Developer John Westrum, inset, shows photos of the current conditions inside a vacant warehouse on Broad Street in Lansdale that will be the site of the proposed Lansdale Luxor apartment building, during the school board finance committee meeting on Aug. 11, 2020.
Submitted image
LANSDALEÂ â The year of the pandemic has brought challenges none could have expected.Â
And local restaurants have found ways to adapt and survive, if not always thrive, throughout a year like no other. In the very beginning, there was so much uncertainty. We didn t know if what they were letting us do was going to continue, said Michael Wister, owner of Wister s Barbecue.
- Advertisement - Living through all that uncertainty in the first month was brutal, just brutal. It was just instinct, because there was no manual: it was like, just do what you think is right, he said.
Medical professionals across Montgomery County have been fighting on the front lines against the novel coronavirus for the better part of a year.
âItâs crazy that itâs been that long,â said Mary Templeton, a North Wales nurse in the intensive care unit at Abington-Lansdale Hospital in Lansdale.
âWe face COVID in this hospital every day on every floor,â said Melissa Hewitt, of Hatfield, a director of the Mom and Baby Unit and NICU at Einstein Medical Center Montgomery in East Norriton.
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In the beginningÂ
During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel braced themselves as the virus spread across the globe.
LANSDALEÂ â She s been on the job for just a few weeks, and is already making changes and fitting right in.
Lansdale s borough council members got to meet and greet, virtually at least, new Finance Director Melissa Gemelli last week. She fits in well with the team we have at the borough. We re looking forward to working with her, and learning from her about how we can do things more efficiently, and better, for everybody, said borough Manager John Ernst.
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In February Ernst announced that Gemelli had been hired to fill the town s lead financial position, which had been vacant since December 2020 due to the departure of prior director John Ramey. Gemelli started in Lansdale on Feb. 22, and brought roughly two decades of financial experience with the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority, and is a certified CPA and municipal auditor, Ernst told council s administration and finance committee on Wednesday night.Â
LANSDALEÂ â The next keeper of Lansdale s books is now on board. I am pleased to announce that we have hired Melissa Gemelli as our new finance director, Borough Manager John Ernst said.Â
In December 2020 borough council announced that previous Finance Director Ramey was departing after holding that role since December 2016. In January Ernst said applications were being accepted for the post, and on Feb. 17 he announced the hiring of Gemelli, who had previously worked in various roles including finance director for the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority, which Ernst called the Allentown version of SEPTA, for nearly two decades, and had a start date in Lansdale of Feb. 22.Â