If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

The more things change, the more they are the same. So say the French, and so we can observe by reading back issues of the paper.

Master Po counseled Grasshopper, “If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past.”

In the March 21, 1990 Reporter Argus the lead story on Page One updated readers on Jim Hosley’s continuing quest for a variance for the “commercial building at Mill and Main, the lower floor of which now houses the Reporter Argus.” Already Hosley had pled with the Zoning Hearing Board; already the board had postponed a decision, and it did so again. In time it denied the variance.

Hosley’s quest seemed quixotic, in that apartments weren’t allowed in the second floor areas of downtown commercial buildings. At least not right then. Traditionally they had been, and they were again, with the next zoning revision. But by then Hosley had lost time and money, and eventually he stopped paying taxes, and then the property was up for tax sale, and then it was purchased from the county repository by the McKean County Redevelopment Authority, which is having it demolished as soon as a demolition contractor is selected and gets to work on it.

Sometimes the building seemed haunted, when I was down there in the RA office at night, punching copy on a Mac Plus, using Joey Majot’s beloved PostScript parsing program, JustText. I looked out at the town through plate glass windows, seeing the Square and traffic and people walking about. Someone prowled restlessly upstairs, where there was no water or sewer service. It was the owner, camping out, and making sorties to the car wash and Sheetz across Mill, and listening to a radio.

Housing Authority, before you strike the fatal blow that fells the Grand Theater, think what you might be able to get for it, or what someone might be able to do with it, right now! Read the paper! There is an influx of workers who will be trucking and welding and constructing pipeline. There will be 300 or so folks needing shelter. We don’t have that many apartments, mobile homes, vacant houses, or even spare rooms available. I bet some enterprising entrepreneur, good at “flipping” big old structures or rehabbing them, could find a way to stack a couple dozen of those temporary residents in there.

Where are all the farm families that used to “keep hunters”? We accommodated six with ease, when I was a child. There were families who could board a dozen. If some of those homes are still around, they could welcome in these pipeline work crews, thinking of the construction period as an extended hunting season. Come to think of it, Randy and Lisa Hobbs’ “pool house” used to be chock-a-block with hunters when it was my great-uncle’s camp known as Robbins’ Nest. Take a few tenants home with you, Randy! Nearby there are at least three camps, aren’t there?

In that same issue of the RA, in another story starting just above the fold on Page One, a head says, “PAAEDC Looks Toward Future—Key Is More Promotion.” Do tell! Exactly what the Port Allegany Area Economic Corporation was saying Thursday night.

The PAAEDC of 24 years ago was sending 1,000 letters to wood-using manufacturers in North America. They were printing up quantities of brochures. Volunteers were going to attend the Clearfield County Fair and hand out information from a wood processing equipment company’s booth. PAAEDC’s president, Tom Causer, was enthused about the prospects of a particleboard company putting an operation in Turtlepoint. The Strategy Committee was headed by Jim Carlson.

This past week the PAAEDC, whose president is Jim Carlson, discussed how to promote the community to business and industry, and how to provide services to those enterprises that might want to site an operation here.

Social media and websites are essential, some declared. They need to get the attention of those younger mover-shakers, the ones who don’t read the paper.

But other members realized that even with the ubiquity of online access and communications devices, the printed word still packs a punch. One local official assured me that he reads the paper regularly. Of course he does! Of course people do, even if they have to take their turns reading the free copy at the library, senior center or diner. How else will they know when I get something wrong?

Seriously, the impact of a staff-written news story is still sufficient to capture attention and help area residents maintain awareness of what government and groups are doing, and lots of other stuff they need to know. For that matter, lettitors are effective, and among the most read features in a newspaper.

•    •    •

Welcome to Port Allegany!

If it hadn’t warmed the cockles of the CEO’s heart enough to hear the borough council quibble and squabble over a requested parking restriction at Maple Commons, to assist patients coming to the soon-to-open offices of the Olean Medical Group (OMG), think how wanted OMG must have felt when they were ticketed for using a Handicapped slot next to their new quarters last Tuesday.

In those particular slots, which people remark are nearly always vacant, someone from OMG had parked briefly to lug equipment and supplies into the new medical offices. All other spaces there were taken.

A vigilant local advocate for the handicapped contacted the police department. Under the circumstances the police had little choice but to ticket the vehicles. There wasn’t much opportunity for leeway, I imagine, although under other circumstances perhaps it would have been okay to give out a warning and ask that the offending vehicles be moved forthwith.

The fact that handicapped parking places may be vacant most of the time means they are working as they should. If they usually were full, that would mean we need  more spaces reserved for the mobility challenged. I am sure OMG will avoid parking in them henceforth forever.

Peace.