Historical Revisionism
POTTSTOWN, PA – Why is Tom Hylton so obsessed with having Pottstown taxpayers continue to pay for five unneeded (and unnecessary) elementary schools? Doesn’t he realize that the Pottstown School District is only one of two school districts in Montgomery County designated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as a High Tax / High Poverty school district? Hello? Earth to Tom Hylton. That means that Pottstown cannot afford to support five elementary schools.
But yet, in today’s Mercury paid advertisement, Tom Hylton wants you to believe that Pottstown can afford to continue to support five elementary schools…for decades to come even.
In today’s historical revisionist fairy tale, Tom Hylton selects his version of how Pottstown got to where we are today. And of course, his version of history relies on cherry-picked facts and distorted truths. The only truth that we know from history is that Tom Hylton will say and do anything to further his personal agenda…and if that means revising history to cast himself and his tax bloated ideas in a more favorable light…then so be it.
As much as Tom Hylton loves to take credit for things he didn’t do…it’s funny that he didn’t discuss in today’s paid ad the fact that in 2007 he personally spent close to $10,000 to get his “Neighborhood Schools Team” elected to office. We guess he doesn’t want his devoted Mercury ad readers to dwell on that minor irritating fact (and to hit home the fact that Tom Hylton has much more money at his disposal than the typical Pottstown taxpayer).
Is Tom afraid that when elementary schools in Pottstown are consolidated and closed to benefit Pottstown taxpayers that it will lead to neighborhood decline? All Tom Hylton needs to do is step outside the door of his Chestnut Street home and take a good look around. The decline is already here and it has absolutely nothing to do with how many elementary schools we have (or don’t have).
As we’ve already stated in the past, Tom Hylton is hyper-focused on attempting to discredit the President’s Task Force in any way that he can, because with the expected dismantling of Pottstown’s so-called neighborhood school system it will be one more thing he can’t promote about himself during his paid speeches (being an ex-Planning Commission member and ex-Shade Tree Commissioner are two others).
Within the next few months, the task force will be finalizing their decisions and presenting them to the taxpaying public in a series of open meetings. If Tom Hylton can derail and sabotage those efforts…he will (and tomorrow’s paid supplement is only the beginning). It’s worth noting that Tom Hylton recently requested the phone numbers of all members of the task force…wisely the school district denied his request. And what were his intentions? Most likely to publish their contact information in tomorrow’s paid advertising supplement…just like he used to do with his Preservation Pottstown dirty marketing mailers (can’t you see it now…if you want to save your schools…call your task force member today…).
With today’s paid ad, Tom Hylton is setting the stage for the big stick he plans to insert into the bicycle wheels of Pottstown. And that big stick will most definitely be in the form of a lawsuit. In that regard, we would like a make a prediction: If Tom Hylton doesn’t get his way and schools are closed and consolidated (to the benefit of Pottstown taxpayers), he will use legal means to get his way to keep them open. Just watch. He will sue the school district…just like he threatened before (but never carried out). And we say BRING IT ON. There’s nothing we’d like more than to see Tom Hylton separated from his quarter million dollar trust fund of non-profit assets.
And how would suing the school district benefit Pottstown and help improve the education of our children? How would it make our school district more transparent? How would it promote excellence in government? How would it influence civic policy by demonstrating a clear command of the facts, coupled with sound reasoning? How would it appeal to people’s better natures? (mission items stated on Tom Hylton’s Pottstown Citizens for Responsible Government political action committee website)
It wouldn’t. Just like every other selfish action Tom Hylton has carried out during his 38+ years in Pottstown…it would only benefit himself. Pure and simple. A lawsuit will not benefit the taxpayers…it will not benefit our children…and it will certainly not help to improve their education.
So let’s see what Tom Hylton will do in the course of the next few months.
Will he do the right thing by stepping aside and letting the Task Force complete its mission and help to implement those recommendations as a member of Pottstown’s school board? Or will he continue to attempt to control the future of Pottstown as he sees fit and attempt to destroy anyone (person or group) who disagrees with him?
Time will tell. But history indicates otherwise.
Mr. Hylton is a very good persuasive writer. I remember years ago when Rob Morgan was on the school board, they were waiting for information from Mr. Hylton,and Mr. Morgan said something to “when pigs fly”. The next meeting Mr. Hylton was there armed with charts and papers to defend his position. That was my first experience with him. Anyway, what really needs to be done, and I don’t know how to do it, ut the election rules need to be changed to electing 3 school board members every year for a 3 year term.
