DCED’s “Champ” Holman champions rural development/By Martha Knight

SMETHPORT—“I’m on your side,” Clyde “Champ” Holman assured the community representatives who attended a town meeting in Smethport, last Wednesday.

Accompanied by several other Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) officials, the Deputy Secretary appeared briefly in the Court of Angels banquet room during a whirlwind tour through the area.

His remarks offered little in the way of announcements or plans or promises of new funding, but rather focused on encouraging local community leaders to become more vocal, and to interact with state and federal government in various ways.

“I’m on your side,” Holman said, encouraging listeners to email him directly using his cholman@pa.gov email address. Going through layers of bureaucracy to reach someone who can and will work on a problem “cuts into time, getting the process done.”

Process was what irked a number of locals in the audience. “Opportunities dwindle,” lamented Susan Carlson, a leader in the Port Allegany Area Economic Development Corporation, and long a proponent of downtown revitalization. “Things change. Our Main Streets have empty storefronts.

Carlson pointed out that even when tenants’ businesses close up, building owners still must pay property taxes and maintain the buildings. Prospective entrepreneurs face “too big a hurdle” in some cases, because of burdensome regulations.

Rural locations face the additional burden of extra distance between communities, “We are too far apart to band together,” Carlson said.

“What can we do?” Holman asked, urging that locals contact DCED with specific requests and ideas about how the state can be involved.

Norwich Township Butch Schaffer said, “Government should get out of the way.”

Holman quickly interjected, “You are the government,” then asked Schaffer to continue.

“I look at some of these projects,” Schaffer said. “Common sense has been killed dead…It costs (the community or entrepreneur) $200 to get $50.”

Holman responded, “Who do you think writes those regulations?” He mentioned the role of legislative guidelines in the regulatory process, and counseled, “You’ve got to get in their ears and start telling them” about the problems and needs of the local community.

“Up here we don’t need that much regulation,” Carlson remarked.

Richard Kallenborn, Port Allegany Borough Manager, pointed out that stricter highway rules coupled with the distances in rural areas bring about serious dislocation and long detours.

For example, a detour to avoid “one bridge out here, you may have to travel 30 miles,” Kallenborn said. Recently a number of bridges have been reclassified as to weight limits, effectively closing them to traffic greater than three tons, hampering area drilling operations related to the Marcellus Shale, along with logging. Emergency vehicles such as fire trucks will also have difficulty reaching many locations where bridges are being closed to them.

Holman said that Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch is trying to force legislators to appropriate more money for inspections and repairs of highway infrastructure.

Dusti Dennis, Executive Director of the McKean County Housing and Redevelopment Authority, and Gay DeGolier, Community Development Coordinator for the authority, engaged with Holman in discussion of the changing, and sometimes onerous, guidelines for projects and funding. The recently organized McKean County Blight Task Force was another topic they launched.

Holman’s replies touched on Act 90, passed when he was a legislator, and the possibility of “land banking.”

Sharen Horvath of the Inn on Maple Street described the paperwork burden government requirements add to a small business. Being “shackled” to those tasks hour after hour tempts a business owner to consider working for another employer, she said.

Holman challenged her and other business people to “educate us.”

DCED Acting Regional Director Alison Schmidt commented that there is no easy fix for the regulatory requirements and challenges presented by sparsity. The Erie-based official mentioned changing technology and its impact on the kinds of business that can do well in rural areas. “Smethport used to be known for the Christmas store,” she recalled. Communities planning in isolation “in rural Pennsylvania are the ones that will get left behind,” Schmidt said.

Also accompanying Holman on the tour were DCED’s Executive Director Peter Zug, and Ed Fosnaught, DCED Regional Local Government Policy Specialist.

Concerning Fosnaught, Kallenborn said, “We trained him,” referring to Fosnaught’s years in the Port Allegany area and service as Pittsburgh Corning Corporation’s production manager at the local plant.