Tag: Revitalization

One arrest announced. We must go on.

It’s quiet here lately because the recent violence in town has definitely gotten to me. I’m worried about my friends and everyone who’s living in the midst of this. And I’m reminded that if the streets of Pottstown are not safe, our revitalization dreams are pretty much out of reach. It’s a sobering thought – that challenges which are already fairly monumental become flat-out impossible in an environment of violence and fear.

The early morning arrest of the alleged shooter from this past Sunday is welcome news. The report of a stabbing early this morning in the general vicinity of the shooting is not. Still, we must go on.

I recently received an email from Citizens for Pottstown’s Revitalization regarding the need for Block Captains in organizing a strategy for increased civic participation in keeping streets safe. Here is an excerpt below:

“Please reply by Dec. 3rd if you would like to serve as a BLOCK CAPTAIN. (Our first meeting will be organized ASAP to define our roles and strategy)

To help keep us safe the Pottstown PD has generously offered:
Collaborating for Town Watch Patrols
Specialized Witness Training
The Civilian Police Academy

If interested in participating please reply by Dec. 3rd with your selections so the coordinating can begin.”

The email address is vivapottstown@hotmail.com.

WOW.

The PDIDA office at 139 E. High Street was packed last night with more than 60 people who might best be described as “hungry for conversation.” The food was barely touched, and there was no need for background music. There were just a couple breaks for announcements and to give away two tickets to the First Annual Costume Ball at the Elks on Dec. 17 (thank you, Leighton Wildrick!) and three $20 gift certificates to Funky Lil’ Kitchen (thank you, Chef Michael Falcone!)

Otherwise, there was non-stop networking & brainstorming & sharing among a cross-section of area residents, business owners, entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, and public officials. Let’s nurture this and keep it going.

Due to the events downtown on Fridays in December, the next Happy Hour is on Wednesday, Dec. 15 from 5-7 pm at the Brickhouse. Thank you to Katy Jackson for donating a Brickhouse Happy Hour gift certificate for that. Appetizers & drinks will be available at reduced rates, and Positively!Pottstown will buy appetizers until the petty cash runs out!

In the meantime, follow up, keep in touch, take the next step.

Come downtown & build community

It’s Friday afternoon, do you know where your friends are?

They might be at the monthly Postively!Pottstown Happy Hour! It starts in just one hour and runs til 7 pm. It’s at the PDIDA office at 139 E. High Street. $5 gets you refreshments, a free chance to win a $20 gift certificate to Funky Lil’ Kitchen and the opportunity to network with more than 60 people already signed up! Walk-ins welcome!

At 7 pm there’s a Neighborhood Watch meeting at the PAL building at 146 King Street. All are welcome there to meet neighbors and figure out ways to make Pottstown a safer place. Hope to see you there!

p.s. As I type, I can see a tree getting decorated over on Smith Plaza. Hometown Holidays are coming up – Dec. 3, 10, 17. More on that soon!

Law enforcement & citizens must become a team

Below is a copy of a post sent to The Mercury in response to the article on last night’s community meeting at Invictus Ministries at 79 N. Hanover. Of course, it’s my opinion, but I’m also trying to be objective in my observations. There’s a lot of work to be done – essential work that greatly impacts the town’s entire future.

“Thank you so much to Bishop Everett Debnam for hosting and leading this effort. I hope this wasn’t a once-and-done meeting. It is only the first step – letting everyone blow off steam. In my opinion, the meeting did not move into a constructive, problem-solving mode. Realistically, that was probably not possible on the first go-round; you usually can’t skip steps when repairing or re-building relationships.

What came across: 1) There are long-standing problems with how the public perceives their police. 2) Law enforcement officials do need more citizen participation/witnesses, but almost seemed to be blaming the citizens & putting it all back on them. This is not the last we’re going to hear on these matters. Okay. Everyone needs to try to do better.

For me, key pieces of new information were: Local and Philly gangs have been feuding over drug-turf in town… since 2006! This year police cut foot patrols in the core neighborhoods. Shootings have escalated in the core throughout 2010. The police are re-instating the patrols in January 2011.

