Regional smart growth group hosts forum

YorkCounts is a big believer in regionalism and in better land-use planning. So we're excited about this coalition that was formed recently by representatives from York and Adams counties. And this group, the York-Adams Regional Smart Growth Coalition, is not made up of the usual collection of planners and township managers. This is home builders and real estate agents, businesspeople who have skin in the game for wanting to see growth managed more effectively.

The YorkCounts board recently endorsed the coalition's mission, which includes the following:

• Encouraging environmentally sound development practices
• Sustaining healthy farms and abundant farmland
• Revitalizing our older urban areas
• Fostering economic growth that brings high-quality jobs to our citizens
• Assuring reasonable housing costs that keep home ownership within reach of most households and providing an array of homeownership opportunities in our communities
• Matching infrastructure development with growth strategies
• And encouraging growth in areas where infrastructure currently exists

Darrell Auterson, president of the York County Economic Development Corp., serves as the coalition's chairman. If you're interested in smart growth, the group's next meeting is 9 a.m. Dec. 16 - that's tomorrow - at the offices of the Realtors Association of York and Adams Counties, 901 Smile Way, York. Brian Hare, chief of PennDOT's Design Services division, will discuss Pennsylvania’s Smart Transportation movement, and Brandy Heilman, executive director of Commuter Services of Pennsylvania, will talk about alternatives for commuters. For details or to register, contact Shanna Wiest at 717-880-1230 or shanna@rayac.com.

- Dan Fink

Wrapping up the year

Couple things to talk about going into the end of the year.

First, YorkCounts will hold the second in a series of town hall meetings at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 19 at William Penn Senior High School in York. The YorkCounts-United Way Stay in School Report to the Community will again be the focus of the meeting. Bob Woods from the United Way will talk about the report, and York County Judge John Uhler will talk about his work in combating truancy.

Next, the YorkCounts committee working to bring an International Baccalaureate regional charter school to York has three key school board meetings this month. York Suburban and Central York will hold their hearings on the charter school application at the same time - 6:30 p.m. Dec. 7. Suburban's will be held in the cafeteria of the high school, at 1800 Hollywood Drive, York. Central's will be held in the district's education center at 775 Marion Road, York. The York City School Board will meet at 6 p.m. Dec. 14 in the board room of the Administration Building, 31 N. Pershing Ave., York.

The York County Economic Development Corp. (YCEDC), a YorkCounts funder, will hold a series of public meetings this week and next week to inform county residents of the recently completed York County Economic Development Plan. The first meeting is 5:30 p.m. Dec. 2 - tomorrow night - at the offices of the Realtors Association of York and Adams County (RAYAC), 901 Smile Way, York. Go here to see the time and place of the four additional meetings.

Finally, tourism consultant Roger Brooks came back to York one last time to present a more detailed action plan to turn York into a thriving destination for locals and tourists. Brooks unveiled his proposed brand for York - "Creativity Unleashed: America's Industrial Art and Design Capital."

Some other elements of the plan include:

• Establishing a small Market District, to be bounded initially by Beaver, Market, George and Philadelphia streets.
• Creating a special downtown zoning district to allow for more street vendors and outdoor dining opportunities.
• Making reinvestment in and a reorganiztion of Central Market a top priority.
• Developing new signage and overhaul the parking to encourage people to come downtown on evenings and weekends.

Brooks said the city and Downtown Inc. should have lead roles in implementing the plan, with support from key community organizations such as the York County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the YCEDC. Read the Central Penn Business Journal's account of Brooks' visit here.

- Dan Fink

A new push for a better workforce

I was invited to join what organizers called a Career Pathways/STEM Educator-Employer Summit Nov. 11 at the BAE Systems facility in West Manchester Township. That's a fancy way of saying more than two dozen representatives from county schools and employers met to brainstorm ways to improve the way students are prepared for York County jobs in a 21st-century economy. The emphasis here was on finding ways to improve math and science skills for students across the county, specifically with an eye on future high-tech manufacturing jobs. Participants also wanted to develop new ways for schools and local employers to interact.

These were the questions posed by organizers Glenn Caufman and Rob McIlvaine:
1. For educators, what's the school's role in preparing students for the new economy, and what barriers do you face?
2. For employers, what are your expectations of graduates entering the workforce, and what role should employers play in helping schools shape curricula to meet those expectations?
3. For educators, how would partnerships between schools and employers enhance student performance?
4. For employers, is it in your self interest to develop relationships with local schools?
5. For both groups, what should a collaborative partnership between schools and businesses look like and what are some current best practices in the school-to-work arena?

Caufman, director of the York County Alliance for Learning, and Rob McIlvaine, from Mantec, sent out a recap of the brainstorming session, and there were dozens of ideas generated by the questions. The challenge now will be to turn all the ideas into a workable plan.

YorkCounts supports this effort. Developing better connections between employers and workers was a Metro-York recommendation in 2007, and that task has been taken up initially by the York County Economic Development Corp., which developed its Office of Workforce Development. EDC President Darrell Auterson provided the welcome at the summit, a sign that this new effort will tie into the work that Auterson's group is doing.

Lots of York County students still view college as their first option after graduating. But for those that don't, how well are schools doing to prepare kids for the quality jobs that exist right here? What could schools and employers be doing differently to reduce brain drain?

- Dan Fink

Truancy effort aims for grant

An article in the Nov. 19 York Daily Record reports that the York County commissioners applied for a $75,000 state grant that would pay for an anti-truancy specialist for York County. This is great news for the fight to reduce truancy and dropout rates. The United Way of York County recently made public the YorkCounts-United Way Stay in School Report, and one of the recommendations in the report is to expand the work of Judge John Uhler's truancy prevention task force. A key part of that would involve hiring a full-time coordinator. It sounds like this grant would be a big step in that direction.

