Office Of The Mayor
Thomas M. McMahon


Mayor’s Report To City Council
July 9, 2007

Public Safety:

Three Neighborhood Heroes

I want to express my thanks once again to the three young men who responded to help their neighbors. Dante Brandon, Jose Carabello, and Matthew Figueroa deserve recognition from our entire community for their efforts and I believe they have set a fine example of what our young people are capable of doing to make our city a better place in which to live. It truly is neighbor helping neighbor.

Graffiti Removal

As of July 5, our city/county graffiti removal team has removed over 200 instances of graffiti in the last three Saturday sessions. In addition, our public works department continues to clean graffiti as part of their normal activity. The outlet area and alleys off Oley and N 10 N 11th were places of concentration for the initial sessions. Neighbors are very happy to see the crews at work on this effort.

Once again I want to remind citizens to report graffiti by calling our citizens services center at 1-877-727-3234 (1-877- PAREADING), so we can prioritize the removal.

Crime Reduction Efforts

As promised in January, I am attaching the Uniform Crime Report from the Police Records Division updated through June of this year showing comparison to the first six months of 2006. Overall crime shows a 26% reduction to date, but in order to sustain the progress, we need to put the remainder of the crime plan in operation, such as cameras and the K9 Corps, along with more officers on the street. The RFP for cameras is going out next week. We expect strong competition from various vendors with innovative technologies to submit proposals. Our goal remains to have the first group of cameras installed in September.

New Hires in Police and Fire

We welcome 12 new hires to the Reading Police Department and 10 new hires to the Fire Department. New police officers are being trained now at the police academy and new firefighters are in training at the fire training center. Five of the new police officers are being hired under a grant program called Police on Patrol, supported by Governor Rendell. I want to thank Senator O’Pake, along with our State Representatives, Dante Santoni and Tom Caltagirone for their assistance in helping the city get this grant money.

Congratulations to all the new hires in police and fire. We are delighted to be able to have them join the ranks of those who are making this city safer. I want to remind young people in the city that we will be hiring on a more regular basis for police and fire, and that more information can be obtained directly from the office of the chief of police and chief of fire.

Park Watch Program

The park watch is fully operational as of June 25th. There are four individuals patrolling 21 sites twice a day with varied schedules. We continue to advertise for the fifth position. They are also directed and are complying with the directive to walk through the parks and to be social with all individuals they encounter in the park and in the surrounding neighborhood.

Central Processing at the County

I want to thank the county commissioners for their support of getting the central processing duties taken over by the county. Last month the Berks County Salary Board voted to create four new positions in the Sheriffs' Office so the county could assume Central Processing duties for the entire county including the City of Reading. This is at a net cost of $160,000 per year to the county and it will free up six officers to be on the streets.

Safety on the Bypasses

A working group from the city of Reading, West Reading, Wyomissing, Cumru Township, along with PennDOT and the county traffic planning department have met twice to discuss what can be done to make the bypasses safer and to be able to alert drivers of alternate routes in case of major accidents. Ideas include digital message boards, preplanned detours advertised and available on the internet, and more rapid deployment of personnel in an emergency on the bypasses. I want to thank Commissioner Schwank for taking the initiative to form this group. We expect specific recommendations to come from it.

Group Work Camp

Our thanks to the organizers of the group work camp who were in Reading in June spending a week helping to fix up homes for elderly, low-income, and disabled residents of the city. The Office of Neighborhood Development provided the contacts with the property owners and helped throughout the week to be sure that the more than 400 student workers and supervisors had the support they needed.

The Group Workcamps Foundation (GWF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization which serves churches by providing mission trips that help children, youth and adults grow. The Foundation is located in Loveland, Colorado (Where the Group service missions program (Group Workcamps Project began).

During their weeklong visit to Reading, over 50 homes had improvements made to them, including the installation of over 80 smoke detectors provided by the Reading Fire Department.

Besides the installation of new smoke detectors, among the work done was construction of wheelchair ramps and porches, interior and exterior painting, weatherization, and other minor home repairs. Five young people with the supervision of at least one adult leader did the work at each home. This is the first year that smoke detectors have been provided.

Penns Commons and City Park

Dedication and ribbon cutting for the new playground at City Park is scheduled for 2 pm Monday July 16 at City Park. We invite all members of city council along with Penns Commons residents to come and help celebrate the new play area. Refreshments will be served courtesy of the Penns Commons Neighborhood group

My thanks to Mike Zuber, Director of Recreation for the city, who made sure that the project was completed on time and that the installation was done according to specifications.

We met last week with member of the Penns Commons community along with the landscape architect team, Simone Collins, who will be doing the first phase of the master plan for city park.

Council will be briefed at the workshop on July 16 regarding the scope of the project by William Vitale from Design Works, a local firm that is working with Simone Collins.

Bandshell Concerts

The previous benches at city park, most of which were in disrepair, were removed and portable benches were provide by public works for the first band shell concert last Friday.

Until the concrete pad is removed and the area seeded, we will continue to use the portable benches for the bandshell concerts this year.

My thanks to all who made this first concert a success, especially the Berks Arts Council, the Reading Eagle Company, and Land Displays the sponsors of the event.

The second concert will be this Friday starting at 7pm at the band shell, with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals with swamp rock blues music. I invite everyone comes out to enjoy the free concerts.

Eastern Pa Business Journal

I have attached a copy of an article by CJ Rhodes, Business Journal Columnist for the Pennsylvania Business Journal. In her July 2nd column she states in her article on "More Technology in Berks: For Better or For Worse?" that "another positive note is the City of Reading website (www.readingpa.gov) “It started out good and just keeps getting better and better." She goes on to elaborate that the City's website includes eight critical items (according to MuniNetGuide.com) posted and available for public review which she found all available and up to date.

Congratulations to our webmaster and IT team who make this happen. I encourage all citizens to continue to use this important resource and City hall employees to update their critical information to the site.