A Slap in the Face
POTTSTOWN, PA – That pretty much sums up our reaction to today’s double whammy dose of half-truths and outdated data circulated in the print edition of The Mercury.
Full time cherry picker and part time Pottstown School Board member Thomas Hylton thinks he knows the cure-all for the Pottstown School District and the best use of its facilities, even though this information has been thoroughly discussed and debated by better team playing members of the Pottstown School Board over the past 15 years.
Don’t waste your hard earned money on today’s Mercury because we have both the paid advertising supplement and the paid advertisement that appears on page A3:
PCFRG Paid Advertising Supplement 033011
(this is almost a 10 MB file, so please be patient when opening)
What can we say that we haven’t already said in our past 260+ posts? It’s a proven fact that Tom Hylton will say and do anything to get his way in order to prevent Pottstown from making sorely needed fiscally responsible progress. He has no regard for the hard working folks of Pottstown who pay the astronomically-high taxes to keep our borough and school district operating. He has no regard for his fellow school board members. He has no regard for the hard working citizens who have been working together over the past year on the President’s Task Force to solve Pottstown’s elementary school building dilemma. The guy is simply an irritant whose goal is to keep Pottstown firmly entrenched in a by-gone era that no longer exists and is no longer financially sustainable.
What’s the best way to combat Tom Hylton? Cancel your Mercury subscription and stop buying their trashy unethical publication. The sooner The Mercury goes out of business, the better for Pottstown.
Look at the extraordinary amount of time, energy and money Tom Hylton has spent in putting together today’s paid supplement. Do you think he’s doing that because he cares so much for Pottstown? Hell no. He’s just watching out for his financial bottom line. As we stated yesterday, the dismantling of Pottstown so-called neighborhood school system will have a significant financial impact on Tom Hylton’s future speaking engagements and book sales of his 15+ year old book. Who will pay to listen to a former planning commissioner and a former shade tree commissioner from a town where neighborhood schools no longer exist? Everything he has ever spoken about and earned money from is going the way of the dinosaur, so of course he’s in panic mode trying to keep his income streams from drying up.
We know we mentioned this yesterday, but nowhere in Tom Hylton’s paid ads does he mention that Pottstown is a state-designated High Tax/High Poverty school district. Contrary to the swamp land Tom Hylton’s charts and numbers are trying to sell us, Pottstown taxpayers can no longer afford to keep the status quo. Big changes must be made for Pottstown to be economically sustainable…which is why the President’s Task Force was created last year.
Today’s twin set of sucker punches only tell us one thing…that the President’s Task Force is making significant progress…otherwise Tom Hylton would not be spending thousands of dollars trying to sway public opinion against its outcome.
I for one would like to thank the Mercury & Tom Hylton for the much needed lining in my new puppy’s crate! That’s about all this drivel is good for!
I would love to know if TH paid the same for this insert as any other business would have paid for the same thing.
I read most of SP’s articles and agree with a majority of them but haven’t see any details on how to prevent Hylton from world(Pottstown) domination.
What steps do the citizens of Pottstown need to take to stop his ideas from becoming reality?
movingtopottstown perhaps u should look into joining code blue they seem to have been able to but a thorn in TH’s side lately and have some good ideas!
TALK ABOVE EXTRAVAGANCE AND THINGS WE CAN’T AFFORD!!
A FULL-ON SUPPLEMENT IN THE LOCAL PAPER. THIS TYPE OF SPENDING HAS GOT TO STOP. WOULD THAT I COULD GET TOGETHER WITH SOME FRIENDS AND PROVIDE A ‘HOW TO’ MANUAL FOR RUNNING THE SCHOOLS. SADLY, I AM NOT THAT FLUSH WITH MONEY AND I HAVE TO RELY ON THE POOR MAN’S KEYBOARD ‘CAPS LOCK’ KEY TO MAKE THIS POINT.
WHILE I RESPECT HYLTON’S RIGHT TO AN OPINION I AM GREATLY OFFENDED BY THE MEANS HE IS THRUSTING THIS UPON THE COMMUNITY. WHO ELSE HAS THE MEANS TO EXPRESS THEIR THOUGHTS LIKE THIS? THIS DEMONSTRATES HIS DISCONNECT WITH THE PEOPLE AND THE VERY FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY HE TALKS ABOUT. HE IS SPARING NO EXPENSE TO PROMOTE HIS AGENDA.