If he were to sue the school district wouldnt that be a conflict of interest? He is a seated member of the board and if a motion is carried even with desenting votes how can he possibly sue them? As a concerned taxpayer? When he ran for office I believe his right to speak as a taxpayer flew out the window! He is in a position of authority now not an average joe worried about their tax burden!!! I already have major issues with him voting on anything that directly effects his wallet ie budget, contract and pension issues! He should be required to obstain from these things since his wife and he benefit from these decisions! Maybe I am wrong but I think someone should at some point, point this out!!! If Mark Gibson felt the need to obstain from issues that effected him about the fire companies Tom Hylton should as well! In these tough economic times this is a fact that should really be investigated more thoroughly!
The purpose of the Task Force was for the community to present options for the School Board to consider. Not for one School Board member to force his option upon the Task Force.
Revisionism is one valid way to describe his practices, obstructionism could certainly be another.
I sincerely hope our other elected officials have the gumption to stand up and openly condemn this destructive behavior.
People of Pottstown: the time is NOW to stand up and speak out about this nonsense! No matter what position you take on the future of our schools, the methods utilized by this individual are a slap in the face to everyone. Don’t stand for it! We deserve better of our elected representatives.
You have to admit it is kind of amusing that Mr. Hylton has to buy an ad for his ad. LOL He’s so afraid people will miss the couple of thousand dollar advertising supplement he is buying that he had to buy a couple of hundred dollar advertorial announcing it.
If The Mercury was any kind of paper, it might investigate that: Who is this man who is attempting to control completely all public discourse on our schools? How much money has he spent in doing so? Where does he get the money? How has he separated non-profit dollars from political expenditures? And just What Is He Trying To Protect???
This inane contention of his that what we have in Pottstown is optimal is what led me to choose my User ID… What Are You Fighting To Protect? Our students do not test well. Our taxes are through the roof. We pay more to get less than most other school districts in Pennsylvania. Mr. Hylton likes to point these things out. And yet with every fiber of his being he fights to protect what is, quite frankly, failing us as taxpayers and failing our children.
That isn’t anything The Mercury would ever consider investigating.
Is anyone else appalled that Hylton put a photo of Pottstown Middle School on the cover of his advertising supplement under the heading, “Quality Schools – We Can Afford”? Hylton is constantly railing that too much money was spent on the middle school, that it has all kinds of wasted space. How dare he attempt to claim that beautiful project as his own. How dare he!
Just one more piece of evidence that Thomas Hylton does not care what is right and what is wrong. Thomas Hylton only cares that he is perceived as right and that everyone who ever harbored a thought that differed with his is perceived as wrong.
Let’s take the whole debate of his specific plan out of it. The issue that should get everyone riled up is the manner and method in which he does this stuff, no matter his message. Each and every seated board member should take offense to how he trashes the process in order to be heard. It is a show of total disrespect for every board member, administrator, staff member and taxpayer.
Whether you love his plan for the schools or hate it…whether you like the guy or don’t……EVERYONE should take offense to the way he operates. It is a total slap in the face to all of us.
Good point, WAYFTP, about his using the Middle School photo. In his pamphlets years ago he used the photo to try to make a point that this Middle School building was a waste of taxpayer money — rather than a beautiful facility that Pottstown families can be proud of.
I just can’t get over all the money he’s spending on his advertorials. I’m sure all those funds, if donated to the school district, could have done a lot of good by providing badly needed resources of some sort, or assistance (uniforms, warm coats, whatever) to students in need. Save Pottstown, how much has he spent in recent months on his infomercials? Enough to buy a Smartboard for a classroom, or two? Art supplies, or science lab supplies? Funding toward an eye-opening field trip or two? Educational software? Heck, how about cleaning supplies for maintaining those 5 elementary buildings….?
As stated in this post, the point is that “preserving neighborhood schools” has not done a thing to help preserve or improve Pottstown. Have those 5 buildings improved the quality of education? Are we seeing new businesses, or new homeowners moving in because they’re impressed by the educational setting provided to the children — homeowners who also can afford to support new Pottstown businesses while paying Pottstown taxes…? No, no, and no.
I sincerely hope the Task Force looks at the big picture and how their recommendation will affect the entire town (or not). Pottstown needs to be open to doing some new things that will help make the school system more attractive to homeowners and to investors. And the town simply cannot afford to maintain five aging buildings just so the Team Hyltonites can say they lived up to their “campaign” promises.
A shout out goes to those board members who have had the intelligence to ask questions and make up their own minds, based on facts and common sense.
