{"id":4731,"date":"2025-10-16T21:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/4731\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T21:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:59:08","slug":"reading-city-council-approves-eminent-domain-near-firstenergy-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/4731\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading City Council approves eminent domain near FirstEnergy Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>City Council has voted to use eminent domain to take ownership of a privately owned property next to FirstEnergy Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The 0.35-acre parcel at 2040 Centre Ave. is owned by Nikhilkumar Patel, according to Berks County tax records.<\/p>\n<p>City Managing Director Jack Gombach said the city is in the process of confirming Patel\u2019s death and likely will be dealing with his estate.<\/p>\n<p>Compensation will be determined by mutual agreement or, if necessary, through court proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>The property on the corner of R Phils Drive and Centre Avenue is bounded to the west and south by the nearly 16-acre city-owned tract that includes FirstEnergy Stadium, home to the Reading Fightin Phils, as well as Redner\u2019s Event Center and surrounding parking areas.<\/p>\n<p>City officials did not publicly discuss the reasons for acquiring the parcel, but noted the action is being pursued for public purposes and other authorized purposes to benefit city residents.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/2025\/08\/20\/reading-considers-eminent-domain-for-property-next-to-firstenergy-stadium\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reading considers eminent domain for property next to FirstEnergy Stadium<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Body camera contract<\/p>\n<p>In other business, council authorized a budget amendment that shifts $525,000 within the police department and draws on the city\u2019s general fund balance to cover increased costs tied to the department\u2019s contract for body cameras.<\/p>\n<p>The funds will be used to pay for a contract with Axon Enterprise Inc., based in Scottsdale, Ariz.<\/p>\n<p>The company supplies body-worn cameras; conducted electrical weapons, also known as Tasers; software; storage; and related hardware.<\/p>\n<p>Council approved renewal of the five-year contract in June.<\/p>\n<p>Officials said police department accounts for gas, maintenance, training, dues, consulting services and other items will be trimmed to balance the transfer.<\/p>\n<p>Jamar Kelly, city finance director, said some training sessions will have to be postponed, but the delay will not negatively affect police performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe training isn\u2019t essential,\u201d he said without elaborating. \u201cThey\u2019ll need to wait till next year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jack Gombach, city managing director, said the administration prioritized ensuring continuity of camera coverage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were very concerned about having cameras and then losing cameras so that forces us to deprioritize (training),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/2025\/08\/22\/reading-city-council-reviews-525000-shift-for-police-body-cameras-and-tasers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reading City Council reviews $525,000 shift for police body cameras and Tasers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council has voted to use eminent domain to take ownership of a privately owned property next to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-4731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4731","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=4731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}