TALK THE TALK BUT DON’T WALK THE WALK. I SUBMIT TO ANYONE READING THIS THAT CONSIDERING ALL VIABLE OPTIONS BEGINS AT HOME. LEAD BY EXAMPLE NOT BY INTIMIDATION AND EXCESS – THE VERY SAME THINGS HE CLAIMS ALL OTHERS THAT HAVE COME BEFORE HIM HAVE DONE.
HOW CAN THE TASK FORCE, SCHOOL, ADMINISTRATION, TOWN, VOTER, PARENT, STUDENT OR ANY OTHER STAKEHOLDER COMPETE WITH THIS? THIS IS A CLEAR USURPATION OF OFFICE AND INFLUENCE.
REMOVE THIS MAN FROM OFFICE.
Tom Hylton has negated his duty not to be in a situation where personal interests and public responsibility conflict. When he accepted a position on the SB he placed the well being of the children, the school district, and it’s taxpayers above personal gain and benefit, this agreement is implicit. He has left a trail of evidence of his self serving intentions and it is time to remove him from the board.
What i don’t understand is why this man is beating a dead horse? His ideas were voted on and dismissed! He was also admonished for not going through the proper channels to make his propositions! Yet again he has completely disregarded protocol and has set off on his own mission! Its call a school board not a school dictator!!! If there is a way to get him dismissed from the school board someone needs to help us find it before he completely ruins this town and our children’s futures!
This is also the same man who just voted against the forward borrowing so where does he think this money is coming from? Probably from the same place the cash for this insert came, our pockets courtesy of his wife’s pension!
Opionionatedmother, think about this in reference to Tom voting against forward borrowing. He wants to drain any possible coffers for the PSD so the district in the future will have nothing to draw on as they approach financial demise brought on by renovating the five schools which Hylton’s new puppets will have accomplished. Then Tom and his cronies will offer to buy (for a small sum )the renovated at taxpayer expense Rupert to help the failing district(gee, Tom is so benevolent). Now Tom gets to open his newly renovated charter school (which was always his plan according to excellent sources) within the walls of the former Rupert School and collect all the tuition at taxpayer expense because your taxes which should be going to public education are going to Hylton’s charter school instead(since the state uses public school tax dollars to fund charter schools) and Hylton’s fat retirement fund will grow since charter schools are business ventures. And your taxes will continue to rise to keep public schools open due to charter schools getting the public education funds. So you see, forward borrowing would have saved the district if the money was needed, but forward borrowing would have killed Hylton’s and his inner circle’s plan to seize Rupert and open a charter school for their own pocketbooks. And you know there is nothing you will be able to do because taxpayers have no say on how charter schools spend tax dollars. Charter schools represent ‘taxation without representation’.
Hylton’s plan has always been his personal gain at taxpayer expense.
Remember the boro gave Tom money for his trees, but Tom has yet to return it. Tom has really financed much of his life’s agenda on taxpayers money. Even the wife’s pension was built on taxpayer money.
I have to respectfully disagree with those who think Tom Hylton is all about money. See, Evan, we are more civil on this site.
I think Tom Hylton is obsessed with proving himself right. He doesn’t care if he has to sacrifice his last dollar or the entire community of Pottstown to prevent anything other than “neighborhood schools” from ever being tried. Why? That other thing might work, which would mean Tom Hylton was wrong, and that cannot be an option. Ever.
It is almost frightening the way his arguments have deteriorated from fairly coherent calls to support a “grand plan” (albeit one with which many of us take serious issue) to a loosely disguised rant filled with paranoia, contradiction, and delusions of grandeur. It would take twice as many words as Hylton published today to point out all the hypocritical and schizophrenic thoughts in his current manifesto, but take this one sentence for example:
“Rupert looks shabby because the district has allowed the appearance of the building to deteriorate, to reinforce the notion it needs to be replaced.”
O M G! It’s a PLOT! It’s a decades-long plot that has spanned multiple administrations, all hellbent on denying Thomas Hylton his moment of glory when he controls not only how many schools there are in Pottstown but also which students attend which buildings, who walks and who rides a bus, class size, square inch of space per student, what kind of fuel heats each building, racial balance, how many pennies per student per day can be spent on lights, and every other detail of every other aspect of every student’s education.
There are medications that might help… emphasis on the word “might.” But he will be allowed to continue his mass distribution of misinformation, aided and abetted by The Mercury every step of the way.