- Dan Fink

Who needs hip to grow? Not York

What really matters to the City of York’s socioeconomic sustainability? This piece from Joel Kotkin is worth contemplating. While I don’t always agree with Kotkin, his work is rock solid – he’s a serious academic, not a shoot-from-the-hip booster or ideologue.


He makes two main points. First:

"The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently identified the "Next Youth-Magnet Cities" as drawn from the old "hip and cool" collection of yore: Seattle, Portland, Washington, New York and Austin, Texas.
It's not just the young who will flock to the blue meccas, but money and business as well, according to the narrative. The future, the Atlantic assured its readers, did not belong to the rubes in the suburbs or Sun Belt, but to high-density, high-end places like New York, San Francisco and Boston.
This narrative, which has not changed much over the past decade, is misleading and largely misstated. Net migration, both before and after the Great Recession, according to analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, has continued to be strongest to the predominately red states of the South and Intermountain West."

And second:

More important, the key group leaving New York and other so-called "youth-magnets" comprises the middle class, particularly families, critical to any long-term urban revival.

I think there is good news and bad news for a place like York in Kotkin's essay. The bad news is that we happen to find our city trapped in a state with seemingly intractable systems that work against the success of older communities, and that, as a whole, is a “donor” to the migration patterns he describes. The good news is that we probably don’t need to spend so much time beating ourselves up that we’re not Austin or Portland – that we’re not hip enough to attract the ballyhooed “creative class” – and focus on the message that for plenty of families, value and jobs matter more than hip coffee shops and jazz clubs. I’m not arguing against those things – they are a proper part of creating a downtown “Market District” that offers the quality of life that is needed to attract a certain segment of the population, and they are good for our downtown. But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture either.

At the end of the day, York County has a couple of things going for it that are as much good fortune as they are clever economic development:

1. A great location on the edge of the Northeast Corridor, with excellent transportation access to some of the wealthiest markets in the world.
2. Relatively inexpensive land and a lower cost-of-living than is found in those markets.

With those two factors as the backdrop, the City of York has a couple of things going for it:

1. An absolutely fantastic built environment with a downtown and neighborhoods that bear all the attributes of a great urban place.
2. A shifting demographic, cultural and energy-cost climate (that will last probably 30 years) that will be far more favorable to walkable, urban places than the last 30 years have been.

It’s our job to stop apologizing for ourselves and our city (and our schools, and our taxes, and our crime) and take advantage of the above factors with an economic- and community-development strategy that looks at how to change the game based on where the market is headed. Let’s make ourselves a great urban place and let the other chips fall where they may. Today would be a good opportunity to start.

- Eric Menzer, YorkCounts chairman of the board

Survey to bring vital data on youth

From today's York Dispatch:

York County students are being surveyed through Nov. 13 to gather data about their behavior, their attitudes and their knowledge about alcohol, tobacco, drugs and violence.
The Pennsylvania Youth Survey will be administered to students in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades in 15 of the county's 16 school districts and several charter schools.

The article says this will be the first time so many York County schools will participate in the survey. Why is that important? More students responding means more and better data, and that will help local officials better identify issues, assess programs and target spending needs.

In the bigger picture, this is a key part of the effort to reduce gang violence and youth crime and the related issues of truancy and school dropout rates. YorkCounts will hold a series of town halls on that very subject, starting with the first event in Dover on Nov. 9. The town halls, "Kids, Truancy and a County at Risk," will focus on the YorkCounts-United Way's Stay in School Report.

- Dan Fink

For the poor, community colleges are crucial

A news release Oct. 20 from the Pew Charitable Trusts highlighted a report that shows the importance of community colleges in a job market that demands lifelong learning. From the release:

"Earning a community college degree boosts earnings by an average of $7,900 annually, an increase of 29 percent over those with only a high school diploma.
For low-income, high-achieving high school students in particular, community colleges serve as a springboard to further postsecondary education; more than half eventually transfer to four-year programs, and three-quarters of those who transfer earn a bachelor’s degree."

That just underscores our belief here at YorkCounts on the role that HACC can play in helping students from low-income families break out of poverty, and in making sure York County has a well-trained workforce.

And we know HACC takes that role seriously. Over the summer, I attended a workshop at HACC where officials from various organizations spent a morning basically brainstorming ways to improve the college-readiness of high school students in York. From that session, Lise Levin, community development director at HACC's York campus, has started a list of things HACC wants to try. The ideas range from in-service days at HACC for teachers to class-sampling opportunities for high school students.

What ideas do you have for helping city students be more prepared for college?

- Dan Fink

Judge Uhler talks truancy on WITF

York County Judge John Uhler talks about truancy and the toll it takes on our community on WITF-FM's "Radio Smart Talk" this morning. His truancy work will be part of an upcoming series of town halls planned by YorkCounts. The first town hall is 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in Dover. Here's the program summary from witf.org:

"More than one million students drop out of school each year in the U.S. Statistics indicate that a college graduate will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more in their lifetime than a high school drop out.

As these figures suggest, education is one of the keys to earning a sustainable living that will provide for a family.

So why do so many still leave school or not see education as important to their
futures? How do keep these kids in school and prepare them for the workforce after they've graduated?"

- Dan Fink

Sprawl is bad

I've been at two very different events recently. One was a gathering of grassroots organizations and community activists, representing poor communities with high minority populations. The other was a gathering of municipal decision makers, representing the conservative, tradition-bound folks of Lancaster County.

Both groups heard the same message: Sprawl is bad.

Sprawl creates unsustainable, environmentally wasteful development. It adds to the burden on government by demanding wave after wave of government support for new sewer and water infrastructure and new roads, more fire and police resources and more schools. It forces people to work farther and farther away from their homes. And it segregates middle- and upper-income residents from lower-income residents.

