Wild animals including cougars, jaguars, and otters in a variety of natural settings, such as, bayou and wetlands aviary and the petting barn. Cougar Cafe is open and the animal shows are presented during season. The Nature Shop is open all year-round.
Elmwood Park Zoo
1661 Harding Boulevard
Norristown, PA 19401
Norristown, PA — Residents of Montgomery County and surrounding counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey will be asked Thursday to participate in a comprehensive Regional Evacuation Survey.
The survey will conducted through phone interviews on a limited basis on January 7th and 8th, with the full survey implementation to begin on Saturday, January 9. It will take approximately two to three months to complete all the phone interviews.
Nearly 3,500 residents in the region will be randomly selected and asked to participate in a telephone survey to evaluate their evacuation needs and to assess their decision-making process as to whether or not to evacuate should officials give an Evacuation Order.
“This is the first-ever evacuation behavior study conducted in Southeastern Pennsylvania and in parts of South Jersey,” said Montgomery County Public Safety Director Tom Sullivan.
“We encourage Montgomery County residents who are called to participate in the survey. Your experiences and opinions count and will help us fine-tune evacuation plans based on the needs of our residents.”
Typical questions residents will be asked include: whether or not they have had to evacuate in the past, why they needed to evacuate, where they would go if they have to evacuate in the future, the mode of transportation they would use to evacuate. They will also be asked whether they have developed a family emergency plan and prepared a family emergency kit, how they would most likely hear about an emergency and how they would plan to stay informed during an emergency.
Residents will also be asked if they ever chose not to evacuate when an evacuation order was given and why.
Residents will not need to identify themselves during the survey and their answers will remain confidential.
The $150,000 survey is being funded by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force through U. S. Department of Homeland Security funds on behalf of the ten county emergency management coordinators. The phone interviews will be conducted by Kerr and Downs Research (KDR) for the Task Force.
NORRISTOWN, PA — The Montgomery County Commissioners adopted a 407.7 million budget with no tax increase for 2010.
The owner of a home assessed at $168,788, the county average, will continue to pay $454.88 for the county portion of their real estate taxes next year.
The tax rate for the County portion of residents’ real estate taxes will remain 2.695 mills. A mill is $1 per $1,000 of assessed value.
The Commissioners voted 2-1 to approve the spending plan. Commissioners Chairman Jim Matthews and Vice Chairman Joseph Hoeffel voted in favor. Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr. voted against.
The budget includes a number of austerity measures taken to close a large gap caused by declining revenue and increased expenses. Those measures included no pay increase for County employees and having employees pay 5 percent of the cost of their health insurance premiums.
The budget was also reduced by outsourcing day care services for the children of County employees at two locations, enhanced energy efficiencies and extending the term of open space borrowings.
The budget is funded in part through a $10 million fund balance appropriation. The fund balance is essentially an emergency reserve fund that, through careful monitoring of spending and cost cutting, the Commissioners will maintain at $35.5 million in 2010.
Courtrooms “G” & “H” are Montgomery County’s new, “High-Tech Courtroom.” State-of-the art equipment has been installed to enhance all phases of the attorney’s courtroom presentation. A powerful, wall-mounted projector is tied to a document camera, DVD, and VHS player. It also serves as the conduit when staging Power Point presentations. Both counsel tables are equipped with computer ports. The audio system assures crystal-clear sound. Additionally, the Courtrooms have video conferencing equipment that can be used during trial when a witness, because of distance or disability, is unable to be physically present in the courtroom. The Judge, through a touch-screen computer monitor mounted on the Bench, can control all of this equipment.
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