POTTSTOWN — There was no shortage of topics discussed during Wednesday night’s town hall meeting with state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist.
There were the topics he brought with him — school funding, avoiding scams, minimum wage and most particularly, PennDOT.
And then there were those brought by the speakers who stepped from among the 45 or so residents who showed up. Those included food deserts, non-political redistricting, the need to consolidate school districts, municipalities and police and fire departments and the potential state impacts of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Term Limits, Bipartisanship
Ciresi, who won his fourth term last November, believes that in addition to establishing a citizen commission to redraw legislative district lines every 10 years after the federal census instead of legislators “picking their voters,” term limits should be enacted for the House in the same way they are for the governor.
“I think having to run every two years is ridiculous. We should have four-year terms, and you do 16 years and you’re done,” said Ciresi.
While in office, Ciresi has made it a point to promote bipartisanship. He said he meets regularly with a House Republican with whom he disagrees on most things, but who tries, with him, to try to find common ground.
Further, Ciresi shares one of his Pottstown field offices with state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick, R-24th Dist., with whom he gets along.
“We work well together,” he said.
For example, Ciresi said Pennycuick has stood with him in the fight for fair school funding, a fight made more fraught during this budget season because of SEPTA’s financial problems. The transit agency is facing a deficit of between $159 million and $200 million.
Transportation
“I think the lawsuit that resulted in the ruling for fair school funding was 100 percent right, but the judge wasted everyone’s time by not putting a deadline on the order to fix the school funding system and no penalty if we fail. The courts failed us,” Ciresi said, adding a warning that some of the money intended to be used for that purpose may instead end up going to keep SEPTA afloat.
The SEPTA crisis is severe, Ciresi said, and Limerick resident Preston Luitweiler agreed.
“With the nation’s 250th anniversary coming up, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are going to be flooded with visitors, and if SEPTA is not running at full strength, it’s going to be chaos,” Luitweiler said.
Long an advocate for the return of passenger rail between Reading and Philadelphia, Ciresi said so far, funding remains in place for the project to continue.
Ciresi had harsh words for PennDOT. He said he has blown out six tires on a new car in the past 17 months, all because of potholes.
“It’s getting worse, and part of the problem is PennDOT re-paves roads by the linear mile, and not based on how much traffic they carry, which wears them out faster,” said Ciresi. “You go out into the middle of the state, and the roads are fine, but they don’t carry nearly as much traffic.”
Cyber School Tuition
Ciresi said the Democratic-controlled House has passed a bill that would limit tuition to cyber charter schools, an increasing drain on local school district budgets, but he has its doubts that the Republican-controlled Senate will take up the bill, as has been the case in the past, despite several state audits which have show those school accumulating large surpluses.
“Only two Republicans voted for it in the House, so it’s not going to go anywhere in the Senate,” he said.
‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Impacts
Now the chairman of the House communications and technology committee, Ciresi warned constituents about learning how to avoid phone scams.
(Pennycuick will host a “$camJam” event on Friday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the TriCounty Active Adult Center, located at 288 Moser Road, Pottstown.)
Ciresi decried the portion of Trump’s budget bill that would forbid states from regulating artificial intelligence, or AI, for 10 years. “The federal government wants to tie our hands, and that’s not right,” he said.
As for the financial aspect of the bill, “half the state’s budget comes from the federal government. If this bill passes, we will have to re-address everything we do as a state,” said Ciresi. “We only have so much money. If we lose billions, the budget process will be 10 times harder.”
Food Deserts and Minimum Wage
Pottstown resident Robert Stinson was joined by resident Janet Simmons, complaining about the concentration of “smoke and vape” shops in the “disenfranchised” section of the borough masquerading as convenience stores.
“They go in these stores and all our kids are getting are chips or sugary drinks,” Stinson said.
“They should ban vapes,” Ciresi replied. I mean, look at the flavors, bubble gum vape, who are they targeting?” Stinson agreed, “there’s no question they’re targeting our children.”
Ciresi said the debate over Pennsylvania’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour “is a major bone of contention” in Harrisburg this year. He said the House has passed a bill which would divide the state into sections, each with its own minimum wage, “and I have no idea what the Senate will do with this.”
“When all is said and done, we have to face that fact that of all the states that surround us, Pennsylvania has the lowest minimum wage.”
Regionalizing Public Services
Chuck Yeiser, a township supervisor from Lower Frederick Township, asked what the state could do to help with consolidating and regionalizing police departments.
“You look at a township like ours, and it consumes most of our budget. I mean we love our police, but is this really the best use of resources when we have towns next to us that have no police?” he said, noting that Perkiomen Valley School District, of which Lower Frederick is part, recently established a school district police department, due in part to the patchwork of municipal coverage.
Ciresi said more than just police, fire and ambulance and rescue services are also hemorrhaging money and personnel and more needs to be done. “They’re aging out, and they’re not being replaced by younger personnel and volunteers. I’m for a country-run system,” Ciresi said.
Kevin Yerger, chief of Pottstown’s Goodwill Fire Company and Goodwill Ambulance, confirmed the crisis. “Goodwill Ambulance gets no funding from the borough,” he said.
And when insurance companies pay for ambulance rides, they do not mimic the behavior with other medical services and send the check to the doctor’s office, they send it to the patient, who does not always pass that money on to the ambulance service.
“So that means we’re relying on the honesty of the patients, Yerger said. “We want to do the job, we love the job, but there has to be sustainability,” Yerger said. Insurance companies also will not pay for “in-home treatment,” like giving a diabetic insulin and thus avoiding an expensive ambulance ride and trip to the hospital, he said.
“Ambulance services are suffering all over the Commonwealth,” said Ciresi, offering up an anecdote for why the way Harrisburg does things is often mocked.
“Instead of fixing this problem, and having them send the check directly to the ambulance, we’re now debating a bill requiring the insurance company to insert a red slip of paper, informing the patient they are obligated to forward the money to the ambulance company. And we’re having discussions about ‘what color red should it be?’ and ‘how big of a font?’ I tell you it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Ciresi thundered.
The 146th House District includes the townships of Limerick, Lower Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove and the boroughs of Pottstown and Royersford.
