Mark you calendars

I wanted to mention a couple of community events coming up that are worth your attention.

7:45 a.m. Nov. 5: Family Issues Roundtable meeting will feature York County Truancy Coordinator Leigh Dalton talking about "Truancy in York County: Issues, Players and Solutions." The meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn Conference Center, 2000 Loucks Road, near the West Manchester Mall. Cost is $15, and pre-registration is due by Nov. 1. For details, contact Alan Vandersloot, United Way of York County, at 771-3806 or vandersloota@unitedway-york.org.

11 a.m. Nov. 7: Gifts That Give Hope, a holiday gift fair, will offer a Web site and a live event to help raise money for more than 20 York County nonprofit organizations. The gift fair, sponsored and organized by the Women’s Giving Circle of the York County Community Foundation, will allow holiday shoppers the chance to buy gifts to support the community-building work of nonprofits, including YorkCounts. People who cannot attend the fair in person can shop online through the end of the year at www.giftsthatgivehope.org/york. For more information, call Mary Lou Alsentzer at 683-3929.

6 p.m. Nov. 9: The York County delegation of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives will host a free energy fair to help consumers deal with expiring caps on electricity rates and to offer information how to make homes and businesses more energy efficient. Speakers scheduled to appear include John Hanger, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection; Sonny Popowsky, Consumer Advocate of Pennsylvania; and Marcus Sheffer, energy consultant. For details on the fair, contact the office of Rep. Eugene DePasquale at 848-9595.


7 p.m. Nov. 17: Building One Pennsylvania is hosting a screening of "The New Metropolis," a two-part documentary that explores the challenges faced by older suburban communities and points toward solutions for their revitalization. The film will be accompanied by small-group discussions and a panel discussion. Building One PA is an emerging coalition of community leaders from across the state working to stabilize and revitalize their communities through the direct engagement and mobilization of their fellow citizens. Register in advance by sending an e-mail to events@yorkcounts.org. For details, call YorkCounts at 650-1460.

- Dan Fink

Thoughts on suburban blight

The Lancaster Sunday News published a story about blight Sunday, but it took a different approach. It wrote about Columbia Avenue to the west of Lancaster. Folks from York County might know that stretch of road as Route 462.

This is suburbia. Except it's not the sparkling suburbia of new developments and power centers with huge big-box retail and fancy chain restaurants. This is 50-year-old suburbia, home of the county's first McDonald's and various strip shopping centers. And it's in pretty bad shape.

Between Stone Mill Road and Rohrerstown Road, a distance of less than a mile, are at least 11 vacant buildings or empty storefronts. Some are in deteriorating condition. Weeds peek through cracked pavement even at sites that are open for business.

And how did this happen?

David Schuyler, a professor of American studies at Franklin & Marshall College, offered a quick summation:

Suburbs supplanted cities; now newer suburbs supplant older ones, and the Columbia Avenue corridor is experiencing "the same difficulties — loss of long-standing anchor tenants, the leasing to lesser, more transient businesses, the 'for lease' signs, and declining property values — that afflicted downtown in the 1950s and 1960s," Schuyler said.

This hard-to-fight trend is only part of the problem. Another difficulty lies in the fact that local officials are limited in how they can respond. The story also suggests that they don't work together effectively across municipal boundaries to do regional planning.

In part because the road straddles two different municipalities, a plan is hard to come by. In addition, said John May, a Manor Township supervisor, suburban officials have few tools to tackle vacancies and blight.

"We watch this closely at the township, but there is little we can do if there is no nuisance or threat to health, safety and welfare," May said. "It is hard to watch as this Columbia Avenue corridor slowly wastes away."

This shows clearly how older communities suffer because of the current government policies related to development and zoning. And that was one of the main points for the recent Building One Pennsylvania Conference. Because until policy makers in Harriburg understand that there are hundreds of suburban townships across the state experiencing the same kind of decline, conditions will not change. And more corridors will slowly waste away.
- Dan Fink

Building One PA signals start of movement

On a hot Friday a couple of weeks ago, at a college campus named for a man who won a legislative victory to protect educational opportunity for all Pennsylvanians, a movement began.

