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Commission seeks sustainable prosperity with Brownsville project
By: Christine Haines Herald-Standard 03/03/2003
Editor's note: This is the final installment in a series of stories dealing with public meetings held last week in Brownsville to gather information on a revitalization project as part of a pilot program by the Appalachian Regional Commission.
BROWNSVILLE - Sustainable prosperity is the goal of a pilot program by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in which the borough is participating.
The ARC has selected seven distressed communities in the 12-state ARC region to receive technical assistance for a two-year campaign that will result in the completion of a project to enhance each community.
A national consulting firm, Civic Economics, will help a local group dubbed Team Brownsville to identify the project, find funding for it and see it to completion.
Brownsville was selected because of economic factors including a declining population despite increases in the state and county, low household incomes and a high percentage of families and children living in poverty.
The area also exceeds the national average in the number of residents without high school diplomas and falls below the average of residents with college degrees.
Two partners in Civic Economics, Dan Houston and Matt Cunningham, conducted 13 focus group meetings and a public forum in Brownsville last week to help Team Brownsville identify the project.
"ARC wants a success. This can't be an empty shell five years from now. Let's do something that will work," Houston said. "I think we have pretty good support from a cross-section of people for a multi-use center city project."
The historic/civic group meeting identified building preservation, a community center, artists' lofts and hotel or bed and breakfast as needs in the community.
Local business owners suggested focusing on tourism by making the town more picturesque and focusing on history and culture.
Houston said the ministerial group meeting tended to focus on the needs of the youth in the area, suggesting a recreation center, a bike path and capitalizing on Brownsville's being a small town. The teens, conversely, focused more on a need to enhance the image of the community and to develop small businesses.
"They were interested in having someone give them a building so they could open a co-op and show the adults what can be done," Houston said.
While more than half the teens said they didn't expect to be in Brownsville in 10 years, many said they would stay if there were something for them to do here. Houston noted that the teens aren't looking for jobs in the mines or the mills like past generations.
"They want to do things that are creative. They don't want to be part of the old economy," Houston said.
The human services group suggested the need for a centralized place for human services in Brownsville, including things like child care and respite care and a medical clinic including pediatric services.
"It could be a center the community could go to for whatever their need is, whether it's health, recreation or entertainment," said Donna Holdorf of the National Road Heritage Park.
Other suggestions included making Brownsville a town of festivals to attract more people to the community.
"The town doesn't need to do a festival every month. It would be individual organizations, but holding them in the same location," suggested Ellen Kight of the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
The government group suggested that the community focus on the opportunities being created by the opening of the state prison in Luzerne Township. As a result of some of the focus group meetings, some of those steps already are being taken. Houston said those actions shouldn't wait for the ARC project.
The new prison superintendent, Mark Krysevig, said state correctional employees working in Pittsburgh are deciding if they want to transfer to the new prison in Fayette County. "People are making their decision on what they want to do based on their first impression when they first get off the (Lane-Bane) bridge," Krysevig said. He noted that services such as hotels and restaurants are needed for the family members of the inmates who tend to visit four or five times a month, often staying for a weekend if they have to travel any distance.
"You've got a market for a hotel. The college needs a hotel. Tourism needs a hotel and you need one for the families visiting prisoners at the prison," Kight said.
Houston noted that it is possible for many of the ideas brought up during the focus group meetings to be completed at the same time the ARC project is being carried out. "The whole prison thing, form a committee quickly and get something done," Houston told the local leaders.
He said the next step is for Team Brownsville to develop a short list of potential projects that he and Cunningham will work up into preliminary development packages. "Don't choose anything that's marginal enough that you feel you'd need a feasibility study," Houston warned.
Once a project is identified, Brownsville will be partnered with a mentoring community that has successfully completed a similar project.
©The Herald Standard 2003
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