The thousands of suburbs that have popped up across the country since the 1950s were built with government-subsidized highways, cheap gas and consumers with money to spend on their houses. Guess what: Governments are out of money, gas isn't cheap and consumers don't have money, if they even have a house.

Which is why Christopher Leinberger says "Sprawl is the root cause of the financial crisis."

Fixing the economy, for the long term, means ending this perpetual push to the 'burbs. It means less money for highways, more for mass transit. It means investing in cities, older first-ring suburbs and other walkable communities. It means building new developments close to existing communities and not in some out-of-the-way cornfield. It means having municipalities incentivize high-density and mixed-housing requirements for new communities, and it means builders and developers figuring out how to do that and still make money.

In other places, community leaders are learning the lesson that sprawl is bad. The same thinking will help York County, too.

- Dan Fink

Mike Smith wins a Jefferson Award

This news comes courtesy of Bob Woods, executive director of the United Way of York County.

Mike Smith is one of the 2010 winners of the Jefferson Awards, given out by WGAL-TV each year. Mike is receiving the award for his service with the Temple Guard Drill Team “helping young people in York County stay off the streets and out of trouble.” He also leads the York Chapter of Guardian Angels and directs activities at Crossroads Youth Center. The Jefferson Awards Banquet will be held Oct. 29 at the Sheraton Harrisburg-Hershey Hotel. The United Way is a major sponsor for the awards, and proceeds are divided up among the various United Ways in southcentral Pennsylvania.

Bob is hoping for a good turnout from York County to support Mike and the other York County honoree, Karen Ann Wire.

- Dan Fink

Some thoughts on little empires

The Daily Record ran a story recently about Newberry Township's offer to merge with three small neighboring boroughs. The township sent letters to Lewisberry, Goldsboro and York Haven to see if any of them would be interested in talking about merging.


Newberry Township supervisor Stephen Pancoe said he thought a merger made sense because you gain economies of scale and reduce duplication of services. Those are the reasons most often cited to justify a merger or a regional consolidation. We would certainly agree with that position, and we applaud Newberry Township for its thinking.


Unfortunately, all three boroughs said no. As Lewisberry Council President William Thompson said, "I guess we like our little empire."


The only problem is that many of these little empires are falling apart all around the state. This structure of government, around since the 1700s, doesn't seem to work anymore in many places, regardless of which political party is in power.


Many small boroughs and older suburban townships don't have the money to upgrade deteriorating water and sewer lines or take care of their roads. Many have dropped their police departments and turned police service over to the state. Their tax bases continue to shrink, as homeowners keep moving out to the newest suburban developments. This cycle of build-and-abandon has decimated cities and these older suburbs, eats up farmland and contributes to sprawl.


In York County, we have a patchwork of municipalities, and all of them have council members or township supervisors, managers and secretaries, their own zoning ordinances, as well as their own water and sewer rates.

Is a system of 72 separate municipal governments, many created more than 200 years ago, the best way to go in the 21st century?

What do you think?

- Dan Fink

YorkCounts sets first town hall in Dover

YorkCounts will travel to Dover Senior High School Nov. 9 for the first in a series of town halls to engage York County residents in a conversation about the work of YorkCounts. The first three town halls - the next ones will be in January and February - will focus on the United Way's Stay in School Report, and especially Judge John Uhler's Truancy Task Force work. YorkCounts is partnering with Dover Area School District to present this first town hall, which will start at 6:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium. For more information, contact Dan Fink at 650-1460 or dfink@yorkcounts.org.

- Dan Fink

YorkCounts going to Washington

Later this month, the staff of YorkCounts - James and I - will travel to Washington, D.C., for Building One America, a summit that will, according to its Web site, "highlight regional policies, programs, and strategies with proven success in combating concentrated poverty, residential and school segregation, and sprawl – building solutions into national policy."

These issues go right to the heart of the work of YorkCounts.

Among the speakers are David Rusk and Myron Orfield, two nationally known authorities on urban policy and race and poverty, respectively. YorkCounts brought both men to York to speak at community meetings.

Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, and U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) will also present.

The event is Sept. 17-18 at the Lincoln Park United Methodist Church.

- Dan Fink

Lancaster fights to save its young people

If you haven't read this story from the Lancaster Sunday News, yet, read it. The city of Lancaster unveiled a new program, one modeled on a similar program in High Point, N.C., that takes a new and some might say risky approach to combating drugs, gangs and violence. On Sunday, leaders from law enforcement, the courts and the community confronted four people who thought they were headed for prison. Four convicted felons, caught selling drugs to police, were given a choice - go to prison for a two-year minimum, or sign up.

Sunday News Reporter Chip Smedley described the program this way:
"'The Fortunate Four' are the first given the opportunity to take part in a new city program that lets selected small-time dealers (with minimal prior records) caught in direct sales to undercover police avoid jail if they agree to abide by a long list of strict guidelines. The program, they were reminded often, is not a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. One misstep and they're done."

The four heard real-life stories - from a U.S. attorney; from the Lancaster County DA; and from a mother's whose daughter was shot and killed while dealing.

"My daughter is dead, five bullets in her back" Diane Johnson said. "She thought she was smooth; she thought she knew the streets."

York's Gang Prevention Initiative will be watching. In the meantime, good luck to Lancaster.

And read the story.

- Dan Fink

Creating a 21st-century workforce

Here's something to think about. Louis Soares, the director of the Economic Mobility program at the Center for American Progress, made this point about a new approach to training workers in a 21st century economy. He spoke recently at a workforce event in Washington, D.C.:

"(Soares) argued that in today’s dynamic labor market workforce policy should focus not only on emergency unemployment counseling but also on making career coaching and skills training available to all workers. This requires reforming and integrating the education and workforce development systems by retooling the employment service as a 'one-stop' career center, making financial aid available for working learners, and investing in and improving community colleges."