More than 650 people from all corners of Pennsylvania convened July 16 in Lancaster, at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, for the first Building One Pennsylvania Conference. It was a diverse group: white, black, Latino, business, labor, the faith community, members of school boards and municipal boards. They came from the southwest corner of the state and from the northeast, from Pottstown to Penn Hills.

They heard speakers and panel discussions make the argument that some have been making for years: that older communities in Pennsylvania - our urban centers, first-ring suburbs and boroughs - have been hollowed out by decades of state and federal policies that have favored new development and subsidized sprawl at the expense of these established core communities.

What was new at this event was that the discussion was happening within the context of a new organizing structure, one linked to various civic and business groups in regions across the state that have come together to advocate on common issues. The convening partners for the event included Good Schools Pennsylvania, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, the Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project, the Pennsylvania Council of Churches and YorkCounts.

These groups and the hundreds of other organizations that sent representatives agree on a couple of basic ideas. Crumbling infrastructure isn’t just a problem in one older city, borough or first-ring suburb; it’s happening in older communities and now even many suburban townships across the state. Struggling school districts, overwhelmed by the twin challenges of poverty and a declining tax base, aren’t just a problem in Norristown, York or Wilkinsburg; they exist in scores of communities across the state.

The people in attendance realized they have strength in numbers. In Allegheny County, for example, one speaker noted the significance of the shared problems faced by Pittsburgh and its 35 inner-ring neighbors. A lot of people live there and have jobs there. A number of legislators represent that area. Multiply that for various regions across the state, and there is one clear conclusion: These linked groups represent a growing political force.

And it appears that political leadership from both parties is paying attention. State Sen. Ted Erickson (R-Delaware and Chester counties), chairman of the Senate Majority Policy Committee, expressed his support for the coalition’s efforts to address these important issues. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster County), indicated he, too, was willing to help advance a policy agenda that would reverse the decline experienced by so many municipalities and school districts across Pennsylvania over the past half century.

The work that has been done to date to build this statewide coalition is energizing, and the initial reaction from some of our key legislative leaders is encouraging. In the end, though, success will be measured by the coalition’s ability to bring about policy changes in Harrisburg that will benefit all communities within our great Commonwealth. I hope that more people will join together in this effort to bring a better day in Pennsylvania.

- Dan Fink

Column makes case for Building One PA

There's about two weeks left before Building One Pennsylvania, and the media mentions are starting to build. The lastest is a spot-on column from Lancaster Online. Jeff Hawkes does a good job of capturing the thinking behind the diverse mix of organizations from across the state coming together around a couple of key issues.

He starts out trying to explain why Lancaster - and, by extension, York and Harrisburg and cities across the state - are struggling.

"The issue has nothing to do with whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge and everything to do with long-standing, deep-rooted state and federal policies that favor new roads and development outside cities and towns and discourage annexation and regional approaches that give older communities a fighting chance.

With cities and towns in every corner of Pennsylvania hurting because of policies beyond their control, they and their advocates are seeing the need to come together and explore a common agenda of solutions."

So how do groups like YorkCounts and Good Schools Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches find common ground?

"The conveners of the summit include 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project and YorkCounts — organizations that focus on rational land-use policies and effective municipal governance.

But the scope of regional equity also encompasses the missions of organizations such as Pennsylvania Council of Churches and Good Schools Pennsylvania, both of which are also conveners of the summit.

'How Pennsylvania funded education has not only failed students but contributed to the blighting of communities and sprawl,' said Good Schools' Janis Risch in explaining her organization's interest in the summit.

If the summit is successful, said Marilyn Wood of 10,000 Friends, then advocates of various causes — public education, affordable housing, transit, the environment — will see how they all win if they join forces to reverse the decline of urban Pennsylvania."

That's really the bottom line here: Giving people a place to come together and exert some influence over public policy that has too long shoved older communities to the side.

Do you want to see municipal budgets continue to be strained and school taxes continue to go up? Or do you want to add your voice to the call for changing a broken system? Building One Pennsylvania is July 16 at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster. Go here to register. Do it today.

