Local News-Monday, Feb. 19th

A New Jersey man died in a crash in West Brunswick Township Friday night. Cesar Taveras of Carteret, New Jersey was northbound on Route 61 when he lost control on an icy patch on the road. The car went off the bridge and into the Schuylkill River. Taveras and his passenger, Juan Taveras had to be rescued from the river by members of the Schuylkill Haven Dive Team. Cesar Taveras was medivac’d to Lehigh Valley Hospital for treatment of his injuries, including hypothermia. Juan Taveras was taken to Reading Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. The fatal crash happened around 9:45pm Friday.

Two people were hurt in a crash in Gilberton on Saturday afternoon. An unidentified 25 year old was driving in the passing lane of Route 924, headed toward Frackville, when he lost control on the icy road. The car crossed the median and struck the car operated by 46-year-old John Merchlinsky of Gilberton head on.
The driver was ejected from the vehicle. An 8-year-old passenger was also hurt in the incident. Both were life flighted to Geisinger Medical Center. Merchlinsky was not injured. The crash happened after 4pm Saturday.

If you had to travel somewhere last week, the going was tough. For a Connecticut man, the trip from Virginia home was an odyssey, and it took the power of the Internet to help him get home. Around 5pm Friday, we received a call to our newsroom from a frantic woman from Connecticut. Her husband was on his way home from Virginia and couldn’t travel on Interstate 81 because it was closed from Indiantown Gap north to Wilkes-Barre. To add insult to injury, her husband was driving a rental car because a block of ice shattered his windshield, and he had no map with him. She asked for our help. He happened to be traveling on Route 209 here in Pottsville, and we were able to give him directions to get to Wilkes-Barre, and back onto the Interstate to return home. When we asked her how she found our phone number, she said she logged on to the internet and found our website and phone number. The world wide web is a powerful tool, and we were glad to help!

A McAdoo woman will be charged following an incident early Saturday at a borough bar. 35-year-old Tracy Ann McAloose, a bartender at the Grey Goose Bar on Kennedy Drive, is accused of throwing a potted plant through the front window of the establishment around 2am Saturday morning. When state police arrived, McAloose was standing on the front porch of the bar, yelling inside and was apparently drunk. She reportedly left her keys inside the bar. No keys were found. McAloose will be charged with criminal mischief and public drunkenness.

A controversial development plan in Orwigsburg is not settled yet, as the developer files an appeal in court.
John Dunchick, the developer of the 33-unit townhouse project, said that Orwigsburg Borough Council was wrong in not approving his project in January, according to his appeal. The project was to construct the homes between Route 443 and Lee Street in the borough. The Pottsville Republican reports that council rejected modifications to the plan for spacing between driveways in January, and denied reconsideration of the change and the development plan on February 7th. Residents near the site had voiced their opposition to the plan. Dunchick’s appeal says that Orwigsburg borough made an error by turning the plan down based on the driveway separation issue alone. He said that the borough’s rejection of the plan had "no legal basis".
His suit is asking the court to reverse the denial.

Beginning today, Census Bureau workers will be canvassing the nation to update information about the nation’s population. Fernando Armstrong, Director of the Philadelphia Census Office, said that about 100-thousand households across the nation will be interviewed for the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the monthly Current Population Survey. Selected households should receive a letter about the survey. Some of the participants will be surveyed by phone, while others will be visited by Census Bureau personnel.
The survey will check on employment status, earnings and other data. These statistics will help to estimate the unemployment rate, released monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The interviews will take place during this week, and the weeks of March 18th and April 15th. The Current Population Survey, dating back to 1942, is the longest-running household survey in the country.