Former president Bill Clinton was in Beaver Falls yesterday to campaign for his wife, Hillary. (A shout out to the Beaver Falls Tiger Jazz Band which was fabulous entertaining the crowd before Clinton arrived.) I went to hear what he had to say as well as to see the 42nd President himself. Clinton gave a good speech, his usual, sans notes and speaking directly to the crowd. It was a typical Clinton speech, full of details showing a keen understanding of how things are connected. He covered the whole gamut of issues from Iraq to the economy. It was clear he and HRC realize that there is opportunity for the country to shift gears and become a leader in new manufacturing relating to reuse/recycling/new energy and many other facets coming from advances in science and medicine.  read more »

Yesterday as I was perusing the Beaver County Times’ voting guide, I looked over all the boroughs, townships and cities that have offices up for election. An astounding 64 offices, including almost all of the auditor positions, had a notation “no candidates filed”. For all the ranting, raving and complaining about favoritism, nepotism, fiscal irresponsibilty, no one was interested in auditor jobs that could act as a brake on these issues. It makes me wonder. How important could taxes be if no one wants to bother auditing how the money is spent? How important is “local control” if no one want to run for council? To me, this is hard proof the time has come to consolidate municipalities and regionalize services.  read more »

First, thank you to all who contributed ideas, information and discussion. You were a tremendous help. My first draft is complete and you can read it on page 2.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Note: Just putting this back to the top for the weekend.

PhillyDem  read more »

This week I have several questions for KP readers.

First, I’ve gotten several comments about the need for an
“anchor” business in the central business district. What do you think an anchor business is? A supermarket? A community garden? A restored movie house? A skateboard park?

Second, how do you build “community” or get townfolk to work together in the interest of their city?

Third, what planning tools are out there to help both government and community groups devise appropriate solutions?

Link to parts 1-4.

In part 3 of my ongoing project, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what a cash-strapped local gov’t could do to attract your start-up, small, mid-size or large business to its main business district.

If you’re new to this project, here are the links to Part 1 and
Part 2.

I recently moved back to western Pennsylvania and decided to
try and become more active in civic affairs. To that end I attended my first local commissioners meeting as a member of the general public. The first shock was that I was the only “public” there! Two others did come in, but didn’t stay long. There was no one from the local newspapers there either to report on the proceedings.

The business was rather routine and the commissioners struck me as competent, mostly no nonsense and focused on business at hand. As meetings go, it was pretty crisp and well-run.  read more »