Ooms
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Members of the public were invited to offer comments and answer questions as Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties revealed steps toward a comprehensive plan to improve land preservation, transportation and many other issues facing the region in a virtual community forum held by the Luzerne Lackawanna Metropolitan Planning Organization on Wednesday night.
The last Bi-County Regional Plan was filed back in 2012, and much of Wednesday’s forum was a look at where the two counties stand now, as opposed to eight years ago.
Teri Ooms, executive director of The Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development at Wilkes University, led the attendees of the forum through a long presentation highlighting statistics on a wide range of issues, from poverty and unemployment to Internet access and shifting demographics in the area.
With the COVID-19 pandemic threatening to disrupt the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, a lot of the numbers presented by Ooms display the drastic effect that the coronavirus has had on Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties.
While Ooms, and later Tina Roseberry and Brian Funkhouser from the consulting group Michael Baker International, were speaking, the public was encouraged to weigh in using Zoom’s chat mechanism.
One attendee, Shannon Brown, expressed his concern at the availability of Internet access in Luzerne County as kids face a possible virtual start to the school year.
“The broadband access isn’t just a socioeconomic issue,” Brown said. “Luzerne County hasn’t looked at broadband access as crucial to infrastructure.”
Once the informational part of the presentation was done, the meeting leaders took a more interactive approach in the form of polls, getting answers on several relevant questions right from the public.
Questions included whether or not broadband internet access was an issue (the majority said yes), the best way to improve vehicle safety (68% of responses were to improve road surfaces and bridges) and an overwhelmingly positive response in regard to the importance of renewable energy resource development.
Public opinion was also reflected in a survey that the public was asked to fill out leading up to the meeting. The survey had over 500 responses, and most participants prioritized jobs and the economy as the most important issues, according to Roseberry.
Wednesday’s presentation will be made available to the public at http://www.lltsmpo.com/.