Okay. There’s no going back. It is what it is… unless I got that wrong.

This has to be a multi-stage process. The D.A. did say that as well. This is just the beginning. Relationships have to be built. Like most relationship problems, this one is rooted in communication. There need to be constructive, visible steps taken to improve communications & get results. My starter wishlist:

1) Put the tip line phone numbers on the home page of the PD’s website, not buried on other pages.

2) Put information about the “witness training” program, which was mentioned at the meeting, on the PD home page.

3) Release some meaningful crime statistics to the public now and follow-up on those statistics every quarter.

4) Borough: charge ahead on code enforcement!

5) Citizens: Introduce yourself to the officers on the beat in your neighborhood! Go to the Town Watch meetings EVERY 3rd Friday. Meeting this Friday, PAL building, 146 E. King Street, 7 pm.)

6) Schedule a follow-up meeting – maybe in 2 months at Invictus? Commit to building the relationship between citizens and law enforcement. It requires “face-time.” The monthly happy hours I’m hosting as part of economic revitalization efforts are built on the same premise. You can’t get things done as a team if you don’t know and trust your teammates. (All are invited to those, by the way. See website & rsvp.)

7) I personally would like to get donations and a motion sensor lighting program underway. A small step, but it’s something.

Sue Repko
Positively!Pottstown
http://www.positivelyptown.com”

PDIDA Calendar

If you don’t know what PDIDA is or what it stands for, read on.

The Pottstown Downtown Improvement District Authority is a special assessment district that provides benefits to businesses such as keeping the area safe and clean and helping with marketing.  The Main Street Manager, Leighton Wildrick, works under their umbrella.

PDIDA is pronounced Puh-Dee-Duh. And, yes, it’s kind of musical!

And now the main reason for this post: PDIDA recently began updating their online calendar and it looks awesome! Please check it out HERE.

Also, please note the Hometown Holiday Celebrations that are happening on Fridays in December – the 3rd, 10th and 17th. There will be TONS to do downtown and it will be lit up and decorated!

To support the businesses, arts & restaurants, I’m hoping we can get a crowd together for a “High Street Holiday Hop” for December 3rd. The basic idea is to start at The Brick House at 5 pm and then every 30 minutes or so, move as a group to another venue. We can listen to the choirs and carolers along the way and eat, drink and shop our way up and down High Street. I’ll let you know more as the date gets closer.

In the meantime, be sure to bookmark PDIDA’s calendar!

Open Invitation

Because the town that breaks bread together will find a way to revitalize together…

[Click 11/19/10 for vibrant, colorful invitation.]

(Get your positive vibe on here.)

 

POSITIVELY!POTTSTOWN HAPPY HOUR

When: Friday, November 19 from 5:01-7:00 p.m.

Where: PDIDA Office, 139 E. High St., Pottstown, PA 19464

Bring yourself, bring a friend!

Anyone interested in Pottstown’s revitalization is invited to

this casual, monthly gathering.


Bring business cards, brochures or flyers for 50 people.

We want to help you make connections!


Your $5 contribution helps pay the talented local vendors

who supply food & beverages.


RSVP

suerepko@gmail.com

or

positivelypottstown@gmail.com

or

609-658-9043


Thanks to Leighton Wildrick & PDIDA for the generous use of their space

and

Chestnut Knoll Assisted Living for their donation of appetizers this month!


Free drawing for a $20 gift certificate to Funky Lil’ Kitchen!

 


 


 

Downtown Ambassadors Program

In a comment on another post, Katy mentioned Easton, PA’s Downtown Ambassadors program, and I thought I’d post some links. I’ve heard a few folks from Pottstown mention this, but I didn’t know that there was a company that actually provides this service to downtown improvement districts. Basically, you can contract to have casually-uniformed ambassadors on your downtown streets, cleaning, providing info to visitors and being  a security presence. They carry 2-way radios, too.

Here’s a link to Block By Block, the company. And here’s an article on the positive feedback on Easton’s program. Looks and sounds like a great idea. Money — always an issue. Maybe a volunteer force? Worth looking into, for sure. Thanks, Katy!

