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Archive for “Burbs” news
Pottstown Hotel Has Sneaky Plan to Profit from Oklahoma Tornado
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/21/2013
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A Comfort Inn & Suites in Pottstown has a plan to help out victims from the Oklahoma tornado: It'll donate $1 to the Red Cross in Oklahoma City for every Facebook "like" it gets, pledging a $1,000 dollar max donation. Seriously? Is now really the time for shameless opportunism? Every "like" the hotel gets is just an opportunity for self-promotion. It won't take much for that thousand bucks to repay itself once the Comfort Inn nets few customers through Facebook. Dear Comfort Inn & Suites, Pottstown, if you really care, here's an idea: Just donate $1,000. [PBJ]
Bryn Mawr Cleaning Lady Gets 6 Years in Jail for Stealing Ben Franklin Bust
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/21/2013
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The Bryn Mawr cleaning lady who stole a $3 million bust of Ben Franklin--sculpted during his lifetime--has been sentenced to six years in jail. A little backstory about 47-year-old Andrea Lawton:
Lawton took the bust because she was upset with the cleaning service that that had just fired her, and wanted to make money, authorities have said. When Lawton was assigned to clean the home the bust was stolen from, she had been told that the sculpture was extremely valuable and she shouldn't touch it, court documents say.
The bust, a little damaged, has been returned. And the thief has been punished.
PA Woman Missing Since 2002 Now in Jail
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/10/2013
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So much for the heartfelt reunion story she may have been hoping for. Brenda Heist, the Lancaster county woman who vanished from her home ten years ago to bum around in Florida, is sitting in a county jail, just weeks after resurfacing.
Also: Locals say she went by the name "Lovie" and never said anything about her family in Pennsylvania. Heist will be arraigned on June 6th. [Pensacola News-Journal]
Prosecutors allege that she violated her probation, which she was put on for stealing an ID from Milton resident Heike Farmer, whose house she cleaned, and using it during a traffic stop.
Eastern PA University to Allow Guns On Campus
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/10/2013
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Yes, that's right. Eastern PA, not Western PA. Stereotypes be damned, Kutztown University is allowing gun owners with "compelling" personal safety rationale to bring their arms onto campus.
The revision, which took effect April 19, replaces a blanket prohibition of weapons on university premises with a policy allowing people with proper permits to carry weapons outside of buildings and events — in other words, on campus paths and grassy quads. But they need permission from campus police to bring weapons into academic buildings, dorms, dining halls or to events.
The Kutztown-based Raging Chicken Press, which broke the story, was none too pleased.
Radnor Rejects $200 Million Villanova Expansion
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/09/2013
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NIMBYism strikes in Radnor (and so do feral cats, apparently). The Township Planning Commission has rejected Villanova's bid for a $200 million expansion that would yield new dorms, a parking garage, and a performing arts center. The move was designed in part to lure student living in apartments and houses back to campus, an outcome you'd think noise-averse Radnorians would support. Still, the Commission voted 8-1, echoing fears from residents that the plan"would transform a quiet neighborhood into a noisy extension of the 10,600-student Wildcat campus." Next up, a final vote by the Township Board of Commissioners. [Inquirer]
Alleged Cleveland Kidnapper Has Local Roots
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/09/2013
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Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man charged with kidnapping and raping three women over the course of the last decade, reportedly grew up in Reading, PA. He moved there with his family from Puerto Rico, the Reading Eagle reports, later moving to Cleveland.
[Ariel's uncle] Julio Castro wasn't sure what years his nephews lived in Reading with their mother, Lillian, but said he visited them once here when they were between 5 and 10 years old.
Julio, who lives in Cleveland, said he "helped search for the [kidnapped women] years ago when they went missing as girls" and "was stunned to learn that
Kobe Bryant Countersues to Keep High School Jerseys
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/09/2013
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Last week, we learned that Kobe Bryant's mom was trying to sell off her son's old Lower Merion jerseys, among other memorabilia, in the hopes of cashing out and moving to Nevada. Upon learning that his old stuff was being put on the block ("Mom! That's my stuff!"), Bryant filed a cease-and-desist letter, prompting the guy trying to sell the stuff on behalf of Bryant, West Berlin, NJ-based auctioneer Ken Goldin, to file a lawsuit.
Now, Kobe's counter-suing, claiming his mother knows very well that the jerseys aren't hers to sell.
On the day the suit was filed, Kobe Bryant says in
Kobe Bryant and His Mom Are Fighting Over His Lower Merion Jerseys
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/03/2013
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Kobe Bryant's mom wants to sell off a big collection of her son's old jerseys so she can buy herself a new home in Nevada. Kobe wants to keep the memorabilia for himself. And so they find themselves sparring in federal court in Camden. Pamela Bryant, you see, says her son gave her the items once, and now wants to sell them to a collectibles company, which would subsequently auction them off. (The West Berlin-based Goldin Auctions has already advanced her $450,000.) Kobe says it's his property and he doesn't want his maroon Lower Merion "33" on the back of
PA Woman Who Disappeared Mysteriously in 2002 Has Turned Up in Florida
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 5/02/2013
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In 2002, a Lancaster County woman named Brenda Heist dropped her two kids off at school and then went to a park, where she sat down on a bench and cried. Distraught over financial troubles resulting from a pending divorce, she accepted an offer from three complete strangers to hitchhike to South Florida. And that's where she stayed for the past eleven years, living under bridges, in shelters, and with a man in his Key West camper. Yesterday she resurfaced, three years after being declared legally dead.
[caption id="attachment_333371" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Brenda Heist: Before and After"][/caption]
Lititz Borough Detective John Schofield said
Parent Accuses Pottsgrove French Teacher of Not Knowing French
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood 4/29/2013
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This is probably a story we can all relate to on some level--the high school foreign language teacher who seems suspiciously inept at speaking said foreign language. Pottsgrove dad Tony DiPaolo, who speaks French, Italian, and English, filed a complaint against the local school district, alleging that his kid was being taught by a fraud.
...When his son came home speaking his “mother tongue” incorrectly, DiPaolo did what most parents would do, he went to see the teacher. However, he decided to speak to the teacher only in French. “I was horrified to hear her struggle to form her sentences and