- Dan Fink

Last call for film - and a reminder about Building One PA

The screening for "The New Metropolis" is 7 p.m. tomorrow (June 22) at HACC's York Campus. It's free, and there should be plenty of seats in the Glatfelter Community Room. And don't forget to register for Building One Pennsylvania, the statewide summit on economic opportunity happening July 16 at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster.

Here's a blog post by Bill Dodge at citiwire.net that gets to the heart of several issues that will be examined in the film and at the summit. Dodge writes about the regional future of local governments, making a couple of key points along the way.

First, he says now is the time for innovation, as local governments face the most challenging fiscal environment in decades.

"Local governments have hit financial ceilings, limiting their responses to any tough challenge. They have reached the limit of their capacity to sustain their services, maintain their facilities, and finance employee health care and retirement. Even if individual local governments want to continue to be independent of their neighbors, they can no longer deny the need to work cooperatively to address their toughest challenges."

Then he points out that local governments have started working together in a variety of ways, but it all remains "piecemeal."

"Local governments have been reluctant to invest in creating sufficient ongoing capacity to take advantage of crosscutting opportunities and brunt common threats. Witness, for example, the response to the American Recovery and Revitalization Act. Some regions had already invested in cooperative plans and programs for transportation, emergency preparedness, weatherization, or broadband communications, and were prepared to take advantage of the largest infusion of federal funds in this and probably many decades to come. Yet many others had to play catch up and will probably not be as successful in securing adequate funds to address common challenges."

His advice: Orient local government around regional charters.

"... regional charter councils (would need) adequate staff and resources to address the tough challenges. (They) would also have access to predictable funding streams for implementing critical actions, including the ability to submit funding options to the public in regional referenda. They would engage regional stakeholders, from all sectors and the general public, but be controlled, or heavily influenced, by local governments. Most importantly, they would be held accountable by the public, such as through annual reports on their activities and periodic citizen reviews of their charters."

How does that approach sound? Anybody see any problems with it? Could there be a more effective and efficient way to operate local government in York County?

- Dan Fink

A film screening and a call to act

Our child abuse town hall is tonight, but we've already been thinking about the next event.

In the past 10 years, YorkCounts has worked to address, among other things, declining urban centers and struggling schools. We have advocated for fairer tax policies and more regional collaboration. We’re teaming up with organizations across the state to convene a statewide summit on issues such as declining urban centers, struggling schools, fairer tax policies and regional collaboration. The Building One Pennsylvania summit will be July 16 at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster.

To raise awareness of the event, YorkCounts and the York Campus of Harrisburg Area Community College will host a screening of "The New Metropolis." You might remember we showed portions of this film at our community summit in March and invited Lynn Cummings, whose work was featured in part of the film, to be our keynote speaker. On June 22, we'll show both parts of the documentary - "Cracks in the Pavement" and "The New Neighbors" - and have a Q&A session afterward. The film will start at 7 p.m. in HACC'S Glatfelter Community Room in the Cytec Building, 2161 Pennsylvania Ave., York. Admission is free.

The issues raised in the film are critical to all of York County. And the statewide summit has two goals: to give visibility during this critical election year to the common challenges faced by our communities and to launch an organizing structure for advancing the state and federal policy agenda that will revitalize and strengthen Pennsylvania.

BOPA has a modest registration fee of $15, which includes lunch, and the day will feature national experts on regional equity, land use, and municipal and school governance. Our partner organizations for this event include 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Good Schools Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council of Churches and the Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project. Advance registration is requested; here’s how to do it:

1. Go to http://tinyurl.com/BuildingOnePA and use the secure server to pay online by credit card;
2. Or download the PDF of the registration form at http://www.yorkcounts.org/ and follow the instructions to register by mail.

More information is available on Facebook by searching for the Building One Pennsylvania event. For any other questions, call 866-720-4086 or e-mail buildingonepa@gmail.com.

Remember: June 22 is the screening at HACC in York; July 16 is Building One Pennsylvania in Lancaster.

- Dan Fink