, working for the district for more than 30 years, the new one is a job changer, working at four districts in the last 10 years.

I’m glad newspapers have reported about this important man, the new Wilson schools chief, Curtis Baker. I’m betting he might like to stay in Wilson and has answers to our questions.

Baker worked at his last job, as superintendent of the Moon School District, near Pittsburgh, for two years.

The Moon School Board voted to put him on paid leave in December.

Funny the Reading Eagle hasn’t mentioned that.

In any case, reading between the lines of coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it seems a newly elected majority tossed Baker out because they didn’t like his ideas.

In response, Baker has sued the district and seven school board members, claiming a broken contract.

“Curtis Baker claimed "he has been subjected to verbal abuse, sabotage of district image and administration performance, and micromanagement by members of the School Board of Directors and the Board as a whole,"” according to the Post-Gazette.

“Mr. Baker also said in the lawsuit that he had done nothing to warrant termination, was not given written notice of the allegations against him and was not granted a due process hearing, in violation of the Pennsylvania School Code.

“In addition to breach of contract and violation of due process, Mr. Baker is alleging a violation of the state Sunshine Act, tortious interference with contract and wrongful use of civil proceedings.”

That Baker carried out a decision by the previous board to close an elementary school was “a major flash point,” the Pittsburgh paper said.

The Moon district had hired Baker in December 2013 from the Roanoke School District, where he was deputy superintendent for operations, according to an article in the Roanoke Times.

Discussing the re-organization in the Virginia district as Baker and others departed, the article said that Margaret Lindsay would become executive director for fiscal services in Roanoke as the district reorganized as Baker left.

But it appears she followed Baker to Moon – the Post-Gazette says she resigned as that district’s chief financial and operating officer in December.

Before working in Virginia, Baker was the chief financial officer at the Lancaster School District from November 2004 to November 2007, according to his Linkedin résumé.