YorkCounts has tried to encourage more connections among local workforce development stakeholders. What should York County be doing with its investments in worker training that will help Pennsylvania and the United States produce the best-trained workforce in the world?

- Dan Fink

Hear about smart growth

The York/Adams Regional Smart Growth Coalition still has space available for the Aug. 20 smart growth panel discussion in York. Learn more about what smart growth is and why it's important for York and Adams counties. Panelists include Judy Schwenk of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania; Felicia Dell, director of the York County Planning Commission; and Dick Schmoyer, director of the Adams County Planning Commission. The event will be at the offices of the Realtors Association of York and Adams Counties, 901 Smile Way, York. RSVP to Shanna Wiest, shanna@rayac.com or 717-880-1230.

- Dan Fink

June-July YorkCounts e-Newsletter

The latest YorkCounts e-Newsletter is out. We used to post the e-newsletters here on the Count Me In blog. Now, you can find them on our Web site. This month, read about the work that's starting on a community effort to reduce obesity in York County; plans for a series of YorkCounts town halls; recent projects from Better York, one of our funding partners; and changes in a couple of key YorkCounts Indicators.

- Dan Fink

Gauging interest in the IB charter school

We're pretty excited here to have received funding for the International Baccalaureate regional charter school. But we'd like to know more about how you see this effort. Specifically, we'd like to know if there are individuals with school-age children or soon-to-be school-age children that would consider enrolling their kids in a future York IB school. Remember: This school would create classrooms with a mix of students from the city and the suburbs, hopefully offsetting the negative effects of classrooms filled with overwhelmingly poor children. And it would represent an attempt to make available a high-quality public education to parents all around York County.

Tell us what you think in a comment, and if you're comfortable, leave your name and e-mail address.

- Dan Fink

Learning from Lancaster

Keystone Edge, which describes itself as a Web site that "tells the story of the new economy in Pennsylvania," had a cover story last week detailing Lancaster's revival. I saw four things they've done that York might think about as our city continues its redevelopment efforts.

1. Forge partnerships. In Lancaster, Franklin and Marshall College and the James Street Improvement District remade an entire quadrant of the city. The YWCA showed that kind of collaborative spirit with its Renaissance Project. On York's south side, York College could team up with Crispus Attucks or a revived South George Street Community Partnership to expand the improvements that have happened there.

2. Use arts and culture. With its Artist Homestead Program, York already recognizes the potential of the arts community for improving the quality of life in the city. The Cultural Alliance, the Strand and the Heritage Trust seem like logical candidates to continue the work.

3. Promote the city lifestyle. Codo has taken the lead on this in its effort to attract young professionals. Somebody needs to think about ways to promote the city's great housing stock, its farmers markets, the developing restaurant scene and other amenities. See Lancaster City Living's approach.

4. Enhance and build on key resources. York doesn't have anything to compare with Lancaster's new convention center for attracting visitors. Hopefully, the study from Roger Brooks will go a long way in identifying the resources that do exist and figuring out how to use them to increase visitors to the downtown.

- Dan Fink

A good read on health care

The conversation is heating up on health care reform. We'll be hearing lots of industry jargon in the next few months, especially about the so-called "public option." It will be difficult to stay on top of it all.

This recent article from the New Yorker is a good primer on how soaring health care costs are at the heart of the debate. The author, Atul Gawande, suggests that providers have undergone a subtle shift in the past 20 years, one that has created an environment of overuse. Unfortunately, more tests and more surgical procedures haven't produced better results, Gawande argues. They do make providers more profitable. And they drive up costs for insurers, consumers and the governmenet.

Doctors and hospitals, among others, disagree. Take a look and decide for yourself. Because a key point Gawande makes is that a lot of these high costs are local; they vary from one area to another based on the philosophy of the local system of providers. It made me wonder what the costs might look like if someone crunched numbers for York County the way Gawande did for the two towns in Texas in the article.

Are we more or less profit driven here? What would your guess be?

Update, 11:41 a.m. July 15: The U.S. House introduced comprehensive health care reform legislation this morning. Here's an analysis of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office. I'd love to hear somebody in the health care business take a whack at explaining the good and bad of this.

- Dan Fink

Engaging the next generation

Biloxi, Miss., is taking a different approach to supporting its young people with after-school and other programs, one that mixes community involvement, the mapping capability of the Web and the resources of Public Agenda's Center for the Advancement of Public Engagement.

Mapping Assets for Biloxi's Youth project uses technology to plot on a map all of the programs and community "assets" that serve youth in the area. Public Agenda, which advsied Biloxi on the effort, said the list includes everything from "parks and breakdancing groups to youth ministries, scholarships and summer camps."

The project has its own Web site so people can report and describe the assets they've found, as well as comment and discuss things as they move forward. They'll reconvene in person on July 24th to see how many things they were able to find and start thinking about how to better coordinate Biloxi's strengths on behalf of children and teens.

Anybody else see the potential for doing something similar in York County? Services related to at-risk youth and their families come to mind first. How about jobs programs aimed at the unemployed and underemployed?

- Dan Fink

Time for teachers' merit pay?

School is out, but education is a hot topic right now. The state's budget deadline is hours away, and Gov. Ed Rendell has been out stumping for his education plan, which calls for $300 million in new funds for basic education. Republicans have proposed using federal stimulus money to keep funding for basic education flat. Whichever side you're on, there's no disputing the fact that the quaility of the state's educational system goes right to the heart of how competitive Pennsylvania will be in the 21st-century economy.

How well prepared for college will our students be? How will we reverse brain drain? What will the quality of our workforce be? How attractive will the state be for recruiting and retaininig key employers?