Pottstown Guy – I couldn’t agree more. At a minimum, Rick Huss should take steps to censure Tom Hylton for substituting his own will for that of the school board. Hylton is a member of a deliberative body. His refusal to show any respect for his fellow board members should be the subject of derision. Instead, The Mercury participates in creating a false sense of “bully pulpit” for this rogue ideologue. It’s astounding the rules of order and decency that are not expected of this man.
If Rick Huss has a brain in his head, he will make sure the President’s Task Force has its recommendations in place before the general election. If they are not in lock-step with Hylton’s decrees, and if Hylton really has this groundswell of support he lays claim to in his ads, then Huss should use Hylton’s own words against him and vote to shut down ALL forward borrowing (not just the dollars Hylton wanted to eliminate a week or two ago).
If there is some tremendous public support for Hylton’s plan, as he would have us believe, then let him get his $15 million through referendum. That should be easy if he is being honest – if he really has convinced voters that he is right and not just scared them into voting against their own best interests.
Silent2Long – You know… if you were looking for an example of a town to disprove Hylton’s argument that walkable schools create vibrant towns, you would need to look no further than Pottstown.
It’s incomprehensible that his claims still go unchallenged.
Just look at our town. Just look at our property values. Just look at our taxes. Neighborhood schools are not saving us. They are one element in a status quo that is killing us.
But our local paper won’t examine the issue in any real, objective manner. Instead it perpetuates the myth that Tom Hylton knows anything at all about rebuilding a distressed community or repairing a broken tax base. He has never done either… anywhere… certainly not in Pottstown.
The paragraph that reads:
“Tomorrow’s supplement is, therefore, the only way I can present information and ideas to the task force – and to the public”.
MY BLOOD IS BOILING. It is not his duty nor is it his right to present information, independent of the School Board of which he is only one voice. This is insubordination and he must be asked to step down from the board NOW. If this is not forthcoming how about a class action lawsuit of our own against Tom Hylton? There are some sharp attorneys who have shown support for stopping this man in his tracks.
He is no better than one of the worst slum property owners in Pottstown, he has proven time and again that he’ll do anything to subvert progress and thwart the best interests of the children and the homeowners. His support comes only in the form of those who are too lazy or feeble minded to look at the facts for themselves, unfortunately there a many here who fit that bill, including the Mercury. Tom Hylton preys on the infirmities of this community like a turkey vulture preys on road kill.
Tom Hylton must go.
Save Pottstown, I’m guessing you’ll be responding to the mega-paged, mega-expensive advertorial in today’s Mercury. But here’s one observation (or maybe two): I was intrigued by the copy of a letter from ULI rep Edward McMahon, as I remember reading about the relatively recent ULI visit to Pottstown and report. ‘Didn’t recall that name however. Did some googling and found that Mr. McMahon was NOT one of the three men who came to town in the last few years to study Pottstown’s CURRENT situation. But interestingly enough, he HAS, in the past, been used by Tom Hylton to support his views. Check this out: http://www.pottstownmercury.com/articles/2006/03/26/today's%20stories/16376910.txt?viewmode=fullstory.
I also question TH’s statements on busing in his 32-page tabloid. It’s beating a dead horse, but the centralized campus, built after revitalization funds (now lost?) from the state would have cleaned up the downtown, would have been located in a CENTRAL Pottstown area, with densest population, so I’m guessing that would have minimized the need for district busing overall.
This whole thing is a real, undermining slap in the face to the Task Force and the work they’ve been trying to do. It’s also insulting to the rest of the current school board, no?
Silent2Long… What part of “The only opinion in Pottstown that is valid is the opinion of Tom Hylton” don’t you understand?
Kidding, of course. Just feeling your pain. Sometimes even I forget how big a blow-hard Thomas Hylton is.
If the Pottstown School District had a penny for every word Tom Hylton has ever written about it, all Pottstown homeowners could go on a multi-year tax-free holiday.
But for all of his bloviating NOTHING HAS GOTTEN ANY BETTER HERE!
Wake up and smell the coffee, Pottstown. Tom Hylton doesn’t have any answers to the things that really ail us. All he can do is opine on the benefits of historic preservation. Been there, done that. Half the town is on the National Register of Historic Places – Tom Hylton’s original plan for saving Pottstown. How much has that helped your taxes? It ain’t done a thing to help mine.
