Daily Archives: March 16, 2024

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Progress being made on fire alarms, Oswego town supervisor says - oswegocountynewsnow.com

Progress on the Boyertown Express was the title of the video that was featured at the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerces Boyertown Area Progress Dinner on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, along with the presentation of the James K. Boyer Quality of Life Award to Greg Herb of Herb Real Estate, Inc.

Over 180 local business professionals, school administrators, and community leaders attended the event held at La Massaria at Bella Vista Golf Course, which featured the video Progress on the Boyertown Express, produced by the telecommunications students at Boyertown Area Senior High School.

The film spotlighted Brenda Cullen, owner of The Atherton Inn, located at 11 East Philadelphia Avenue in Boyertown, Sean Deviney, Vice President of the Body-Borneman Companies, located at 17 E. Philadelphia Ave. in Boyertown and Doug Nestler, owner of The Crossroads Guitars & Art, located at 1041 E. Philadelphia Ave in Gilbertsville, through detective interviews following the movie theme of Murder on the Orient Express.

Berks County Commissioner and former recipient of the award, Christian Leinbach presented the James K. Boyer Quality of Life Award to Greg Herb, of Herb Real Estate at the dinner. In his speech leading up to the presentation of the award, Leinbach said, there are good people among us, and Greg is one of them. Herb received the award for his many volunteer positions and contributions to the community. Herb commented in his acceptance speech that he had met James Boyer many years ago, he was a great man and Im honored to accept an award in his name.

Eileen Dautrich, President of TCACC, said the event is a great event to help bring awareness to the businesses within the Boyertown Area. The Boyertown Area Progress Dinner never disappoints! Wednesday was a beautiful night the weather was perfect, a room full of individuals that love their community, the opportunity to recognize one of Boyertowns own for his numerous, and ongoing contributions, and a program that not only informs but highlights local businesses while showcasing the talents of BASH students. The night did not disappoint! We look forward to starting work on the 2025 event.

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Progress on the Boyertown Express featured at Dinner - Berks Weekly

The referendum was first adopted by voters in 2008. Then, the extra was renewed in 2014, and voters approved it again in 2022 with two questions on the ballot.

Question No. 1 asked voters if they wish to fund $587 million across seven years for financing the costs of highways, roads, streets, bridges and other transportation-related projects, facilities and drainage.

Question No. 2 asked voters if they favored issuing $89 million in County Obligation Bonds from the special sales and use tax to fund the completion of such projects.

The Berkeley County Council members received an update Monday, March 11, about how the millions raised for roads and infrastructure are being spent and what's ahead.

The money raised from the tax has gone up since its inception in 2008. According to the information provided to the council, $147 million was generated between 2008 and 2016. Since 2016, $274 million has been collected.

Since then, projects have included work on Clements Ferry Road, the widening of Highway 176, and numerous resurfacing, dirt-to-pave and intersection projects.

More extensive projects include the Henry Brown Boulevard extension phases, the widening of College Park Road, the long-awaited $20 million Railroad Avenue extension in Hanahan and the Parkway extension.

The county has approved 33 miles of resurfacing work, much-needed work on Black Tom Road and phase 1 of improvements to Jedburg Road in 2024, to name a few. There is a lot of money to spend and plenty of projects.

According to the county, things cost much more than they did in 2008. Fifteen years ago, the cost per mile for road work was $100,000. Now, it is roughly $360,000.

The council quickly pointed out that while additional money is being raised, the sum is offset by the rising cost of the work. However, the penny is not painful for residents and elected leaders, considering where the county would be if it never existed.

"The One-Cent Sales Tax Program has had a tremendous impact on the county and community," said Berkeley County Supervisor Johnny Cribb in an interview about the tax. "The better question is: 'Where would we be without it?'"

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New numbers on progress of penny sales tax - The Post and Courier

The idealized vision of America, with the Statue of Liberty as a beacon welcoming the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse, and the homeless of the world people with nowhere else to go doesnt ring as true as we used to think it did. In reality, Liberty and its inspirational, pro-immigrant poem have always been symbols of hope, more than signs of acceptance.

As discouraging and abhorrent as some of the current anti-immigrant rhetoric is, it is not new, and St. Patricks Day is a good time to focus on the Irish-American experience, as one component of our messy history with race and immigration.

The concept of the statue in New York harbor welcoming immigrants took hold after Emma Lazaruss poem, The New Colossus, was cast on a bronze plaque and installed there in 1901. The poem reads, in part:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Despite those glowing words, most immigrants to the United States, including Irish, Italians, Jews, Chinese, Mexicans and many others, have not received a warm welcome. They have often been considered inferior, diseased, dangerous, ignorant or generally undesirable. Not surprisingly, given our centuries-long history of racism, skin tone has been a determinant in whether or how soon new arrivals would be accepted into the dominant white culture.

In Working Towards Whiteness: How Americas Immigrants Became White, David R. Roediger describes how industry and political leaders sometimes played different nationalities and racial groups off each other to undermine labor unity and to keep wages down, and how they restricted voting.

The U.S. census, for example, counted the foreign-born and the children of the foreign-born as white, but in separate categories from whites whose parents were U.S.-born, Roediger writes of light-skinned people of the 19th century, noting that, originally, only whites were allowed to vote. However, the third-generation immigrant disappeared into the white American census category.

Neither was discrimination just on the national scene. In his memoir, The Road Taken, Sen. Patrick Leahy writes of prejudice against the Irish in Vermont.

