Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026

This is the ninth time in our last 11 editions that we have led with crime, the courts or public safety, and a run like that can make it feel like the county is coming apart. The numbers say otherwise.

Stroud Area Regional, Pocono Mountain Regional, Pocono Township and ESU police, the Sheriff's Office and the State Police's Stroudsburg station reported 156 violent crimes to the state in 2023, 136 in 2024 and 117 in 2025, a drop of about 25% in two years, according to our tally of those agencies' numbers in Pennsylvania's Uniform Crime Reporting system. Through August, this year is running about even with last year (82 versus 84). Stroudsburg's downtown manager, Michael Moreno, told WBRE/WYOU on Monday that he wants the borough's new Main Street task force to start from exactly this kind of baseline crime data. Good.

Statewide, homicides have fallen 35% since 2022, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency reported in January. A shooting like Sunday's is news because it is still the exception, not the rule. We'll keep reporting it when it happens, and we'll keep telling you how often it actually does.

Stroudsburg's new Safe Streets Downtown Task Force held its first meeting Monday afternoon at the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau, and borough officials told WBRE/WYOU that whatever came out of it will be discussed at tonight's 7 p.m. council meeting, including during public comment. One agenda item already points in that direction: council will consider having the borough engineer contact PennDOT to begin the process of lowering the speed limit on Main Street. Under borough code, Main Street is posted at 25 mph from Ninth Street east through downtown and 35 mph from the western borough line to Ninth; the agenda doesn't say which stretch council has in mind. One question before anyone orders new signs: if the noise rules already on the books haven't quieted the souped-up cars rattling windows on Main and Crystal, will a smaller number on a speed limit sign slow them down, or just give the loud cars more time to share their music with the rest of us? Also on the agenda: advertising a Nov. 17 public hearing on folding the C-1A General Commercial A zoning district into the C-2 Central Business district; a second contract amendment with Delta Development Group for grant writing and lobbying at $6,500 a month plus 2.5% of any grants it secures; a $254,285.61 payment to D&M Construction for parking garage repairs; a $114,413 Community Development Block Grant application through the county; and setting the borough's trick-or-treat date and time. Leaf collection runs Oct. 13 through Nov. 27. We'll report what council decides.

East Stroudsburg Borough Council, a separate government from Stroudsburg's, also meets at 7 p.m., at 24 Analomink St. and on Webex and Facebook, for its first look at next year's numbers. Borough Manager Kelly Lewis and Finance Director Layla Richard-Rau will present the draft 2027 budget, capital budget and trash fund, and council will consider authorizing separate water and sewer rate studies, each capped at $6,500. No figures are public yet, and approving a study is not the same as raising rates. Also on the agenda: a Wal-Mart presentation by Howard Mills (the agenda doesn't say what it covers), the borough's 2025 audit, and a second public hearing on a $155,079 Community Development Block Grant application. Budget workshops follow Oct. 20 and Oct. 26, both at 7 p.m.

One person died in a crash Monday night on eastbound I-80 at Crossover Road, near the ramp from Route 611 at Exit 298 in Pocono Township, Monroe County Coroner Tom Yanac told WFMZ. The person's name and the cause of the crash have not been released. Traffic backed up on Route 611 while crews worked, and all lanes have since reopened.

The fire broke out around 5:30 a.m. Sunday (Oct. 4) at a multi-family home in the 600 block of Thomas Street in Stroudsburg. It started on the first floor and spread into the second-floor apartments, with heavy flames and smoke across several floors, according to WFMZ. No one was hurt. The Red Cross now says 13 people, including five children, were displaced, and it is helping them. Fire companies from Stroud Township, East Stroudsburg and Pocono Township assisted the Stroudsburg Fire Department. The cause is still under investigation.

Sen. John Fetterman (D) and more than 30 fellow Senate Democrats sent Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin a letter Sept. 28 telling him his actions as secretary are "intentionally undermining Americans' trust in the 2026 midterm elections." The letter goes after the administration's July claim, which we covered Sept. 3, that more than 250,000 noncitizens had registered to vote in four states including Pennsylvania, and after newer moves: pressing states to run their voter rolls through the SAVE citizenship database, attaching election conditions to FEMA grants (including 20% of fiscal 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program awards), and a planned nine-state Homeland Security Investigations voter fraud "surge." The senators want the activity stopped and the withheld grant money released. A DHS spokesperson told The Center Square that "DHS is fulfilling our obligation to protect election infrastructure." Whatever you make of the fight, the date that matters for you is Oct. 19, the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R) and Fetterman co-wrote an Oct. 1 op-ed in The Free Press arguing that AI needs "protective guardrails," including age limits for AI use (good luck with that, since the people who know how to use AI best are teenagers, and they'll have the workaround figured out before the ink dries), legal liability for companies whose AI causes catastrophic harm, and closer government oversight of models with biological, cyber or nuclear risks. The part that hits home: they call more data centers "a national security imperative," but say communities and companies should form a "covenant" that protects ratepayers, limits the effects on land and water, hires locally and operates transparently. Monroe's townships have spent the past year writing their own versions of those rules.

In July, we told you the big federal housing law included Fetterman's Whole-Home Repairs Act, modeled on Pennsylvania's program that helps homeowners and small landlords fix aging houses. Now Fetterman, joined by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), is asking HUD to actually set it up through its Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes and to brief Congress on how the money will be used. The release doesn't say how much funding is involved or when homeowners could apply. Until HUD acts, the program exists only on paper.

McCormick and Fetterman, with Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), introduced a bill to extend the federal government's purchasing ban on certain Chinese chips to the optical transceivers that carry data through national security networks, naming Chinese makers InnoLight and Eoptolink. There's no direct Monroe County angle, but a two-party, four-senator bill is worth a mention these days.