Jul 2019
BCIDA Land Development Plan (Phase 1) obtained... and it specifies that power lines are to be UNDERGROUND!
Wed, July 31, 2019
I visited the Bern Township municipal building on July 31 and photographed the entirety of the Land Development Plan (Phase 1) for the Berks Park 183 project (zoomable images are posted here). The key finding is shown in the highlighted excerpt below, which states that power lines are to be installed underground! So why is Met-Ed proposing to run above-ground lines?? As I understand from a story in the Reading Eagle, this plan was approved on May 7; however, I don’t yet know if just Phase 1 was approved, or if there are more documents that they didn’t bring out when I visited. I will be going back shortly to investigate further! We need to find out whether all necessary approvals have already been granted for power line towers to be constructed; and if not, to join together and do everything we can to prevent any remaining approvals from being granted.
Berks County Industrial Development Authority meeting schedule obtained.
Tue, July 30, 2019
- The BCIDA website says they hold public meetings, yet the meeting schedule isn’t listed.
- Puzzled at this apparent oversight, I sent two emails asking about this, one on July 22 and another on July 26. I finally received a reply on July 30 with an attached schedule in the form of a Microsoft Word document and with the following statement: “The meeting schedule is advertised in the Reading Eagle newspaper in December for the upcoming year. Attached please find a copy that appeared in the newspaper. Throughout the year, there may be times that the meeting date is rescheduled. That change is advertised in the Reading Eagle prior to the original scheduled date.”
- I wrote back and asked why the schedule isn’t available on the website, and also to see whether the next listed meeting (on August 12, 2019) will actually take place as the document gives a schedule but then qualifies this by saying that meetings “will be held on an as-needed basis”. The BCIDA’s practices regarding the scheduling and announcement of so-called “public” meetings are a serious red flag as they discourage public awareness and observation of its activities.