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Committee forms to chart Connellsville’s future

By Jackie Beranek 4 min read

CONNELLSVILLE – The first pre-meeting for “Charting the Future of Our Community” was held Friday at Bud Murphy’s with nine members present. Lucinda Baron Robbins, extension educator in economic and community development at Penn State Cooperative Extension, explained to committee members how to set the course for the program in a round-table discussion atmosphere.

Participants discussed what they like about the community today and what they see in Connellsville’s future. Robbins urged members to enlist at least 20 to 30 more people who would be willing to serve on the committee.

“We need a cross section of the community,” said Robbins. “We need business leaders, educators, parents, youth, elected officials, health care providers, civic organizers and an array of other interested citizens including the loyal opposition.”

Robbins said participants are expected to attend four, three-hour strategic visioning sessions and assume a leadership role for implementing the community action plan.

Robbins said it has been a number of years since Connellsville has taken on the task of strategic planning.

She additionally said that this process allows city leaders to engage the community in a way that provides some focus to people’s desires and sets specific goals and objectives down to the nitty-gritty of who is going to do what, by what date, and what’s going to be the result.

“People are always interested in jobs and economic development and Connellsville has been hit really hard over the past couple of years,” said Robbins. “So that is definitely a challenge. We talked a lot about children, about young people in general and about health conditions.”

Robbins said the committee would really look broadly at the quality of life, and as they get deeper into the process, they will have the opportunity to examine what is actually going on in the city. After that, the committee will make decisions as to what kind of changes they want to make compared to where they want to go.

Robbins said what makes her program different from a traditional strategic planning process is that the charting process describes what a community hopes to become rather than simply finding its roots in a mission statement.

“We believe that successful communities have illustrated creative local efforts in the past that were often fueled by a positive attitude and guided by a shared vision for the future,” said Robbins. “The charting program helps define a vision and find direction.”

Connellsville Councilman Brad Geyer said he believes that this program should have been started a long time ago because the city is playing catch-up at this point.

“This is something we need to move forward with now,” said Geyer. “The key to this is community involvement. This is our community, not my community as a council member. We all have to get involved and this is the community’s chance to tell us where they want the city and our region to go.”

Geyer said people who are interested in participating on the committee could call city hall at 724-628-2020 or Robbins at 724-438-0111 or 724-430-3063 or e-mail her at ljb16@psu.edu.

Geyer said this is a very critical stage for the city and getting this plan enacted and moving forward is really going to open up the door to a lot of good things. He additionally said he would like to see the city’s zoning updated to make it more in tune with modern times.

“We need to see if the residents want us to focus on business and adapting our city to encourage and increase business and the industrial-type things or if they want us to go more towards a recreational-type city guided more towards tourism,” he said.

Geyer said the city could capitalize on the bike trail and activities surround the river and Yough Park.

Mayor Judy Reed said she was very pleased with Friday’s turnout and the interest expressed by those assembled. She also said a couple of key issues surfaced like abandoned buildings and absentee landlords that need to be addressed.

Reed said the committee should look at the city’s demographics and residents’ abilities to continue to pay the bills for the city, which is the tax base. She said the wonder of the plan is that it will go the direction that the participants determine.

“I think the plan will make everyone aware of just what needs to be done,” said Reed. “This is our community, so here’s the opportunity for residents to be a part of it and take responsibility for it.”

Robbins said the money for the projects will more than likely come from grants.

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