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Fayette town hopes to end economic woes
By Richard Robbins
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Brownsville, a might-have-been casino town in the lower Mon Valley, held a town meeting on its future the other night, and everyone came.
Well, not everyone, but 152 isn’t bad.
Brownsville officials, who periodically fend off suggestions the community partner with riverboat owners or Native Americans to bring gaming to town, hope the better-than-expected turnout is a precursor of good things to come. Now the hard part: picking a community project and following through to make sure it gets done.
Over three days last week, a two-man consulting team sent to the Fayette County community by the poverty-fighting federal Appalachian Regional Commission heard from residents who packed the Sons of Italy Hall and attended smaller, more intimate meetings.
The large public meeting, rough around the edges, was instructive in that it shed light on the contending forces in the borough, a one-time center of trade and commerce sunk in poverty since the virtual demise of Fayette County's coal-based economy, starting in the 1950s.
At one point, a man rose from his folding chair to pronounce the gathering a waste of time. Brownsville, he said, was doomed to extinction. "Why waste money on something that is not going to be here?"
Moments later, a resident of Brownsville’s Georgetown-like North Side suggested too much time was being wasted thinking about ways to revive the community’s all-but-abandoned downtown.
Instead, said Barbara Rankin, planners should look to Brashear Street, a block or so from stately Nemacolin Castle and picturesque Front Street. Why not try to seed Brashear with new, locally owned retail businesses? she asked.
Under terms set by ARC, Brownsville has several months to decide on a project and two years to complete it. Dan Houston, a Texas-based consultant hired by ARC to help Brownsville find the right project, said during a leadership gathering late Friday afternoon that a smaller project that gets done is better than a larger project that languishes for lack of funding and dies.
"What we want to do is pick the low-hanging fruit," said Houston, of the consulting firm Civic Economics.
The leadership group, which includes Mayor Norma Ryan and long-time community activist Frank Ricco and which will expand slightly in the coming weeks, decided to winnow down the scores of suggestions that the three days of conferences yielded to three project ideas.
Houston and his Chicago-based partner, Matt Cunningham, will dig into these three and provide the group with an analysis of each. Further discussions will be held before a decision is rendered in favor of one project.
Project ideas gathered from residents include such things as a community health center, recreation and arts festivals to boost tourism, business incubators, river and biking trails, and construction of artist lofts and building-renovation for business-specific clients.
Houston and others emphasized whichever project is chosen must be self-sustaining. ARC, which chose one town for special help in each of the 12 states it covers, is offering Brownsville a one-time grant of money. The worst that could happen, the leadership group agreed, would be the withering away of the finished project because of a lack of operating revenues.
Lou Orslene, the executive in charge of the nonprofit Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation and a member of the leadership group, made one thing clear: No ARC money will be directed at any building owned by Ernest Liggett, the Monroeville businessman who purchased most of the key downtown buildings a decade ago, apparently in anticipation of legalized casino or riverboat gambling.
Neither Liggett nor anyone associated with him appeared at any of the three "focus group" planning meetings they were invited to attend, Orslene said. They were also absent during the sometimes raucous Thursday night meeting at the Sons of Italy.
Fayette County Commissioner Sean Cavanagh, who did attend the large public gathering, said maybe it was best that Liggett was not present. While Liggett has plenty of supporters in Brownsville, he may have more detractors.
Liggett owns dozens of decrepit buildings that line Market Street, eyesores that are daily reminders of the economic distress that caused ARC, created during the anti-poverty days of the Great Society, to include Brownsville in its list of targeted, need-help-in-a hurry communities.
Liggett has a court date coming up for failing to properly maintain his properties, which includes storefronts that once housed the likes of G.C. Murphy, Endicott-Johnson shoes and other local and national retailers.
Many residents presume that Liggett remains intent on bringing gambling to Brownsville. Liggett did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.
During the three days of meetings, fully 8 percent of the 2,800 Brownsville residents attended either a focus group meeting or the gathering at the Sons of Italy, Orslene said. This number includes 15 students at Brownsville Area High School who exchanged ideas with the consultants and the leadership group.
Orslene said the students were distressed by the crumbling condition of the downtown core and acutely embarrassed by the image the downtown presents to students from other schools who ride on Market Street on their way to sporting and other events.
Despite everything, Orslene said, the students offered an array of ideas for student-operated business cooperatives. Unlike some of the adults in attendance at the Sons of Italy meeting, the students remain "very, very optimistic," Orslene said.
Wesley Stiva, who recently moved to Brownsville from Massachusetts, said it seemed to him that some residents "don’t expect anything good to happen."
Officials won't know until the project idea is submitted to ARC how much federal money will be forthcoming. Houston told the leadership group not to be concerned about cash at this point. He indicated officials may want to supplement the federal dollars with state or private dollars. The total cost of the project will naturally be limited by the fact it should be self-sustaining, Houston said.
The hope is that one success in town will pave the way for others, and that together these will help end Brownsville's long economic drought.
Richard Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@tribweb.com or (724) 836-5660.
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