Cheltenham Township Police Alert!

It seems that there has been a rash of burglaries from automobiles in our local area. The Cheltenham Township police have issued an online flyer that talks about this more!

Actually the thefts are happening in and around this area as well.

It seems that cars parked at the Melrose Train station are being targeted and the police are advising people to take out or either hide all valuables located within one's car. The bulletin also offers some helpful tips to help you to not become a victim of one of these kinds of thefts.

Cheltenham Township Police Flyer - Theft Alert!

Trying To File My Local Taxes Online?

I thought I could save the cost of a stamp by filing my local tax return online but it doesn't seem to be as easy as they say it is!

First of all since I'm self-employed I have to fill out a different set of tax forms which makes it even more difficult.

I went to the company's on-line site that handles the local income tax for our area and found out a few interesting things! First of all if you are sending in a payment it of course has to be via a credit card and there is a FEE for that. Here is an excerpt:

"For credit card payments there is a 3% processing fee charged by Official Payments Corporation for each transaction. There is a minimum fee of $1.00.

Ok, that's one reason I'm not liking right there!

Since I didn't owe anything for my final return (because I paid it quarterly) I thought that I could save some time and money by filing my taxes online but it looks as though I won't be able to do it. The forms do some automatic calculations for you and some of the blocks are shaded in and those are the boxes that are for the calculations. The clear boxes are for you to enter in your numbers and some of those I couldn't even fill out!

So it looks as though I will be filing the local income tax the regular way - by snail mail - which may not be a bad thing after all! I wonder if you have to pay the fee when you pay quarterly?...............................

Why Is Tyler Leaving!

I just saw on our local news tonight that Temple University was showing off their new Tyler Arts Center that is to be located in the city of Philadelphia.

If you are a resident here in LaMott / Cheltenham, then you may know that there is already a Tyler School of Art right here in Cheltenham and it is a part of Temple University. But apparently Temple wanted their students to attend their classes at the heart of their main campus which is in Philadelphia.

For a time there were some protests from both the students and their parents because both of them liked the atmosphere of the area here as opposed to being in the city. Personally, after a while and after I got used to it, I didn't mind the students so much either.

There have been so many rumors going back and forth about the Tyler campus here and what was going to become of it.

Now that I have seen the news story on TV about Temple finally finishing their new Tyler School of Art in the city I can't help but wonder what is going to happen to the buildings and the dorms that are here now?

Area Ordinance - Fencing In Your Property!

I didn't know it until recently that our local area has an ordinance about the type of fencing that one can put around one's home. Apparently the fence has to be see-through - at least partially - meaning that while some aspects of the fence have to be see-through, it doesn't have to be that way on all four (or two) sides. I'm guessing that this is because of the fact that the police in the area would like to be able to see what is going on in the neighborhood and they will have a better view of things going on in the area if their views are not obstructed.


In a way this makes sense to me because I have heard stories from neighbors in the area about attempted thefts in and around their properties, so I can see why this area would this kind of ordinance.

What happens if you don't follow this ordinance and you build a solid fence or fencing around your property? You could get fined and have to pay a fee!