Pottstown: Time for the full-court press?

The article about Danville, PA that we just added to our Revitalization Library got me thinking about very specific actions that Pottstown might want to consider now.

Why not take the $45,000 remaining after painting the Mrs. Smith’s building brick red and apply it to QUANTIFIABLE & VISIBLE ACTIONS to improve Pottstown’s downtown?

High Street is THE face of Pottstown. People take one look and make a snap judgment, maybe without even getting out of their cars. Pretty soon High Street is going to be beautifully illuminated. Now is the time to press any advantage to be gained from that, coordinate resources, and put out a blitz of tried-and-true downtown economic development strategies.

1) I’ve heard from several sources that there was a downtown site  inventory/survey started or completed as follow-up to the Economic Development Strategic Plan. Where is it? Resurrect & update it. Find a simple, clean, attractive, inexpensive way to create an online database with key information about vacant properties that are available for sale or rent; allow for uploading of photos. Call upon Montgomery County Community College’s new urban planning students to help with site inventory and in getting additional info from local realtors and the county’s property records database. Input the data and unveil a new downtown district marketing tool via PDIDA’s website.

2) Determine the vacancy rate in the downtown and set a goal for getting X number of additional storefronts occupied within 6 months. Use some of the $45K to create a rent subsidy/marketing incentives package to attract new businesses that have solid business plans. Include existing businesses in the marketing plans. (I don’t know what PDIDA’s budget is, but I’m pretty sure it needs more resources to get its job done.)

3)  There is this wonderful resource for new and existing business owners right in the New York Plaza building at 244 High Street: SCORE. They’re a non-profit business mentoring association that gets funding from the U.S. Small Business Association. Four times a year they offer a workshop seriesto help with all aspects of running a business. They offer other courses as well, all of which are taught by experienced professionals who volunteer their time to share their knowledge. Use some of the $45K to fund partial scholarships for new Pottstown-based businesses and nearly-full scholarships for existing business owners.

Imagine the messages the Borough could pretty quickly & easily send to the business world:

1) Here’s our downtown property inventory; we want to help you find the space that works for your business.

2) If you have a solid business plan, we will help with the rent during a pre-determined start-up phase.

3) We help promote all our businesses.

4) We will fund training workshops and introduce you to a network of business professionals to help you succeed.

5) By the time the 2011 First Saturdays start up again, there will be a VISIBLE difference in the downtown.

6) By coordinating the expertise already in the community, we can make $45K go a long way.

High Street is how the outside world judges you.At some point, you gotta put on your full-court press.

(Ideally, along a parallel path, the Borough would be doing the same thing for its industrial sites, including facilitating brownfield clean-up & marketing the sites nationwide, even internationally. I’d put an emphasis on green manufacturing and renewable energy tech companies, but that’s just me.)

Danville, PA: “Each stride forward begets another.”

I am sending a HUGE thank-you out to Pottstown resident Andrew Kefer for sending along this article: “Welcome to Downtown Danville, the Vibrant Small Town You Never Expected.”

There are so many lessons here that could be immediately applied to Pottstown’s revitalization.

1) Create a “better business climate.”

2) Tap Montco college students for discrete planning and community development projects and give those students real-world experience.

3) Resurrect the facade improvement program. (Is PDIDA’s Facade Rehabilitation Loan program active?)

4) Promote arts district downtown. (Danville is doing a multi-year mural program: “To one degree or another, all murals should touch on Danville’s heritage and history,” said Danville Main Street manager, Jim Wilson. Although I think a mural program would be fantastic, in the post that follows this one, I’m going to suggest using the additional $45K from the re-painting of the Mrs. Smith building toward other economic development efforts. For me it’s a matter of timing and getting the most bang for the buck. )

5) Create a business incubator downtown. Get designated as a Keystone Innovation Zone to get grants to attract tech start-ups and entrepreneurs. (Is this state designation/funding still available?)

Thanks again to Andrew for this informative, idea-packed article!

 

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