CLEARFIELD – The inaugural meeting of the Curwensville Borough Economic Development Committee opened to a full house at the Curwensville Borough building. The public meeting was headed by its chairman Sam Ettaro, a Curwensville Borough board member.
The CBEDC’s plan is to meet regularly and on a monthly basis provide Curwensville Borough Board the results of its discussions. This meeting was planned to follow the successful format of the Curwensville Lake Authority’s Master Site Plan meeting. Members of local government groups, community groups and businesses were present on official duty and as just public citizens.
Ettaro presented everyone with a hand out called “The Four Classic Approaches to Community & Economic Development”. The handout presented four basic approaches, or ways of thinking, towards development: focusing on industrial growth, preserving community character, focus on new technologies. Ettaro stated that all the community’s eggs should be put into one approach’s basket.
“None of these are better than another,” said Ettaro.
Public comments and guiding by Ettaro focused around a few big points with a scattering of other ideas: Curwensville’s future depends on its youth either staying or coming back after college to jobs, Curwensville needs restaurants and work in general, it has tourism potential in the wineries and Curwensville Lake, and Public Access Television was a controversial subject with the group present with few supporters.
All the approaches but the industrial approach had positive discussion towards those ends. The industrial approach had a minimal presence at the meeting. There was a brief burst about putting a recycling center at the tannery site and concerns about putting a plant in view of the school.
Also, a later comment by field representative Rick Solomon, “As a percentage of GDP the U.S. manufactures more than it ever has, but it employees less [people].”
Solomon’s point was that the youth of rural areas can’t hope to graduate high school and go work for the local mill for the rest of their lives. The youth now are leaving their homes for the higher education needed to be competitive and communities need something to bring them back to their home towns once they finish college.
Ettaro spoke highly on utilizing the new technologies. He used Apple and Facebook as examples of how technology mixed with a fertile atmosphere for entrepreneurship could create big things. Apple was founded by two college students who sold computers made out of wood out of Steve Jobs’ mother’s garage. Facebook started from a small college social webpage to becoming a major influence on the world in business and politics.
Curwensville Mayor Holly Komonczi and Kenny Starr both were proponents in support of developing tourism to the area. After prompting from Komonczi, Starr stated that 80 percent of the income at his winery came from out of the area visitors. Some of which have come from as far as Spain and Russia.
Starr stated that he used to recommend these out of the area guests down to the Branding Iron to eat. With its closing the options have been limited for where to recommend people to go for dining who may only have credit cards on them.
A dining facility would be something that would help the local community directly and serve as a way to give another source of income to the community from the tourists that come through Curwensville for the lake and other reasons.
Community character had proponents in those who propped up the lake, Irwin park and the walkways.
Social infrastructure was discussed with the topic of the civic center and providing community grants to help businesses. A façade grant was mentioned specifically as a starting point.
With such a diverse crowd offering their opinions there was also dissent among a few present. When public access television was mention the meeting had to be abruptly put back on course after complaints of either its cost or kids are too distracted with newer technologies to bother with just television.
There was debate on how Curwensville focused should this committee look to be. Some questioned if it was another group doing something already being acted on by other community groups from Curwensville to the county level, some thought it came off as too isolationist and on the other side some present expressed concerns about Curwensville citizens taking money out of the community to Clearfield.
Overall, most of the commentary was positive and there will be additional meetings.
