MOUNT PENN — The past few years haven't been easy for residents here.
Costs for first responders, snow removal, and other services drained Mount Penn Borough’s savings, and in 2022 leaders significantly hiked taxes. The community — with a median household income of about $60,000, one of the lowest in the county — is now the highest-taxed here.
That, combined with national inflation, has pinched Mount Penn’s 3,240 residents.
Then flooding last year wreaked havoc. The Antietam Creek spilled its banks after up to 8 inches was dumped on the area within three hours on July 9, 2023. The water rushed through the gymnasium doors of the local middle-senior high school, filling the basement with two feet of water, and damaging it so badly it was shut down for a year. Some residents were forced out of their homes.
The destruction’s aftermath pitted “residents against residents” over disagreements on where the school district would put flood-affected students. Mount Penn residents fought against zoning relief for the Antietam School District, fearing safety and traffic concerns. Some families wanted the district to explore merging with a nearby school.
Now, Mount Penn’s leaders are trying to unite the community around another attempt to merge with neighboring Lower Alsace Township, which they say will lower costs and improve services.
But the failures of the last merger attempt — which was shot down by Mount Penn voters in 2014 — casts a shadow over the latest talks, serving as a stark reminder that the success of a merger, and its promised savings, are not guaranteed.
John Fielding III, a former Mount Penn council, former Antietam School Board member, and current Berks County coroner, said he opposed the merger a decade ago because of elected officials’ pushy attitude and the “particulars of the merger.”
That doesn’t mean the current Mount Penn resident is opposed to a merger, he said. It will depend on how the union talks are presented and whether it benefits the masses.
“Any merger agreement, I’m out to make sure Mount Penn residents don’t get screwed in the deal,” Fielding said.
A recent Spotlight PA analysis of mergers and consolidations in Pennsylvania since 1994 found that successful combinations tend to have the backing of voters and government officials from the communities involved ahead of the final decision.
In Mount Penn, municipal leaders pushed aggressively for it, Fielding recalled, detailing one “big meeting” in July 2014 “where they shoved it down everybody’s throat.” Some residents stood up to complain, but the Mount Penn resident said the council wouldn’t listen.
In the weeks after the meeting, people for and against the merger swept through the community knocking on doors and spreading fliers. Fielding was one of those leading the opposition. To this day, he feels some people in both communities hold a grudge against him for his role in squashing the merger.
Mount Penn Borough Manager Hunter Ahrens says this time will be different. The process will be more transparent and more responsive to residents’ concerns. Leaders from both communities are working with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to mediate the potential joining and reduce conflict.
Talks of a marriage between the two have been underway since last year, but the flooding and its aftermath paused them, with the last public meeting happening in November 2023.
Ahrens claims residents will pay more money without a merger.
"I think the question [is] should we stay separate and make it more expensive for residents than if we were to merge?” he told Spotlight PA.
Lower Alsace Township Manager Don Pottiger cautioned that talks are still early and a lot could change during the discussions.
Mergers have many moving parts, he said, noting the various details to be worked out if the communities combine. The name of the new municipality, how it’s governed, and which public jobs get cut are just a few of the points of discussion. Individually, these may be minor concerns, Pottiger said.
“But any one of those could derail talks going forward.”
Financial questions
One of the main forces driving Mount Penn’s desire to merge is the squeeze residents face from rising taxes.
The community raised its tax rate by 21% in 2022 after previous council actions eroded the community’s bank sheets, the borough manager said. While Ahrens said Mount Penn has since replenished its rainy day fund — topping off at about 16% of expenses — internal operations could be improved.
Mount Penn’s tax hike coupled with new increases to the millage rate that took effect in July now makes the Berks County community the highest taxed in the county. Both Antietam School District and Berks County increased their rates in 2024.
Lower Alsace’s property tax rate is just slightly lower than Mount Penn’s, making it the second highest taxed municipality in Berks County when combined with school and county taxes.
The financial squeeze on residents was one reason Mount Penn recently brought in the Pennsylvania Economy League, a nonpartisan good-government group, to review its books and operations and provide a five-year outlook on the borough’s health.
“Council wanted to get a strong grasp of how to create and build a strong borough for the future,” Borough Council President Troy Goodman told Spotlight PA. “We are doing this because we want to be responsible.”
Mount Penn already operates on a shoestring budget.
With a roughly $3 million annual expense plan, Mount Penn has to maintain roads, pay employees to staff borough offices, fund emergency services like 911 dispatch and police, and update public facilities to comply with federal accessibility laws.
