Officials seek new building

Commissioners dispute claims they are wasting tax dollars

LOWER POTTSGROVE » As the township commissioners move forward with plans to purchase and possibly develop five parcels at the corner of East High Street and South Pleasantview Road, board Chairman Bruce Foltz is bristling at talk that the township is wasting money.

“The commissioners are taking heat in the paper from people saying we’re wasting money. They don’t know what they’re talking about” Foltz said March 22 after the board voted unanimously to authorize signing closing documents for 2270 and 2272 E. High St.

The price for each property is $100,000 and collectively make up .57 acres, according to Township Manager Ed Wagner.

The property at 2270 E. High St. is a duplex and the property at 2272 E. High St. is a single family home.

Last month, the commissioners also voted to hire Zuber Realty to manage those two properties, and collect rent for a 6 percent commission on the rent, until a decision is made on how to develop the properties. At the March 22 meeting, Foltz stressed again that “no hard decisions about what will happen with High Street properties has been made, there is nothing definite,” he said of the results of a recent meeting of the commissioners’ newly formed infrastructure committee.

“Right now it’s more of a wish list,” he said.

Nevertheless, the commission-

ers do seem to be in general agreement about doing something about new headquarters for both the police and administration.

Commissioner Ray Lopez told the commissioners he had put together a report on the township’s space needs.

He said the current building at the corner of Buchert and North Pleasantview roads was built in 1990 and “started to get tight spacewise after about 10 or 12

years, dating all the way back to 2002.”

Lopez said feasibility studies were undertaken in 2002 and 2015.

“We have looked a several places over the years. Some were too small for both administration and police, others were too expensive. Up until now, we have been taking option 1, ‘do nothing,’” he said.

But that option is looking less and less likely.

“We know we have to do something, now is the time to do it,” said Commissioner Robert Mohollen. “We should borrow money soon

because interest rates are going up.”

Lopez said the police have space problems in the evidence room.

Police Chief Mike Foltz confirmed that recently marijuana confiscated during an arrest began to rot and spread the odor through the entire township building.

The police station also only has one lavatory for male and female officers and the public, as well as no safe place to hold prisoners.

“When we have a prisoner in handcuffs, he or she is sitting about 10 feet away from the secretary,” said Chief

Foltz.

Upstairs in the administration area, things are stored in hallways and there is no space for growth on either floor, even though development is pushing the township’s population higher, said Bruce Foltz.

Lopez said there are a number of people who don’t have offices in the township building who should, like tax collector and fire marshal.

Lopez, who is also Lower Pottsgrove’s emergency management coordinator, has a room at home stacked with township emergency management materials “because

there’s no room for them here.”

“Anyone in the township would be happy to give the public a tour of the existing township building, so they can see what the problems are,” said Foltz.

“We have to do study, see what’s needed, where to go. In the meantime, we’re purchasing these properties while they are available,” he said.

Lopez noted that as part of his research, he recently read the township’s community development plan from 2008, and “the Sanatoga area was designated as a redevelopment area.”

In addition to the two East High Street properties on which the township was expected to close, the commissioners have moved on three other properties — 2238 E. High St., 2258 E. High St. and 2255 Brown St. — putting the township in control of the corner of East High Street and South Pleasant View Road, all the way down to the corner of South Pleasant View Road and Brown Street.

Added together, the township will soon control more than 2 acres available from corner to corner.