MONROE UNFILTERED: THE DAILY BUZZ | Oct. 7
Gateway Hearing Dates, I-80 Death, The Dry Candidate
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
DAILY WEATHER
Frost First. The patchy frost we warned you about got an upgrade: the National Weather Service put Monroe County under a Frost Advisory until 9 a.m. this morning, after an overnight low in the mid to upper 30s. If anything tender is still outside, check on it before you head out. After that, it's a sunny day with a high near 68°F and almost no chance of rain, and a clear night in the upper 40s to around 50°F if you're heading to tonight's Pocono Mountain School Board vote in Swiftwater at 6 or settling in for the governor's debate at 8.
Then the Warm Day. Thursday is the warmest of the week at 74°F. Friday and Saturday stay sunny, in the upper 60s to around 70°F. Rain moves in sometime Sunday, more likely toward evening, and there's a decent chance of showers on Columbus Day.
GATEWAY DATA CENTER FINALLY GETS ITS HEARING DATES
The Dates. Smithfield Township has scheduled the public hearings on the Smithfield Gateway data center proposed along Route 209, Township Manager Julia Heilakka told residents on the township's data center mailing list Tuesday evening. Both meetings will be held at J.T. Lambert Intermediate School, 2000 Milford Road, East Stroudsburg, to fit the crowd.
Oct. 21: Planning Commission. The Planning Commission meets Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. The developer will present the project, and the commission will vote on whether to recommend that the supervisors approve it, approve it with conditions or deny it. There will be public comment, but requests for party status won't be taken that night.
Oct. 28: The Hearing Begins. The Board of Supervisors opens the formal conditional use hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 6 p.m., and will consider applications for party status, which gives a resident a formal role in the hearing. The form is on the township's Gateway page at smithfieldtownship.com. Email it to Heilakka by Oct. 27 or bring it to the hearing; the township will also have blank forms there. Both meetings are planned to wrap up by 9:30 p.m.
The Catch. Heilakka wrote that setting these dates keeps the township out of a "deemed approval," which happens when a township doesn't start the hearing before the project's deadline and the application is approved as submitted. The developer could still grant the township an extension, so the dates could be canceled or pushed back. The original Sept. 9 hearing was pulled over a newspaper notice error, and the application still had open questions on noise, water, buffering and emergency planning in the township engineer's review we reported Sept. 22. We said then we'd report the hearing date the moment it became public. Here it is.
Meanwhile in Harrisburg. A data center "sunshine" bill co-sponsored by Monroe's state senator, Rosemary Brown (R), was amended and sent back to the Senate floor by the Rules Committee, 16 to 0, on Monday, putting it in line for a final Senate vote. The Senate is in session today. Senate Bill 1408, now titled the "Data Center Transparency Act" in its amended form, started as a ban on nondisclosure agreements between public agencies and data center developers. As amended, it would also require a township or borough to hold at least two public meetings for comment before approving a data center, with notices naming the owner or operator and the site; bar data centers controlled by foreign entities tied to countries the State Department lists as Countries of Particular Concern or on its Special Watch List; and require data centers to file an energy and water report certifying that any shifting of power costs onto other ratepayers has been mitigated or eliminated. "There is no reason for an NDA, at least in municipal work," co-sponsor Sen. James Malone (D) said last week. The bill text doesn't spell out whether it would cover applications already in the pipeline, like Gateway. Only a handful of session days remain before the legislative session ends Nov. 30, and the House would still have to pass it.
THE DAILY RUNDOWN
Killed on the Shoulder of I-80. The man killed on Interstate 80 near Scotrun on Monday has been identified as Pedro Ernesto Salcedo Carrasco, 51, of Alpha, N.J., the Monroe County Coroner's Office said Tuesday. His car was parked on the right shoulder of eastbound I-80 near mile marker 298 in Pocono Township, and he was standing near the driver's door when a pickup traveling in the left lane "at a high rate of speed" swerved onto the shoulder after a tractor-trailer merged directly in front of it, state police said, as reported by the Pocono Record and WFMZ. The pickup struck the car and Salcedo Carrasco, pinning him to the pickup for about 139 feet. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:24 p.m. Our condolences to his family and friends. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday, and police have not said whether anyone will be charged. A correction: Tuesday's Buzz said the crash happened Monday night, going by the first reports. It happened in the afternoon. See The PSA below for what PennDOT says to do if your car breaks down on the interstate.