Part of the governor's plan for improving Pennsylvania's public-education system includes new testing for students and new evaluations for principals and teachers. Even the liberal think tank Center for American Progress makes the case in this new report that teacher evaluations should play a larger role in assessing student performance, and now might be the time to consider ideas such as merit pay:

"New educators, both teachers and principals, are more receptive to differential treatment of teachers than were prior generations. Seventy percent of new teachers in a representative sample said that the fact that teachers do not get rewarded for superior effort and performance is a drawback. Eighty-four percent of these teachers said that making it easier to terminate unmotivated or incompetent teachers would be an effective way to improve teacher quality. The influx of so many new educators also provides an opportunity for supervisors to evaluate teachers more rigorously now, before these individuals gain tenure."

What about this? Is it reasonable to think that tracking the performance of teachers and schools and giving bonuses to high-performing teachers might produce higher-performing students?

- Dan Fink

Sattler to leave York

Ryan Sattler, the former Bon-Ton executive who founded York County Community Against Racism and has been a key leader of the effort to establish a county Human Relations Commission, announced in May he will move to Baltimore this summer for family reasons. Sattler said he wants to remain involved in YCCAR and the YorkCounts HRC working group unitl his move is completed, and that could take several months.

- Dan Fink

YorkCounts e-newsletter - May 2009

Found on the blog at yorkcounts.org

May 2009

In this issue:

• YorkCounts work advances on three fronts
• Partner spotlight: United Way of York County
• Indicators update: Bias-related incidents

YorkCounts work advances on three fronts


It's a busy time for volunteers working on three different YorkCounts initiatives. Here's a recap on where each effort stands.


The IB charter school: York County Community Foundation and the Women’s Giving Circle, a program of the Community Foundation, awarded $60,000 and $15,000 in grants respectively to YorkCounts for its effort to create a new K-12 regional charter school in York. Once approved by the state Department of Education, the new school will offer an International Baccalaureate curriculum, and it will be the only K-12 IB school in Central Pennsylvania.
YorkCounts Director James DeBord accepted the grants on behalf of Dennis Baughman and Sue Krebs, volunteers who have guided YorkCounts’ Metro-York Educational Opportunities Subcommittee since it formed in January 2008.
The money will allow the regional charter school effort to move to its next stage. The Educational Opportunities group will next write its charter school application and start looking in York at possible sites for the school.
The regional IB charter school concept emerged in response to a 2007 Metro-York recommendation that called for attacking the root problem in the York City School District: the concentration of poverty in the city. In his 2002 visit to York, David Rusk made establishing a charter/magnet school one of his key recommendations. The IB school, which is to be made up of a 51 percent-49 percent mix of city and county students, would create a new public school opportunity for parents and students throughout York County.


Public safety study: Representatives from nine municipalities begam monthly meetings in April with a goal to cooperate on a study of the role regional policing might play in improving public safety. The nine municipalities - Dover, East Manchester, Manchester, Spring Garden and Springettsbury townships, Manchester, Mount Wolf and West York boroughs and the city of York - have chosen a chairman, found two municipalities to take the lead in the state's grant application process and heard a presentation by the consultant that will likely be asked to perform the study. The group's smart, honest conversations have been encouraging.


Stay in School: The United Way of York County took the lead in convening a group to study the array of local in-school and after-school programs aimed at keeping more kids in school. The group also set out to determine which ones were having the most success and to assess whether they could be implemented on a larger scale. The group will release its recommendations in a report due in August 2009.



Partner spotlight: United Way of York County


The United Way held its annual meeting June 15, electing new board officers and recognizing the work of key volunteers. A big part of the program detailed how the United Way did in the past year on its core function: funding community agencies. Despite one of the most difficult fund-raising environments in memory, the United Way managed to raise $7.1 million for its 2008 campaign and distributed some $5 million to its 34 partner agencies.


The local United Way was also part of an organizational change in May that changed the name of the global umbrella entity to United Way Worldwide. United Way chapters around the world approved the change to better integrate United Way of America and United Way International and to "position the United Way as a leader in the global market and better ensure . . . long-term growth," according to a statement from United Way of America.


Indicator update: Bias-related incidents


In May, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission released its annual report for 2007-2008. That report put the number of bias-related incidents reported for 2007 in York County at 17. That's a significant dip from 2006, when 35 cases were reported. It would put the average per 100,000 residents at 4.1, and that's lower than the county average during the past 10 years. But it would still be higher than the state per-capita average in the same time period, which means that the county has more intolerance than what would be considered the statewide average. That's an aspect of the county's quality of life that still needs work.



- Dan Fink

Meeting held on draft county comp plan

The York County Economic Development Corp. and the York County Planning Commission have issued a draft 10-year economic development strategy for York County. They released the draft May 5, and there's a public meeting tonight to give an overview of the plan and take public comment. The meeting starts at 6:30 in the county planning offices on the second floor of the former York County Courthouse, now called the York County Administrative Center. Find a press release from the county planners here. Read the full draft plan, all 222 pages, here. The public comment period ends June 22. York County Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the plan at their regular meeting July 8.

- Dan Fink

Libraries respond to avoid cuts

Libraries across the state have begun mobilizing in response to a budget proposal by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvavnia Senate to reduce library funding statewide by 50 percent, to $37 million. In York County, the cuts would reduce state support by almost two-thirds, from $2.4 million to $900,000. Libraries are a key community resource, especially for lower-income families who might otherwise not have free access to computers and the Internet. And libraries are busier than ever, as more people look for work and interact with government aid agencies. The York County Library System has a "Libraries are a Lifeline" page set up that allows Web visitors to send a form e-mail to their state legislators. Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget would reduce the state subsidy by $1.75 million. Here's an analysis of Senate Bill 850 and the governor's budget by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.