Maybe next The Mercury will let PECO/Exelon pay for the privilege of writing all the “news” coverage of the nuclear power industry. Soon, The Mercury won’t need any staff reporters at all. It can sell all the issues it should be responsible for covering to the highest bidder, increase revenue while decreasing expenses, and get written up in trade mags for being on the leading edge of journalism!
It seems hard to imagine that anyone could be as hyperopic as described above. However, I will say that years ago (I think only shortly after we had our now 13 year old daughter) we were given a presentation, an infomercial of sorts, on how to start a charter school in Pottstown. It was given in the home of a neighborhood friend (who has long since left for the greener pastures of the ‘groves). So, just guess who gave that presentation…Tom Hylton. That evening we were given a briefing on how and why we should/could start our own charter school in Pottstown. I kind of think it was even tied into utilizing area churches – imagine that?? I think many of us just left it go and enjoyed the rest of the evening socializing. Most of us never even discussed it amongst ourselves again. I will say, however, that the subject has reared its head from time to time over the years by a few others who were also at that gathering. Does that seem oddly coincidental to anyone else, given what is being proposed by Mov4Ward?
It feels kinda creepy to me now…
I just can’t remember everyone who was there right now… It will come to me, though. I’m sure.
That charter school business, Amy, is just one of the many, many contradictions in Hylton’s treatise on our schools. He seems convinced that the old St. Pius X building is going to be a charter school that will pull even more kids out of our district. And yet he plans to add a sixth elementary school by converting the middle school into a mega-school with 6 and 7-year-olds tossed into a building with 15 and 16-year-olds who are repeating grades.
If you want to see a mass exodus of students from Pottstown schools, just wait for Hylton’s plan to be implemented. It has long been known that many Pottstown families move their children into private or charter schools after they have completed 5th grade (in the elementary schools) because they don’t want their 10 or 11-year-old going to school with what they fear are teenaged “thugs.” Just wait until Hylton dictates that their 6-year-olds have to WALK to and from the middle school with these same adolescents.
I seem to recall a significant public objection being raised to the idea of putting even 5th graders into the middle school because they were too tender of age to be tossed into a mix with teenagers. Maybe that was Tom Hylton himself ginning up those fears in an attempt to thwart any progress toward a plan that didn’t include all five elementary buildings.
He contradicts himself all the time. But if he does it in full color on glossy paper with the help of The Mercury, many people are likely not to notice.
I found this advertisement very informative.
As a new taxpayer in this town, this site is very insulting to this man, Mr. Hylton, WHY?
@wednesday, if you are new to this town, perhaps you really need to read the past posts on SP.(Look for very informative and very facutal, not opinionated PartI,II,III about Thomas Hylton on SP.) Mr. Hylton has ignored all the rules of our town governing units to accomplish or try to accomplish his own agenda to further his bank account. The boro council is pleased to be rid of his antics. Due to Mr. Hylton’s disregard for others, boro council refused to re-appoint Mr. Hylton to the planning commission. Further, Mr. Hylton, former chair of the boro Tree Commission, still has refused to return money given to him by the boro council for the Tree Commission, which has been abolished by council due to Tom Hylton’s lack of transparency for that committee and the expenditure of those funds given to him by boro council.
Thank you for your comment wednesday and welcome to our site!
For a quick synopsis of Tom Hylton, please read our five feature posts (as listed on the right side of our home page). You can also read our About Save Pottstown!! link at the top of our home page.
Since we launched our site in 2009, we have published over 260 posts on the crazy and destructive behavior and antics of Tom Hylton. While he states that he is pro-Pottstown, his actions and writings indicate otherwise. Please take some time to review our site and come to your own conclusions.
If you are able, you should plan on attending tonight’s school board meeting to see/hear how Tom Hylton answers questions from his fellow board members and the taxpaying public regarding his carnivalesque attempts to derail the President’s Task Force (and for a background on that committee, please see our Sites We Like link).
wednesday,
welcome! On the right hand side of this blog you will notice a line up of information titled: Neighborhood Schools Myth, Parts I II & III. I would ask you to read these for a historical overview, (complete with facts and references), of the One Man Wrecking Ball that Tom Hylton has been to this community.