Ahrens said these responsibilities cost a lot of money, and if leadership doesn’t plan long term, the borough could struggle to meet its obligations despite currently being on solid financial footing.
He said the proposed merger is strategic.
“Two communities are able to shoulder challenges better than one. Does it make sense here?” Ahrens said. “That’s where we are trying to do our due diligence in making sure services will continue to be provided to residents.”
Sharing services
The two communities already share a lot of services.
Since the 1990s, Lower Alsace and Mount Penn have been served by the Central Berks Regional Police Department, which also provides coverage for Oley Township and St. Lawrence borough. Collectively, more than 13,000 residents across a 30-mile area are covered by the agency, according to its website.
Lower Alsace and Mount Penn also share code enforcement, and have the same water and sewer authority, the Mount Penn council president said.
The borough and township are also in the Antietam School District, which has the highest tax rate of any district in the county and has also considered a merger to resolve turmoil it has faced.
Last summer’s devastating floods destroyed Antietam’s middle-senior high school and damaged other school buildings in Lower Alsace — issues that ended up in front of Mount Penn borough officials when Antietam sought zoning changes so it could use facilities at nearby schools for displaced students.
But some borough residents fought Antietam’s zoning relief requests, which the Mount Penn council president said pitted residents against one another.
Most of Antietam’s school buildings are in Mount Penn, and residents who sued over the district’s plans claimed it negatively impacted parking in the area by creating congestion and safety hazards. Some Lower Alsace residents saw this move as holding up children’s education over parking spaces.
Then in June, a floor collapsed inside the Mount Penn Primary Center, throwing the district’s plans for the 2024-25 school year into limbo. That building was undergoing renovations to turn it into a new high school.
The zoning issue wound up before a Berks County judge, who sided with Antietam on its plans and granted the zoning requests in mid-August. Students started using the spaces this school year, with the area impacted by the collapsed floor cordoned off.
Even with shared building codes and comprehensive plans, each community still handles its own zoning matters. If Mount Penn and Lower Alsace merged, the two communities would have equal influence in the zoning process for any future Antietam building plans.
State Sen. Judy Schwank (D., Berks) said the communities face similar challenges, and combining could help both address deeper problems.
“I think that is one of the reasons why [merger talks have] become important,” she said. “There was damage beyond just what happened to the school facilities themselves.”
New tactics
The flooding isn’t the only source of tension between the two communities.
When Mount Penn residents rejected the merger proposal in 2014, they feared the borough would inherit Lower Alsace’s debt, that earned income tax rates would increase, and that local services would be threatened.
Fielding stressed that any merger discussion must be transparent. On top of his disputes with community leaders during the 2014 merger, Fielding was frustrated with how much of the process happened behind closed doors.
Rick Lombardo, vice president of the Mount Penn Borough Council, confirmed that previous members were not very communicative with the public.
“The council at the time was not transparent with the residents,” he said of the past merger discussion. “They were not sharing everything with them, so they were worried and didn’t know what to expect. With not much information, [residents] voted it down.”
Fielding said Mount Penn residents also feared Lower Alsace, which has a slightly larger population, would reap the most benefit from a merger.
“If they don’t set [a merger] up properly, Lower Alsace would always get its way,” Fielding said.
Schwank, who was part of those talks, says concerns about the communities not equally profiting from a merger have some merit. But what was lost in those discussions, she said, was what both would gain from combining.
“You really have to look at the regional impacts,” she said. “It’s not just about cost savings in terms of looking at a merger. It’s about preserving and saving services that citizens have come to rely upon.”
The two communities held a series of workshops to discuss the process of a merger last year.
Lombardo said the municipalities are letting the state Department of Community and Economic Development lead the dialogue and take charge of communication with residents so “there is nothing showing pro or negative bias to either municipality.”
Municipal leaders promise talks will be transparent, and acknowledge the many things that will need to be addressed before voters weigh in.
But Pottiger, Lower Alsace’s town manager, doesn’t expect the process to be frictionless.
Merger talks will have to consider the created community’s type of government, eliminate duplicate staff, and agree on a new name, the township manager said.
The municipalities also have different tax rates.
“You have to find a way to blend those two together,” he said. “You don’t want one side basically realizing more of a savings and the other side not so much, which may be a problem that’s difficult to overcome.”
Schwank said she’s willing to assist with conversations as much as she can, but stressed that the impetus for a merger must come from the community itself.
“It really needs to be organic,” she said. “It really cannot be fought to be imposed by other political leaders or elected officials.”