"Pool panel says cost of temporary facility would be $179,000"

"Taxpayers already helping to pay for plan to borrow $2 million"

"Township seeks public input into revitalization plan"

In case you missed your Tuesday Mercury, these were three of the headlines on the front page.

The photos on the page featured Joe, the therapy dog, wearing a cat-in-the-hat hat for Read Across America Day at Barth Elementary School in Pottstown, and a family enjoying the near-record warm temperatures at an East Coventry Township park.

Local, local, local.

Of course, The Mercury also had the election preview for today's presidential primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, and a Business page feature with tax-filing tips, but the news that readers can not get anywhere else is the Local stuff.

The Sports section Tuesday had four previews of state playoff games involving girls' and boys' basketball teams -- Daniel Boone boys, and St. Pius X, Methacton and Spring-Ford girls -- as well as a column by Sports Editor Don Seeley on local wrestlers headed to the state tournament this weekend.

Only a Phillies first-base coach diagnosed with prostate cancer warranted front-page news in the Sports section from outside the immediate Pottstown area.

The point of all this is not to pat ourselves on the back for doing our job; the point is to question what would happen without us.

Newsapers are in trouble these days, experiencing a downturn in revenue that is unprecedented in this business. Employment advertising, automotive advertising and department store advertising have dropped dramatically, and as newspapers become more expensive to produce and ad revenues drop -- well, the recession that is moving across the country is firmly entrenched in newsrooms and publishers' offices.

We worry about the future -- our future -- as we prioritize our story assignments based on the resources we have, many of which are not what they once were. But we also worry about the future of communities without the independent voice that we offer.

People can turn to the Internet for opinion and entertainment; they can find out who wins the primary tonight on TV news; they can get a traffic report and the weather on the radio, but the news of how your local officials are spending your money and what is happening in your schools and who your kids are rooting for on the courts is not available anywhere else.

You can find it on our Web site, or you can read it in our paper, but either way, a local newspaper is necessary to find and write these stories. If your local newspaper does not exist, the voices that speak for the community will be lost.

This is not a doomsday prediction, but it is a reminder to appreciate once in a while the local news that we bring to your doorstep or computer every day. Without us, well, you might not know what folks are up to.