Mr. Hylton’s friend and I have a friend in common. Mr. Hylton reported to his friend who reported to my friend that Hylton will work to keep the Rupert School open and repaired at taxpayer cost and when the district goes to bankruptcy over having too many schools, he and his inner circle will offer the district a small sum of money to relieve the district of the burdensome Rupert building so he can open a charter school within the same walls. Since charter schools are funded by public education money, Hylton’s charter school will rob the district of needed funding to keep the district open and Pottstown taxpayers will see increased taxes to keep our schools moving. Hylton, however, as owner of the charter school will rake in the money to feather his retirement. This man is not fit to be on the board, as all his school board dealings are for personal gain.
Gee, I remember Hylton offering to help the district financially last year to push his agenda at Rupert. His offering was accepted, but the money could not be used for Rupert as this practice to name the project for the given money was deemed illegal. Now, where did he get the money for all of his agenda last year and this year? He has never returned the tree repair money to council, which council keeps asking for. Or have his advertisements and supplement in the Mercury been paid for by his fellow charter school investors!?
I agree that Hylton’s deeds are a slap in the face to the task force and the taxpayers of this town. This man sees no end to underhanded tactics to increase his personal wealth. It is hard to believe that his wife, a former Pottstown teacher and continuing benefactor of the Pottstown School District’s expensive teacher’s health plan allows him to hurt this town and its people!
“This whole thing is a real, undermining slap in the face to the Task Force and the work they’ve been trying to do. It’s also insulting to the rest of the current school board, no?”
I’ll give this simple answer, silent2long, YES.
I believe this is a slap in the face to the work that we set out to do. I believe these tactics are disruptive to the process, currently in progress, and a direct violation of the charge the SB members were given (by Pres. Huss) to not interfere since the recommendation would land back in their lap for further debate at the end of the process.
As a member of the Task Force, I am insulted by the fact that Mr. Hylton has such little faith in the information that we have been provided that he felt some need(?) to spend, what I can only presume to be a ‘fair’ sum of money, on a supplement to the local paper. I don’t notice ANY other member of the School Board going to such lengths to be heard, at this point in the process. I must ask WHY?
This behavior seems strange and suspect to me. This process has not ended and we are being made to believe ANY of the ideas we want to freely debate aren’t valid?
Mostly, I am disappointed at the lack of vision for the future of the community and a willingness to HEAR other people. A pledge might well be a promise but sometimes promises get broken for the RIGHT reasons, as many parents would attest to. A pledge is not a clear mandate to act, no matter the cost or consequence.
I sincerely hope this doesn’t taint the process. I challenge the other School Board members to express their thoughts on this ‘way’ and cost of having their opinions heard. I ask Council members to weigh in on recent events.
I came out with honest intentions to examine facts and debate, openly and freely, about potential solutions to maximize resources and help create a recommendation that would help, finally, put this matter to rest – no matter the consensus of the group, putting personal opinion aside. I came into this process to listen and consider, not be led down a path. Mostly, I had hoped to see a goal set and then turned over to the School Board, Administration and staff to figure out how to get there.
Change is never easy, no matter which path you choose.
The results of a year of hard work on behalf of the Task Force should not be allowed to be compromised by the likes of one so far afield from reality, one who has been given every opportunity to be a team player but has chosen to play the role of the “lone ranger”, (a despicable performance at that).
I believe it is time for President Huss to step up to the plate, once again, and stand up to Tom Boy. He must take the lead to do all that is humanly possible to safeguard and protect the exchange of ideas and possibilities that will generate from this Task Force.
Thank you Steph Carmody for your service and to all the Task Force members, your dedication is appreciated.
Unfortunately, for the SB meeting tonight, the Borough has taken the liberty of planning a Ward Meeting at the same time. Is this ironic? For the dedicated people that wish to take part in this community the timing of this Ward meeting sends out the wrong message leading one to wonder if low attendance will lead to the conclusion that people don’t care and a culminate in an imprudent decision to stop having Ward meetings? I know of no one that has mastered the art of being in two places at once.
It was not intentional that the Ward meeting was scheduled the same night. Because of the Easter holiday in April, the School Board altered its schedule from their regularly recurring times.
No one could have known when this was considered for scheduling that the paid advertising suppository (whoops, I mean supplement) would drop the same week.
It’s great to know so many townspeople are torn between attending the School Board or the Ward meeting. It shows the strength of our populous in wanting to be involved in local government. But please don’t assert that this scheduling conflict was done as an intentional act.
That’s good to know Truth. However, I didn’t use the word “intentional” I pointed out the irony of the timing of this meeting. And, indeed it was. It happens with some regularity and begs the questions, do borough and sd communicate with one another? Could they have planned better? If attendance is encouraged by both entities – they could do their best to accommodate the residents on this point. Nothing more.