For Middletown Supervisor Anna Payne and others living with cystic fibrosis, a potential decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could be a matter of life and death, she said Tuesday.
Payne joined Gov. Tom Wolf and state lawmakers in Doylestown Borough on Tuesday morning where officials said they are poised to pass state-level provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act if a high court ruling dismantles a decade-old health care law.
LOWER MAKEFIELD >> In the quiet solitude of the Slate Hill Cemetery, residents and community leaders gathered on Sept. 25 to rededicate six Civil War tombstones, two that had faded with time and four that were stolen, destroyed or never placed.
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6393 Commander Russ Davidson officiated at a ceremony held to unveil the new stones and to honor each veteran for their contribution and sacrifice during the Civil War, America’s deadliest conflict with close to 500,000 killed.
In these fractious times, we often use this space to critique our state legislature for the things it isn’t doing, often because partisan politics gets in the way.
So it’s only fair that today we praise the 14 members of the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee for voting — unanimously — to approve Senate Bill 868.
The bill that got nine Republicans and five Democrats to say “yea” — and that we fervently hope now gets a similar outcome before the full Senate — is Kayden’s Law. It’s named for Kayden Mancuso, a 7-year-old Lower Makefield girl who was murdered by her rage-filled, suicidal father during an August 2018 court-ordered weekend visitation in Philadelphia.
East Rockhill officials were suspicious of a nearby quarry’s records to keep an active mining permit, where 500 tons of stone had to be removed annually to keep a state permit.
On Tuesday, supervisors unanimously approved a resolution asking the state legislature and Department of Environmental Protection to require inactive quarries keep a scale onsite to weigh trucks hauling out stone.
Permit rules currently require active quarries keep a scale on-site to weigh loaded trucks, but inactive quarries can be weighed elsewhere, according to township officials.
The nonprofit Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center (PABC) in Doylestown recently began a $19 million expansion project.
A total of 41 companies work at the location, but there are more than 70 member companies.
Expansion is expected to create more than 100 jobs and attract dozens of new companies and millions of dollars in commercial activity.
LOWER MAKEFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — A child-protection bill named for a slain 7-year-old from Lower Makefield is now making its way through the Pennsylvania legislature.
S.B. 868, known as Kayden’s Law, was unanimously voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and is now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
DOYLESTOWN, PA — Three Doylestown-based veterans’ groups will receive $37,312 in awards through the Veteran Trust Fund Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
American Legion Post 210 will receive $12,500, Operation Homefront will receive $10,000, and Bucks County Veterans Affairs will receive $14,812.
DOYLESTOWN >> Two Bucks County cultural institutions were featured in a Senate committee hearing that highlighted the value of historic, arts and cultural organizations to our local and state economies, and the support they need to survive the challenges of the pandemic.
State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) on Sept. 14 co-hosted the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Arts, Cultural, and Historical Institutions of Pennsylvania.
BUCKS COUNTY >> State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) announced $211,408 in funding through the COVID-19 Cultural and Museum Preservation Grant Program, administered through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).
The funds were part of $20,000,000 in CARES Act funds awarded statewide. The funding awards in the 10th State Senate District are as follows:
Pennsylvania is one step closer to joining a regional program meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environmental Quality Board on Tuesday approved a draft regulation to enter the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The vote was 13-6.
The board’s vote opens the next phase in the regulatory process. The draft will be open for public comment for a 60-day period. The Department of Environmental Protection plans to hold five hearings. Dates have not been set.
A state environmental board took a key step on Tuesday to advance Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions by making Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel power plants begin paying to release pollution that contributes to climate change.
The Environmental Quality Board voted 13-6 to publish the proposed rules for public comment — opening a 60-day period in which everyone will have a chance to weigh in on a debate that has been dominated for months by coal and gas interests, environmental groups, building trade unions, the governor’s office and Republicans in the General Assembly.
BUCKS COUNTY >> State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) has announced that $8,512,517 in funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) will be helping Bucks County organizations and localities serve victims of crimes and assist with offender probation programming.
After a contentious move on the floor of the state Senate, a measure to stop Pennsylvania from entering a regional program to curb greenhouse gas emissions is heading to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk.
