Council delays manager appointment
Other positions filled; Lengel returns as interim fire marshal
POTTSTOWN » The news about what happened at Monday night’s council meeting is more about what didn’t happen.
Despite the fact that Interim Borough Manager Justin Keller’s contract — extended last month for 30 days — expires at the end of the month, no action was taken on either hiring him as the permanent manager; extending his contract for another 30 days; or even hiring someone else as manager.
These leaves council with two choices:
1) Hold a special meeting and either extend his contract or name him manager or;
2) Begin August with no borough manager at all.
As the second seems unlikely, it was no surprise when a source in a position to know confirmed the first.
What council did do was pass a change to the borough manager ordinance that would allow Keller, who no longer lives in the borough, to be hired anyway.
But after breaking for an executive session at the end
of Wednesday night’s meeting for “personnel,” which seemed likely to result in a decision, Council President Dan Weand emerged about 10 minutes later and announced council would not be coming back into session for a vote.
Council did make some appointment decisions Monday.
Richard Lengel, who retired last year almost more than 25 years as fire chief and fire marshal, was appointed as interim fire marshal in the wake of the
sudden resignation of his replacement, Michael Lessar, who lasted in the post about one year.
From among three applicants, council chose Andrew Monastra to fill a seat on the planning commission with a 4-3 vote Monday, with board members Joe Kirkland, Rita Paez and Trenita Lindsay voting no.
Monastra had applied last month, but council chose former member Thomas Hylton instead. Subsequently, Planning Commission Chairwoman Deb Penrod resigned, creating another vacancy.
In addition to Monastra, who already serves on the Land Bank Board and the Historic Architecture
Review Board, former council member David Garner and Tracey Franey also applied for the planning commission.
Madison Morton, who has now applied unsuccessfully for several posts in the borough, was unsuccessful again in his attempt to be appointed to the Blighted Property Review Committee because at least one member has to be a member of the planning commission.
However, planning commission member Brian Hydier was appointed to the Blighted Property Review Committee instead.
And council also split on a vacancy in the board of the Pottstown Downtown Improvement District Authority.
The PDIDA board recommended Gabrielle Davidheiser, according to executive director Sheila Dugan.
According to her letter of application, Davidheiser is a student studying “public health and anthropology at West Chester University.”
The second applicant was Marta Willgoose Salo, who told the board “while I’m currently a stay at home parent, I have extensive experience in the arts,nonprofit management and communications, and I spent a number of years working for a large corporate architecture and design firm.”
She was not nominated and there was no vote on her application.
The third candidate was Steve Everett, whose application attached to the meeting agenda was blank, but who, Weand say, is one of the major developers and land owner in the downtown.
Dugan said Everett was a good choice, but her board was worried he would not have enough time to be an active board member because he is so busy.
The vote on Everett was 3-4, with yes votes being Weand, Donald Lebedynsky and Vice President Carol Kulp.
The vote to appoint Davidheiser was 5-2 with Weand and Lebedynsky voting no.