What's the value of a strong, well-equipped local library system? How much of a priority should libraries be in the state budget?

- Dan Fink

More on swine flu, public health

CBS News reports the swine flu outbreak didn't turn out to be an international health crisis. But it did reveal "the precarious state of local health departments" at a time when those same departments are feeling the pinch of government budget cuts.

Here's a key point:

A review by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in January noted great strides in preparedness but said many shortfalls remain. They include the ability to maintain public health functions such as food safety and daily needs during a pandemic, and the capacity to meet surges in health care demand and to strategically close schools.

Here at YorkCounts, we have made the point before that York County needs a countywide health department. This news story shows how difficult it would be to respond to a major public health crisis, even under the best circumstances.

Want to learn more? Go to Where's My County Health Department.

- Dan Fink

Good Gov Monthly - April 2009

Found on the blog at yorkcounts.org
April 2009

In this issue:

• Tragedy increases urgency of anti-gang work
• A snapshot from the Indicators Report: Idle youth
• IB charter school reaches milestone

Tragedy increases urgency of anti-gang work

The shooting death of 9-year-old Ciara Savage on Mother's Day showed in the starkest possible terms the need for a comprehensive approach to the problems that lead to gang violence. The county's anti-gang initiative, led by Beth Gill-MacDonald, will surely have more people willing to join its work. Safer York, the city's Weed and Seed anti-crime project, will find it easier to argue for continued support. Downtown Inc.'s effort to bring a more sophisticated approach to public safety should gain traction. The Stay in School project recommendations, due this fall from the United Way of York County and YorkCounts, hopefully will attract a little more attention. All of this will require the three Cs that David White talked about at the recent gang-prevention summit: cooperation, coordination and communication. Maybe Bev Mackereth, the county's new director of Human Services, and the next mayor of York - whoever that is - can begin a new period of ambitious, big-picture thinking to help these groups work together to develop a county plan to provide better education, more job opportunities and safer streets for the youth of York County.

A snapshot from the Indicators Report: Idle youth

The Indicators Committee added this measure to the 2009 report to show the number of youth who aren't working. These so-called "idle youth" are kids who dropped out of school or who graduated but haven't found a job or gone to college or a trade school. In the York-Hanover Metropolitan Statistical Area, 8.7 percent of youth ages 16 to 19 were considered idle by the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage rose to 13.3 percent for ages 19 to 21. It's hard to draw many conclusions, since there's no previous data to use for comparison. But when hundreds of young people are out of school or not working, they are the most likely to turn to gangs, crime and drugs. Finding these kids, training them and helping them find decent-paying jobs is one of the education recommendations from YorkCounts' Metro-York group.

IB charter school reaches milestone

The effort to increase educational opportunities for York residents reached a significant milestone in April. A public K-12 charter school, one designed around what's known as an International Baccaleurate curriculum, identified two likely funding sources that will allow the YorkCounts Educational Opportunities committee to hire a consultant and begin considering potential sites in the city. If the effort succeeds, city residents will have a new option (see update) for a public education, in addition to the York City School District, and the first in central Pennsylvania with an IB program. It is hoped that an IB charter school will also make it more attractive for middle-class families to live in York, and their children would, in theory, help break up the concentrated poverty that interferes with student performance in the existing city schools.

Update, 5/21: To clarify, this IB school would be the fourth charter school in the city. Crispus Attucks YouthBuild, Lincoln Edison and New Hope Academy also operate as charter schools, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools.

- Dan Fink

A plea for help

Everywhere I go this week, it comes up: the crossfire killing of 9-year-old Ciara Savage in York on Mother's Day. This tragedy has reverberated through York County like a news event seldom does. And it demands action. Earlier this month, Penn State York held a gang summit, and some powerful speakers made the case that York County needs to find ways to keep our kids safe. But all of their eloquence and passion couldn't come close to making the point the way this senseless death does. And this single incident is tied into a whole range of other issues that stand in the way of making York County a better place to live: improving educational opportunities; providing safe community places for at-risk youth; creating good-paying, family-sustaining jobs that lift people out of poverty; and establishing more affordable housing opportunities across the county.

But on the most basic level, I'll say it again: We need to keep our kids safe. How are we going to do it? The time has passed for letting the passionate volunteers on the gang-prevention coalition try to figure it out by themselves. That group will likely be the leader in developing a broad response, and its next meeting is at 8 a.m. Friday in Penn State York's Conference Center. To join that effort, call Beth Gill-MacDonald at 495-7267 or send e-mail to bxg5@aol.com.

On Sunday, a unity march will bring two sets of marchers to Continental Square: one coming down Duke Street from Crispus Attucks, the other coming down Beaver Street from the Jefferson Center.

On Monday, Safer York, York's Weed and Seed anti-crime program, will host a public forum at Community Progress Council. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at CPC, 226 E. College Ave., York.

The work won't end there. In the days and months ahead, the entire community needs to be involved, from the family in Dover to the cop on the street in Shrewsbury to the business owner in Hanover. In 10 years, will we be able to say this was a turning point? Will we be able to say we finally started dealing with the problems of poverty and gangs, as well as the cycle of violence they perpetuate?

We all have to ask ourselves: What can I do to help?

- Dan Fink

Momentum builds for helping youth, fighting gangs

More than 200 people packed the Penn State York Conference Center May 1 for a gang prevention summit. They heard David White detail the results of his needs assessment, which had these two key conclusion: Gangs exist in every area of York County; and the current lack of coordination, collaboration and communication between service agencies frustrates, even angers, those who participated in the study. They heard Bev Mackereth, York County's new director of Human Services, who pledged to have the county take the lead in administering Pennsylvania Youth Surveys for all 16 county school districts. Here's why the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency says that's important:

The data gathered in PAYS serve two primary needs. First, the results provide school administrators, state agency directors, legislators and others with critical information concerning the changes in patterns of the use and abuse of these harmful substances and behaviors. Second, the survey assesses risk factors that are related to these behaviors and the protective factors that help guard against them. This information allows community leaders to direct prevention resources to areas where they are likely to have the greatest impact.