House Bill 2025 would require legislative approval for Pennsylvania to enter a program such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
Tuesday is the first day back to school virtually for students in the Pennsbury School District.
PECO, as part of an ongoing maintenance project, had planned to shut off service at times between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Tuesday in parts of Falls Township.
Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County is once again in the spotlight, this time as the recipient of more than $1 million in state grants to help with research in pursuing a treatment and vaccine for COVID-19.
Of 23 state awards, the biotechnology center, located next to the Doylestown Airport in Buckingham, received four grants, bringing in $1.1 million of the $10 million statewide allocation. The money will help support the biotech center’s renovation plans, which will add research and training labs, more than 100 new jobs and new offices for COVID-19 research and development.
DOYLESTOWN >> The Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County will receive $803,306 in grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development’s (DCED) Office of Technology and Innovation.
The cumbersome and sometimes slow counting of an expected record number of mail-in ballots — especially in some crucial swing states — could delay results and open the door to challenges in this year’s elections.
In 13 states and the District of Columbia, including the closely contested battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Michigan, election officials can’t start processing absentee ballots until Election Day, and in three more states they can’t start until the polls close. With millions of such ballots anticipated, that’s a daunting, if not impossible, task to perform quickly.
BUCKS COUNTY >> Seven school districts in Bucks County have been awarded nearly $390,000 in grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) for compensatory services for students with special needs.
The funding awards by school district are as follows: Central Bucks School District: $176,326; Council Rock School District: $123,706; Morrisville Borough School District: $7,217; New Hope-Solebury School District: $5,000; Palisades School District: $16,220; Pennridge School District: $19,645; and the Pennsbury School District: $41,579.
Talk about unintended consequences.
As a way to avoid increasing gas taxes back in 2007, the Pennsylvania Legislature decided to raise $450 million yearly — $400 million for public transit and $50 million to encourage multimodal projects — by tolling Interstate 80 and placing higher tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
BUCKS COUNTY – State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10), along with State Representatives Perry Warren (D-31), John Galloway (D-140), and Wendy Ullman (D-143) announced $1,763,403 in Small Water & Sewer Program grant funds through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), are coming to seven local municipalities.
MORRISVILLE BOROUGH >> Hundreds of protesters rallied at Williamson Park Saturday afternoon for an end to racism.
The family-friendly, Black Lives Matter demonstration was organized by Morrisville Against Hate and the NAACP of Bucks County in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
HARRISBURG, Penn. — As Pennsylvania reopens in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some state lawmakers are calling for action to ensure the economic recovery doesn’t leave anyone behind.
The pandemic has caused an unprecedented disruption to the economy and threatened the welfare of everyone in the state. According to state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Lower Makefield (Bucks County), it is incumbent upon state legislators to pass measures that will create what he called a “just recovery” that helps everyone thrive.
“We need to make sure that people have access to good-paying jobs, that they have access to health care, that they have a roof over their heads, and that they get the help they need to get through the downturn that has been created by the virus,” said Santarsiero.
DOYLESTOWN >> For the first time, the rainbow Pride Flag is being flown outside the Bucks County Administration Building in recognition of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month.
The flag was raised late Tuesday afternoon, June 23 by youth from Planned Parenthood’s Rainbow Room in Doylestown in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York that gave rise to organized efforts to outlaw discriminatory laws and practices against LGBTQ+ people in the United States.
For the first time, Bucks County government hoisted a LGBTQ+ pride flag.
The flag was displayed below the American flag outside the Bucks County Administration Building in Doylestown Borough on Tuesday.
Teens from Planned Parenthood’s Rainbow Room, a program for county LGBTQ+ youth and allies, helped raise the multi-color flag.
It has been nearly two weeks since George Floyd was murdered while in police custody in Minneapolis. The horror of that tragedy was caught on video, which quickly went viral across Minnesota, the United States and the world.
In an instant, all of us became witnesses to an unjustified and brutal use of force and a victim’s futile cries for help. The horror of those 8 minutes, 46 seconds could not help but pierce the soul of any feeling person. Our witnessing of such human suffering produced shock, then anger and finally a dread that our society was becoming something that we did not recognize.