The advetorial you reference is only one of hundreds, just like it, that are designed to appeal to those who are unable to apply critical thinking to the situation, or do their own due diligence. His facts, (a term I use loosely), reflect only those pieces and parts that support his reality, not the common, shared reality of every other taxpayer in Pottstown. Sure…anyone could put anything on paper, in graphs and colum
If you, like many, would like to have a personal experience of his “good ideas” we invite you to take a walk in the downtown neighborhood, King St. as an example. The broken and very dangerous sidewalks are a by product of Tom Hylton’s ill conceived notion of urban greening. The trees he chose to plant are trees that no board certified arborist would ever consider viable in that setting. And yet, he made his case, presented the “facts”, and screwed the taxpayer, who is being held hostage to the horrible trees and sidewalks because the borough gave this man our money to create and maintain this mess. Did I say maintain? Yes. He has not maintained the trees but has taken great care to maintain his fat bank account in his non-profit, Trees, Inc. Shameful.
Have you had the opportunity to challenge youself to back-in parking on High St. yet? Oh joy of joys, this is also a Tom Hylton invention. Oh course, given that there is so little reason to park downtown, it may be awhile before you actually feel the need for this experience. But go ahead, just do it anyway – for the fun of it.
In parting, I’ve only one piece of adivce: do your homework and don’t believe everyhing you see published in the Mercury. Go to School Board meetings and Borough meetings, get to know people in the community and make no rash judgments in support of the message on the glossy publications from Tom Hylton or Citizens for Responsible Government.
Tom Hylton is the behind of the “one man horse and pony show”, (oops – he’s is behind, not he IS the behind), or whatever suits your preference, at the root of every bad idea that has retarded the redevelopment of this borough you will find Tom Hylton and a lacky or two. This includes, but is not limited to, his opposition to the state of the art central primary education campus, in lieu of a disintegrating, unsupportable school buildings, a neighborhood rife with blight, and slum property owners, drug dealers and other unsavory sorts, whom he has now abandoned.
Where is the love?
Wednesday, if you perceive Mr. Hylton to be very knowledgeable and persuasive, you are in very good company. I would hazard to suggest that most of the people who post to this board have, in the past, been impressed by Mr. Hylton. On the surface, he looks like the man with all the answers.
The problem is that he has claimed to have all the answers for more than 25 years. He has had ample opportunity to improve Pottstown – to enhance our quality of life, attract young families, lower our tax burden – all the things he claims he knows how to do. He has had access to far more resources than you might ever imagine, far more than any other individual in this town that I know of. He has controlled many boards, many dollars, many people, many decisions. The problem is that there are no results. Well… no positive results.
If Tom Hylton was the CEO of a business, he would have been canned ages ago.
But still he claims to have all the answers. And still unsuspecting people believe him. And someone or ones (non-profits maybe?) give him money they think will be put to the good of the community and it is instead turned against us in expensive bombastic blather like his supplement to yesterday’s Mercury.
We are tired of being held back, taxed to death, and penalized by Tom Hylton’s “answers.” Pottstown is a town held hostage by one ego with a pipeline to free money he can use to retain his death grip on the community.
You have stumbled onto a lot of people with a lot of experience with Thomas Hylton. Most of us, like you, were once impressed and are now appalled.
If you really want to know about him, read this blog. But don’t judge us until you have truly familiarized yourself with Tom Hylton’s not-so-stellar history as a town “leader.”
A very grateful “thank-you” to those people who stood and publicly demanded Mr. Hylton’s removal from the school board at last night’s COW school board meeting. Hylton has caused turmoil on the board since he was sworn in a year ago. Every move and comment from Hylton’s mouth has been to forward his personal agenda.
Once again,though, the Mercury is trying to protect Hylton with its headline “code blue and candidates call for removal”. This headline is the Mercury’s way of saying that which occurred last evening at the meeting was a political jab in the middle of this campaign season. Hylton’s removal would finally be this town’s opportunity to move forward. I hope that readers will see that Hylton’s fellow Republicans Hartman and Huss also called for Hylton’s removal.
Hylton has ignored all rules on the board. No one has denied Hylton his constitutional right to speak at any time, but when Mr. Huss established the rules for the task force, the rules were established for a reason. The task force was to do an unbiased study of the 5 schools without any comments from the board so as to reach a documented conclusion based on financial and structural engineering facts. Mr. Hylton’s supplement to the Mercury, although it appears to present facts, is skewed to match his personal agenda for the 5 buildings. As always, Mr. Hylton must learn that for society to progress, respect must be shown to all. Mr. Hylton’s lack of respect to listen and allow others to give their opinions, plus his refusal to compromise with others’ opinions has been his demise. Through Hylton’s underhanded way of pushing his “my way or no way” agenda and his lack of patience, out of fear that he will not get his own way, Mr. Hylton has earned all the criticism he has garnered.