Finally, they heard York Police Capt. Wes Kahley, who provided the welcome. Kahley has been the leader here working for more than a decade in a multi-county effort to confront problems associated with gang activity. He is truly a York County hero. And the quest to find solutions to help our young people deal with gangs and drugs and a host of other issues is truly a York County problem requiring, as White noted, coordination, collaboration and communication.

What next steps do you think should the county take in this effort?

Update, 5/11: Authorities call city girl's death gang related. Read the York Daily Record story here.


- Dan Fink

Who do you call about swine flu?

Well, York County, where do you go if you have a question about a possible swine flu epidemic? If you're one of the 45,000 people that live in York, you might try the City Health Bureau. The Web site doesn't have any news on swine flu. And the rest of York County, about 300,000 of you, probably doesn't even know the city has its own health bureau.

So you might turn to your county government. And the county does have a new site, Ready York, under the Office of Emergency Management, which has some really good resources. But it doesn't have anything related to swine flu, so the mechanism for providing breaking news announcements may not be, um, ready, yet.

Maybe you go to the state Department of Health. It took some poking around, but I finally found the Health Alert Network, which posted two swine flu alerts over the weekend. The news there: No confirmed cases found in Pennsylvania, yet.

No, the one local health entity that had easy-to-find news on its Web site about swine flu was Wellspan, which directed people to contact their primary care physician and to avoid visiting patients in a hospital for seven days after the start of symptoms. It also gave a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to learn more.

How do other communities handle something like this? Well, in Lorain County, Ohio, where a 9-year-old boy was confirmed with a mild case, I quickly found the Web site for the Lorain County General Health District. The home page had an alert posted that gave details of the boy's case and noted that the boy's school district had notified parents and set up a phone bank to answer questions.

York County doesn't have this kind of go-to resource. It's kind of scary that a lot of people here would probably have no idea where to find answers about a potential epidemic or pandemic.

And that's one really big reason why YorkCounts supports the creation of a countywide health department.

Do you think York County is ready to handle a major public health issue quickly and effectively?

Update, 4 p.m. 4/28: Since yesterday, the state Health Department put up a large link at the top of its home page. The link goes to a wealth of information about swine flu. Also in the past 24 hours, Wellspan added an FAQ on swine flu and a link to the state Health Department site. And this reminder: For those who agree that a county health department is a good idea, the folks at the Healthy York County Coalition have an online petition to sign at http://www.wheresmycountyhealthdept.com/.

Update 2, 10:30 a.m. 4/30: The American Red Cross has a great primer on flu preparedness. Check it out here, and click on the flu checklist link.

- Dan Fink

Lessons in fighting obesity

I mentioned last week the ambitious effort being undertaken by some local folks to improve health care for people with chronic diseases. And YorkCounts, through its Community Solutions committee, has made fighting obesity one of two priorities for community action (the other is improving student performance in reading and math), based on the 2009 Indicators Report. Turns out we're not the only place fighting obesity. A recent article in USA Today tells the story of Somerville, Mass., where town leaders have created a program to reduce childhood obesity and promote healthful living that could serve as model for communities around the country.

Somerville's experiment began in 2002, when researchers from Tufts University decided to find out whether efforts to promote exercise and healthful eating could help prevent obesity among schoolchildren.

The program, Shape Up Somerville, was first aimed at elementary school kids, 44% of whom were either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

With grants from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and philanthropic groups, the researchers had schools replace French fries, candy, soda and other unhealthful foods with fresh fruit, skim milk and other nutritious choices. The city added bike lanes and pedestrian crosswalks to encourage people to exercise. Restaurants offered more healthful items on menus; residents planted community gardens.

After just one year, the schoolchildren first targeted showed results: They gained 15% less weight than other average kids their age. Twice as many people were riding bikes along the community's bike paths.

"It's powerful to see those numbers change like that," says Nicole Rioles, who runs the ongoing Shape Up program

The folks in Somerville are showing it can be done. If they can do it, so can we.

- Dan Fink

Call to action: Gang prevention

If you thought gangs were just a city problem, think again. An upcoming forum on gangs will detail gang activity all around York County and explore strategies for preventing gangs that have worked elsewhere and what could work here. The York County Gang Prevention Initiative community forum will have two experts in gangs and gang prevention delivering keynotes. Todd Negola is a clinical/forensic psychologist with 18 years of experience working with gang populations. Errika Jones is the director of The Gang-Free Schools and Communities Initiative in Pittsburgh schools. The forum will also include a breakout session to brainstorm solutions to gang scenarios. To register, go here; there is no cost to attend. For details, contact Beth Gill-MacDonald at 717-495-7267 or bxg5@aol.com.

How much of a problem are gangs in your school district?

- Dan Fink

Housing Summit: What comes next?

The Healthy York County Coalition's Housing Task Force met today, and one of the things we talked about was the York Housing Summit, held in March. The task force put together an ambitious program for the 140 people who attended the summit, and one result was a long list of actions that might be taken to improve the environment for affordable housing in York County. A subcommittee will be assembled to prioritize the action steps and to identify which agencies could potentially make them happen.

Here are the five steps that generated the most support at the summit:

• Create a county-based homeless planning group.
• Agree on the need for a of countywide Human Relation Commission
• Improve efforts regarding discharge planning from jails and other public institutions
• Agree on the need for re-entry housing for those with criminal records
• Increase inter-agency training, coordination and cooperation.