Measles Passes 1,000. Pennsylvania's measles outbreak has reached 1,004 confirmed cases in 39 counties, the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. in three decades, with five deaths and nearly 200 hospitalizations, according to the state Department of Health as reported by WESA and ABC News. Lancaster County remains the center, with 391 cases. Monroe County wasn't on the state's case map as of its Sept. 30 update, the last time we checked. For comparison: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency over measles on Monday, with 108 cases in New York so far this year, letting paramedics and pharmacists give the vaccine and nurses order tests. Pennsylvania has nearly 10 times as many cases, and we haven't seen a similar declaration from Harrisburg. One encouraging number: health providers gave about 49,000 MMR doses in August and 53,000 in September, roughly double the usual 25,000 a month.
Kratom Rules Clear the House. Kratom comes from the leaves of a Southeast Asian tree related to coffee and is sold here as powders, capsules and drinks. At low doses it acts like a stimulant; at higher doses it has opioid-like effects, according to the National Institutes of Health, and the FDA hasn't approved it for any medical use. The state House voted unanimously Monday for House Bill 2657, from Rep. Bridget Kosierowski (D-Lackawanna), which would set a 21-and-over age limit for kratom, limit sales to natural kratom products such as dried leaf or leaf powder (capsules allowed), ban synthetic compounds including high-potency 7-OH products, require child-resistant packaging and warning labels, register vendors with the state and add a 12% tax to pay for enforcement. Its penalties target sellers and manufacturers who break the rules, not adults buying legal kratom. Locally, the issue isn't new: as we reported in May, when Stroudsburg Borough Council took up vape shops, Erica McCabe, then council vice president, raised concerns about kratom sales to underage customers. The bill now goes to the Senate, which is running out of session days.
HISTORY WITH A TWIST: THE DRY CANDIDATE FROM EAST STROUDSBURG
Tonight at 8, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Treasurer Stacy Garrity meet in Pennsylvania's first governor's debate since 2018, carried locally on WBRE/WYOU. Eighty-four years ago, one of the men on the governor's ballot came from East Stroudsburg, and his party's whole reason for being came down to one word: dry.
The Candidate. Dale Harold Learn was born Dec. 8, 1897, in Paradise Township, according to the Monroe County Historical Association. He graduated in 1916 from East Stroudsburg Normal School (today's East Stroudsburg University) and from Dickinson College in 1922, and served in the Army in both world wars. Back home, he became one of East Stroudsburg's best-known real estate men and the youngest president the Pennsylvania Real Estate Association ever had. He was also a Methodist lay minister, a borough secretary, a school director, a Kiwanian and executive director of the Pocono Mountains Chamber of Commerce.
The Campaigns. In 1942, Learn ran for governor on the Prohibition Party ticket and finished third with 17,385 votes, behind Republican Edward Martin and Democrat F. Clair Ross. In June 1947, the party's national convention in Winona Lake, Ind., unanimously nominated him for vice president alongside Dr. Claude A. Watson. He accepted on Nov. 20, 1947, in front of 175 people at the inn at Buck Hill Falls, declaring that "alcohol is the primary evil overcoming America today." In 1948, the Watson-Learn ticket finished sixth, with 103,900 votes nationwide. Harry Truman won. Learn died in 1976 and is buried in Laurelwood Cemetery in Stroudsburg.
The Twist. Nobody in Monroe County is running on Prohibition anymore, but the arguments haven't gone away. They've just gotten smaller and more practical. Stroudsburg's new Safe Streets Downtown Task Force is working out how to keep Main Street safe at night, and Borough Manager Larry Kopp told WFMZ last month that "the only problems we've ever seen have been a closing on Friday and Saturday nights at about 2 o'clock in the morning." In Harrisburg this week, the House voted to regulate kratom, and lawmakers face an Oct. 13 deadline on skill games. Learn's party wanted alcohol banned outright. Eighty-some years later, we're arguing about closing time.
THE PSA
If You Break Down on the Interstate. Monday's death near Scotrun is a hard reminder that a highway shoulder isn't a safe place to stand. PennDOT's advice: never get out of your vehicle close to or in active lanes of traffic. Pull as far from traffic as you can, ideally into a rest area or emergency pull-off, then call a mechanic, a tow truck or your roadside assistance provider, or 911 if you're not sure who to call. Know where you are: on interstates, green mile markers sit on the shoulder every tenth of a mile. Tie a white or brightly colored cloth to your antenna or the door facing traffic, turn on your headlights and hazards at night, and stay in your vehicle until help arrives.
If You're Driving Past. Pennsylvania's Move Over law, in effect since 2021, covers more than police cars. It also protects a disabled vehicle marked with at least two of three warnings: hazard lights, caution signs or road flares. Move over a lane, or if you can't do it safely, slow down to 20 mph below the posted limit. A first offense can cost $500, and penalties climb from there.