Published Wednesday, July 17, 2002
on local economy
By Tom Fontaine
Herald Staff Writer
The state Senate Democratic Policy Committee hosted a public hearing Tuesday in Greenville to get the area's and the county's economic pulse and then take their findings back to Harrisburg.
Through discussion of a 14-member panel and comments from some of the 25 residents who attended the hearing, the committee hoped to "gather information on what types of work force development are needed in the area to help its struggling economy," said state Sen. Richard A. Kasunic.
Kasunic -- a Fayette County Democrat who chairs the minority-party committee in Harrisburg -- said the most glaring problems facing the Greenville area and most of the rest of the county are:
» Rising unemployment rates which have been fueled by industrial closings and curbed slightly only by a growth of lower-paying service and retail sector jobs.
» A shrinking population that has been marked by the exodus over the past two decades of Mercer Countians between the ages of 18 and 24. There were nearly 17,000 residents in the 18-to-24 age bracket in 1980, compared to less than 11,000 in 2000 -- a 36 percent drop.
"If I didn't know better listening to some of the problems, I'd think I was in my home district," said Kasunic.
Kyle Klaric, a Hermitage Democrat and Farrell manufacturer, hopes that Greenville and Mercer County will be a part of his home Senate district come next year. Klaric is challenging state Sen. Robert D. "Bob" Robbins, a third-term Republican incumbent from Salem Township, in the 50th District race in the November election.
Klaric said the key to improving the economic picture locally is combining the efforts of the county's 11 development agencies to form one "economic SWAT team."
"Unfortunately what you sometimes end up seeing now is competition and in-fighting among the agencies. But in order to make the area and its businesses more competitive we need to reject the turfism, parochialism, political games and the not-in-my-backyard mentality that has plagued previous job creation efforts."
Shortly after Sharon Mayor David O. Ryan described a potential $18 million effort to redevelop the former Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s Sharon Transformer Division as perhaps "the key development project in Mercer County" and a possible generator of between 500 and 1,000 jobs, Klaric said, "Damn it, we've got to protect the businesses and industries we already have."
"Mayor, give me $18 million and I promise you that I can create 10 new jobs at 100 existing companies in Mercer County (or 1,000 new jobs)," Klaric said.
The panel also discussed the impact tax-free Keystone Opportunity Zones have had on the area since they were created three years ago and expanded last year, and Kasunic said lawmakers in Harrisburg are likely to revisit the issue to measure its successes and failures within the next year or so.
Although much of the information gathered by the committee for the meeting focused on Greenville and its problems, only two borough officials attended the meeting: Dick Miller, a panelist who sits on the Greenville Municipal Authority board, and Councilwoman Pamela Auchter, who attended half of the meeting. Greenville was declared a financially distressed community under the state Act 47 program this spring.