Members of the Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee will be traveling to Harrisburg for a Feb. 6 meeting with a top state official.

The committee members were hoping to meet with THE top state official -- Gov. Mark S. Schweiker -- but instead will have the ears of Samuel A. McCullough, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development.

"We're getting downgraded from the governor to a secretary," Wheatland Mayor Tom Stanton said Tuesday.

Committee consultant Alan Kugler described the meeting with McCullough as a preliminary step to securing a meeting with the governor.

Farrell Mayor William Morocco said the committee should ask that someone from the governor's office attend the meeting with McCullough.

Kugler said an agenda will be formulated and submitted to McCullough prior to the meeting. There are two objectives: informing McCullough about the merger project and asking for state assistance.

McCullough should be aware of the committee since his department is overseeing the city of Farrell's economic-recovery program.

Tom Tulip of the Pennsylvania Economy League's Mercer County office, the city's recovery coordinator, recommended that Farrell enter into a consolidation-merger study with neighboring municipalities. Sharon, Hermitage, Sharpsville and Wheatland agreed to participate.

"Are we going to be asking for money?" Sharpsville Borough Manager Michael Wilson asked about the meeting with McCullough.

"Ultimately, yes," said Kugler, executive director of PEL's Northwest Division in Erie.

Whatever the outcome of the committee's efforts, the Shenango Valley will still need millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, such as sewage facilities, he said.

Tulip said the committee members should strive to be impressive enough to McCullough that Schweiker will want to meet with them.

The committee wants to meet with Schweiker to obtain advice on how to proceed and to foster a positive partnership with the state.

State Rep. Michael C. Gruitza, Hermitage, D-7th District, and Rep. Richard Stevenson, Grove City, R-8th District, have agreed to attend the meeting, and representatives of Sen. Robert D. Robbins, Salem Township, R-50th District, and Rep. Rod Wilt, Sugar Grove Township, R-17th District, indicated they might be willing to sit in, Kugler said.

The legislators also could help push for an eventual meeting with Schweiker, said James DeCapua, executive director of Mercer County Regional Council of Governments.

While in Harrisburg, committee members would like to try to set up meetings with representatives of state agencies who will be considering grant requests for a sewer study.