(My dad) told us about the signs in Montpeliers storefront windows: NO IRISH NEED APPLY, or, if you could not understand what that meant, NO CATHOLIC NEED APPLY.

While Leahy said those stories seared into his father and family a fierce sense of right and wrong, an earlier Vermont native son, Calvin Coolidge, while he was president, signed restrictive immigration legislation claiming Nordic superiority, favoring the right kind of immigration, and endorsing (a) sense of racial peril, according to Roediger.

Coolidge held that racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside made it clear that divergent people will not mix or blend, Roediger writes.

In How the Irish Became White, Noel Ignatiev narrows the scope.

The Irish who emigrated to America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were fleeing caste oppression and a system of landlordism that made the material conditions of the Irish peasant comparable to those of an American slave, Ignatiev writes. He later writes that, in the U.S., (No) one gave a damn about the poor Irish. Even the downtrodden black people had Quakers and abolitionists to bring their plight to public attention.

While Ignatiev gives examples of extreme mistreatment of the Irish here, he emphasizes that those conditions were still not as bad as being enslaved.

To those who insisted that the lot of the free white laborer was worse than that of the slave, Ignatiev writes, Frederick Douglass liked to point out that his old position on the plantation had been vacant since his departure, and encouraged them to apply.

In 1845, after Douglass published his autobiography, in which he describes growing up in slavery and his escape to the North, for his personal safety, he went to Ireland, staying there and in England for two years. He was treated well in Ireland and grateful to the people, but the provoked bitterness between Black Americans and immigrants, colored his view in America.

The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere, are instantly taught when they step upon our soil to hate and despise the Negro, Douglass writes.

A caller to an NPR radio program asked, since the Irish and Blacks were both horribly treated in the past, why is there talk about reparations to make up for grievous past wrongs for Blacks but not for the Irish?

The reason is what came next: The Irish, like many other immigrants, were gradually accepted and then even welcomed into the dominant white culture; whereas, people with black and brown skin many of them whose ancestors were brought here involuntarily have never been completely accepted.

Many individuals have shined, and it is obvious that our lives are greatly enriched by the achievements of Black Americans; however, Blacks as a whole, still notably lag behind white Americans in all measures of social, educational and economic opportunity. While the Irish have made steady progress, for generations after the Civil War and the end of slavery, Black Americans were forcibly held back by segregation, voter disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, and racist violence that went unanswered by government.

If the spirit and intent of emancipation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments had been honored, Blacks could have been as successful, in terms of economics and power, as the Irish and others, and there would be no discussion of reparations.

Once despised for many reasons, including their religion, Irish Americans are now fully integrated into mainstream American society, belonging to various political camps, and filling national leadership positions; those positions currently include the presidency (a Democrat), the Senate minority leader (a Republican), and seats on the Supreme Court. This is progress for Irish Americans, but Douglasss words still haunt us. Where do todays Irish Americans stand?

Many are fighting for social justice, equity for Black and brown Americans, helping the poor of all backgrounds, defending the right of every person to be their true self, welcoming immigrants, and, remembering the horrid conditions in Ireland during the centuries-long British occupation, speaking out in defense of those in occupied countries.

Others ignore what their ancestors went through, arguing that the emancipation of enslaved people ended racism in the United States, prescribing narrow views for how others should live, blaming poverty on the poor, and ranting against immigrants.

When I was a boy, I learned that the words at the Statue of Liberty celebrated Americas greatness, and I still believe that. My mothers parents came here from Ireland in the 1920s, escaping war and its aftermath, and my fathers grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in the 1850s, escaping famine and British oppression.

The Irish heritage I appreciate, to quote Frederick Douglass, readily sympathize(s) with the oppressed everywhere in our own country and abroad. That is a venerable heritage to build on, a reason to be proud of being Irish American, and a reason to speak up for all marginalized people.

Tom McKone lives in Montpelier.

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McKone: Irish-American progress and paradoxes | Perspective | timesargus.com - Barre Montpelier Times Argus

Progress on this years Farm Bill has been slow as division in Washington prevents action on most matters and lawmakers have shifted their attention to elections.

Berrien County Farm Bureau President Edward Kretchman tells us there hasnt been much action in Washington and the final Farm Bill is still in its infancy. He says the extensive package does need to be finished, but theres been little information on it so far.

Michigan Farm Bureau industry relations specialist Theresa Sisung tells us there is still some time for the bill.

This one was supposed to expire back in September of last year, but they gave it a one-year extension, Sisung said. So, this farm bill is good until September of this year.

Sisung says the Farm Bill is complex and covers dozens of programs. She says its good for both farmers and consumers.

Looking at some of the food assistance programs. So, the SNAP benefits, the WIC program, things like that are all tied into the Farm Bill and theyre a part of the Farm Bill. Theres also conservation and technical assistance programs that are part of the Farm Bill. Sort of specific commodity type programs to provide risk management tools for farmers are all a part of the Farm Bill.

Sisung says Michigan growers want the bill to include more risk management resources as growers in the state face wild weather.

Kretchman says the Farm Bill also includes conservation assistance and crop insurance, both important in Berrien County. He says hed like to see the bill done in a timely manner, but given that this is an election year, that may be unrealistic.

Sisung says the current Farm Bill could just be extended again if it comes to that.

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Berrien County farmers note slow progress on the new Farm Bill - News/Talk/Sports 94.9 WSJM