What one or two things do you think should happen to create more affordable housing opportunities in York County?

- Dan Fink

Good Gov Monthly

Found on the blog at yorkcounts.org
March 2009

In this issue:

• Community summit draws record crowd
• A snapshot from the Indicators Report: Obesity
• Speaking of a healthy York
• Group assembles for public safety study

Community summit draws record crowd

YorkCounts is involved in a lot of different community activities, but at its core, we’re trying to do two things: build a wider audience for the Indicators Report and generate more discussion about solutions to problems identified in the report. If attendance at the most recent YorkCounts summit is any indication, the audience is growing. Nearly 300 people squeezed into the Yorktowne Hotel’s Continental Ballroom March 20 to hear an update on the work of YorkCounts. They heard Bob Woods give a brief overview of the information in the 2009 Indicators Report, which is now beginning to offer trend-over-time context to some of the benchmarks. They also met some of the folks who have done a lot of great work on behalf of YorkCounts in the past 10 years. We thanked Don Gogniat and Austin Hunt for outstanding board service, and gave Bob Woods a special volunteer award for his contributions to an array of YorkCounts efforts. We also recognized officials from Spring Garden and Springettsbury townships for the work they did in merging their respective paid fire departments in 2008. It’s the kind of visionary regional thinking that YorkCounts advocates.

A snapshot from the Indicators Report: Obesity

What it says: The York County number has stayed flat, around 25 percent since 2001, which is good. But the fact one out of every four county residents is obese is alarming. And, according to data from the Healthy York County Coalition, if you include the number of overweight residents, the number of York County residents with a weight problem goes up to 67.5 percent. Those raw numbers, combined with the fact that obesity contributes to chronic health problems such as diabetes and hypertension, reinforce the need to find ways to get residents healthier: giving them new tools for exercise, proper diet and health literacy.

Speaking of a healthy York

The Healthy York County Coalition held its annual Health Assessment Community Forum April 3. Robin Rohrbaugh’s group presented lots of great data from David Polk and the Lancaster County consulting firm Holleran on how York County stacks up across a variety of health indicators. Attendees representing several county health stakeholders also heard updates from the coalition's various task forces, including the exciting stuff from Aligning Forces for Quality. That group is almost a year into work intended to improve the delivery of health care services in York County. The four-year, $1.6 million project is funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The York-Adams county area was one of only 14 communities nationwide to receive the grant. We applaud the effort.

Group assembles for public safety study

Representatives from nine York County municipalities participated in the first meeting of a public safety study workgroup. The April 1 meeting was the first step toward a study that will hopefully produce a wealth of information about the pros and cons of regionalizing police services in York and surrounding suburban townships. York County is already home to several regional police departments, each providing services to a half-dozen or so municipalities. The study will try to find out if there are other ways to consolidate services across York and its surrounding suburban townships and what the costs and cost savings might be.

* * *
The YorkCounts E-Newsletter is written by Dan Fink. Reach YorkCounts by mail at 105 Leader Heights Road, Suite 2, York, PA 17403; by telephone at 717/650-1460; or by e-mail at yorkcounts@gmail.com. Visit YorkCounts online at yorkcounts.org.

A healthy update

The Healthy York County Coalition held its annual community forum today. It was a full morning: lots of great data from David Polk and Lisa Lehman on how York County compares to the state, the nation and to comparable counties; updates from the coalition's various task forces; and a group exercise to see what participants thought should be the community's top priorties for improving public health.

- Dan Fink

'Home' in York

Towson University film professor Brian Plow teaches in Maryland, but he lives in York. He followed the city's quest for a baseball stadium with more han casual interest. He became intrigued by a process that brought a major piece of urban redevelopment to the downtown, but with a price that 15 property owners were displaced using eminent domain. His curiousity eventually led to "Home," a documentary about the residents who lived in the neighborhood that was replaced by the stadium. Plow finished the film last year and had a screening in York in the fall. On Friday, the Capitol Theatre will host another screening, and Plow will be on hand to answer questions and participate in a panel discussion with Blanda Nace, Kim Bracey and Cameron Texter. The movie starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission is by donation; bring a canned good for the York County Food Bank.

The movie highlights several issues related to the work of YorkCounts, including the concentration of poverty and having a strong urban core. What do you think about how economic development happens in York?

- Dan Fink

A York mention in the Wall Street Journal

Here's the headline from an article today's Wall Street Journal:
Many Smaller Cities Dodge Crunch in Consumer Lending

The story looks at data from Equifax and Moody's related to mortgages and home-equity, credit-card, auto and student loans. York shows up at No. 8 in the accompanying chart of the cities where consumer loan balances have grown the most. The numbers suggest that big cities and rural areas have been hurt the most by tighter consumer lending, but mid-sized cities like York have done OK because of "more disciplined economic-development strategies in those cities, more diverse employment and lower costs." Those are all things that show up in the YorkCounts Indicators Report.

For the full story, click here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123837422461168013.html#mod=rss_Page_One

- Dan Fink

YDR takes closer look at Indicators

York Daily Record editor Jim McClure will take a look at some of the new YorkCounts indicators in a series of posts on his Town Square blog. His first post went up Saturday and deals with York County's tobacco use, tying it back to York County's history as a major cigar manufacturing area throughout the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century.

Relaunching the YorkCounts blog

Hello, fans of YorkCounts.

The blog has been quiet since Beau Boughamer left in the fall, so there's lots of stuff going on that you might not have heard much about. I'll try to post once or twice a day with different things, usually with an eye on updates about YorkCounts' various projects or to talk up good government issues.

I'll use Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about YorkCounts, so keep an eye out for that.

Thanks for tuning in.
Dan