Residents asked to share views on Brownsville’s future
BROWNSVILLE – Area residents are being invited to share their visions for Brownsville’s future this week through a series of focus group meetings and a public forum scheduled for Thursday evening. The information gathered through the public meeting and from 13 focus group meetings to be held Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be used to put together an economic development project for Brownsville through the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).
The borough was selected as the only site in Pennsylvania and one of only seven in the 12-state ARC for a technical assistance grant “to identify and implement a project of critical concern” in the community, according to the ARC project overview.
Team Brownsville, a 10-member panel involving community members from various backgrounds, has been formed to carry out the project identified through the focus group meetings and community meeting. The entire process should take about two years.
“The ARC wanted to go to a distressed area where there was the capacity (for change): leadership, cooperation and people in the community willing to participate in the development,” said Lou Orslene, the executive director of the Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation (BARC).
Orslene said the ARC had already been working with BARC on the South Side Renaissance project and was familiar with some of the work already done in Brownsville through contact with the state Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).
Orslene said the Team Brownsville members attended a leadership workshop in Athens, Ohio, in December.
“We all have a list of projects we’d like to see done. We were cautioned by the DCED and the ARC to put our ideas aside and hear from the community first,” Orslene said.
Consultants from Civic Engineering, a national firm hired by the ARC, will facilitate the focus group meetings. The groups include historic, civic, business, ministerial association, education/youth, government, professionals, human services, engineers, architects and transportation, and large community institutions including the hospital, school board and universities.
Orslene said the idea behind gathering ideas for concerns and suggestions from the various focus groups is to find the common denominator that runs through all the segments of the community.
“We’ll be scouring through all the information we receive from the focus groups for the trends,” Orslene said.
The focus group meetings are by invitation. There will be a public meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Sons of Italy on Race Street for input from all sectors of the community and the general public.
“I think it’s vital that as many people get involved in this process as possible,” said John Evans, one of the Team Brownsville members.
Evans is on the Brownsville Area School Board, the Brownsville/Luzerne Park Board, supervisor of the Fayette County Careerlink and a member of the Brownsville Rotary Club.
“We just can’t sit by and do nothing, waiting for whatever…We need to start working with what we have,” Evans said.
Evans said public meetings generally don’t draw a very large audience, but he is hoping Thursday’s meeting will be different.
“We need a diverse group of people to make this happen,” Evans said.
Orslene said the public meeting will last about an hour and a half, starting with a brief overview of the ARC program and introduction of Team Brownsville and the consultants from Civic Engineering. The main purpose of the meeting, however, is to listen to the public, Orslene said.
“We will request information about Brownsville’s past and why people think we got where we are. We’ll look at the current situation in Brownsville and we’ll be looking at potential solutions,” Orslene said.
Orslene said the focus groups that will meet this week are a traditional approach to community problem solving, grouping community leaders by profession. Orslene said he would like to see a second round of focus group meetings in the future based on age groups. Orslene said people in their 20’s and 30’s are just starting out in their careers and family life and are making decisions on whether or not to stay in the area, while those in their 40’s and 50’s have generally already decided to stay and may have different concerns. Senior citizens may have yet another perspective on what is needed in the area, Orslene said.
Orslene said once a project is agreed upon, the idea will be taken back to the community for review before it is implemented.
“We want to make sure we heard correctly what the community wanted,” Orslene said.
Orslene said the ARC, the DCED and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Planning Commission have made a commitment to Brownsville to either fund or help find funding for the selected community project. A two-year action plan will also be developed to bring the project to fruition.