READING, Pa. \u2013 On Thursday, the Berks County Commissioners heard two public comments against county practices and cooperation with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n
Craig Schaffer of Cumru Township called upon the commissioners to hold a single-issue public meeting to discuss the county\u2019s collaboration with ICE.<\/p>\n
\u201cLehigh County Commissioners recently held a similar meeting to address their policy and practices,\u201d Schaffer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to remind everyone involved that all people are innocent until proven guilty and that referring to the people you have handed over as only criminals is a false statement. The documents the county has released show these people as charged and not convicted. In many cases, they haven’t even seen a judge,\u201d Schaffer added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we have great concerns over ICE policies, actions and enforcement tactics, my comments directly aim at the Berks County Law Enforcement Voluntary Agreement with that agency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jane Palmer of Wyomissing asked the commissioners to expand public access to videos of prison board meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing numbers of community members are concerned about our policy of handing people who would normally be released from jail directly into the hands of ICE,\u201d Palmer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public and the press deserve to know more about the prison board than what’s currently available in the minutes,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The commissioners did not address the comments.<\/p>\n
In other business, the commissioners voted to:<\/p>\n
Appoint\u00a0Michael Latini as senior financial analyst in the budget and finance department, effective August 26, with an annual salary of $86,000.<\/p>\n
Promote Jennifer Wallis from County Casework Supervisor to Continuous Quality Improvement Manager for Children and Youth Services, effective August 17 at an annual salary of $88,000.<\/p>\n
Appoint George Stuck III, President and CEO of Alloy Fabrications, to the Berks County Workforce Development Board to fill an unexpired term ending June 30, 2027.<\/p>\n
Authorize a grant application to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency Child Advocacy Centers for the District Attorney\u2019s Office for funds to support a portion of the salary for the director of the Children\u2019s Alliance Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 On Thursday, the Berks County Commissioners heard two public comments against county practices and cooperation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111725,111727,111724,111723,83134,111728,83132,111722,111726,111729,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-264666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county-workforce-development-board","tag-childrens-alliance-center","tag-continuous-quality-improvement-manager","tag-county-casework-supervisor","tag-craig-schaffer","tag-george-stuck-iii","tag-jane-palmer","tag-jennifer-wallis","tag-michael-latini","tag-pennsylvania-commission-on-crime-and-delinquency-child-advocacy-centers-for-the-district","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}