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By JERRY LYNOTT jlynott@leader.net
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Page: 1C
WILKES-BARRE – Business, labor, government and education leaders from
throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania convened Monday for an economic summit
with Gov. Ed Rendell and aired their concerns, needs and solutions to moving
the region ahead under his administration.
Invited participants to the five-hour program at Wilkes University briefed
the governor on issues ranging from small-business development to tourism and
mine reclamation to Main Street revitalization.
Rendell, seated at the center of the head table facing the audience,
accepted the input while promoting his plans to boost business and spur
economic development. It was the ninth of 10 regional meetings he has
scheduled.
At those meetings, Rendell was likely besieged with requests for help and
money just as he was here, noted Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty.
“We are in competition with the other sections of the state. We are in
competition with elsewhere in the United States,” Doherty said.
The region has to distinguish itself from the other regions vying for funds
by showing it has a better plan to use the money. “We have to identify
ourselves,” said Doherty.
Rendell agreed, saying consolidated efforts between public and private
agencies will be rewarded. “Those good deeds will be rewarded at least for
the next four years,” he said.
State Rep. John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke, worried that big economic
development projects would leave nothing for smaller communities such as those
in his legislative district to revitalize their downtowns and the residential
areas surrounding them.
But Rendell pointed to his plans to provide $7.5 million for a Main Street
Program to fund small-business development and tourism and $2.5 million for
his “Elm Street Program” to address housing, commercial and infrastructure
needs in neighborhoods.
“We want to do the big regional things,” he said. “But we also want to
do the smaller targeted things.”
Directly tied in to the region’s progress is reclamation of the
mine-scarred lands, said state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township.
He offered what he said was a constructive criticism to the governor on the
reactive approach taken by the offices of the Department of Environmental
Resources. What is needed is proactive strategic planning to address the
problem, he said.
“If we’re going to get anywhere we have to have a good plan and we have to
work together with the industrial development entities in our region,” said
Eachus.
More work has to be done on seeing his dream of Wilkes-Barre become a
cyber-city, said developer Thom Greco. He addressed the meeting on his plans
to run fiber-optic cable through the city’s steam heat pipes as a catalyst for
economic development through high technology.
Greco said he was invited to meet with summit attendee Dennis Yablonsky,
state secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development, to
further discuss the plan.
Jerry Lynott, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7237.
PULL QUOTE: “Those good deeds will be rewarded at least for the next
four years.”
Gov. Ed Rendell