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Jan 30

How Tweet it is: Our Commitment to Excellence in Communications

Posted on January 30, 2012 at 9:46 AM by Jerry Andree

We just learned that Cranberry was awarded first place by Pennsylvania’s state association of township supervisors for our use of social media in communicating with residents. The award recognized the Township for its use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in providing information that the judges determined was useful, helpful, understandable and appropriate.

And we certainly appreciate that honor.

Social media, which are all pretty much creatures of the 21st century, have grown tremendously in their reach and influence over just the past five years. However they haven’t exactly replaced the older, more traditional media, either. So, as part of our ongoing commitment to keeping Cranberry’s residents, guests, business leaders and other constituencies informed, we have been working hard to expand our arsenal of communication tools.

As a reader of this online blog, you are already part of this new media environment, and we hope our website is serving you well. But you may or may not follow anyone on Twitter. You may live on Facebook, but you may or may not read the local newspaper. The fact is that today, the ‘mass’ component of ‘mass media’ has shrunk dramatically from what it had been in the past. More and more people are turning to increasingly specialized publications, cable channels, websites, satellite radio outlets, mobile services and other narrowly targeted communication instruments for their information, opinions, and consumer preferences. The days when a local government could simply post a legal notice in a nearby newspaper and assume it had done everything needed to relay vital information, are a distant memory – even though the law requiring newspaper notifications has remained unchanged.

With today’s highly fragmented audiences, it is essentially impossible for local government to be everywhere, on every medium. But we’re doing our best to make sure we don’t leave our residents wondering what their elected officials are up to, when events are scheduled to take place, or how to make use of local services – no matter what their personal media habits happen to be. So we make use of as many media as we can – both established and emerging ones – to get the word out.

And the reason is quite simple: it’s that Cranberry Township’s success as a place to live, work and play is a direct result of engaged dialogue with our residents and businesses. That commitment to open, frank and sincere engagement has led us to become one of Pennsylvania’s most respected townships for our approach to local government management. That approach has not only resulted in a better informed community, it has also fostered an environment of economic prosperity at a time of regional, state and national retrenchment and decline.

Last week, for example, we launched a public process to review Cranberry’s recreation and open space programs. More than a thousand residents took the time to send us their comments online. Then earlier this week, several dozen came to personally participate in an open forum to further explore the issue. So our media communications and our face-to-face connections are closely bound together.

Whatever your own preferences for keeping informed, I invite you to take advantage of our growing media options. They include a greatly enhanced website, email alerts, Twitter messages, Facebook posts, our redesigned quarterly newsletter, and our videos on YouTube. Walk the municipal center hallways and you’ll find they are filled with useful attractive messages, invitations and announcements about community initiatives. And then drive through the intersection of Routes 19 and 228 where you’ll see the most recent addition to our communications tool kit: the electronic community sign. Not only is its readership huge, its very existence, which is a direct result of our strong engagement with Rotary, Lions Club, the Chamber of Commerce and UPMC, offers additional validation of our commitment to partnerships.

It’s really something to Tweet about.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about how we're doing in these communication efforts. Email me at: jerry.andree@cranberrytownship.org.

Dec 09

Bootstrap or noose: the local road maintenance dilemma

Posted on December 9, 2011 at 6:59 PM by Jerry Andree

One of the most time-honored tactics in state and national politics is to appoint a prestigious commission to thoroughly study a problem. The committee is then charged with issuing its recommendations at some future point – recommendations which, presumably, will be followed in solving the problem. Over the past few years, this venerated technique has been applied by both the current and previous state administrations to study the critical issue of Pennsylvania’s deteriorating roads and transportation infrastructure.

Although they were appointed by governors from different political parties, both commissions came up with essentially the same conclusions, and both resulted in legislative paralysis. Both were clear about the dismal state of the Commonwealth’s roads and bridges, both saw it as a matter of urgency, and both saw the immediate need for higher levels of funding.

One of the most critical needs that both studies identified involved an alarming decline in the condition of local roads, which represent 64 percent of all public road miles in the state. So Pennsylvania’s State Transportation Commission, which endorsed both sets of studies and recommendations, ordered up a special review of the matter from the perspective of local governments. Those findings have just been issued.

What they concluded is that there’s a huge gap between the money needed to maintain and repair local roads, and the money currently available to do it. In fact, according to the study, current funding for local road and bridge repair is $1.6 billion a year while the estimated need is $3.8 billion – a whopping difference of $2.2 billion a year. So Recommendation #1 of the Commission is that local governments take action to raise the revenue required to address local road and bridge needs.

In some important respects, that’s passing the buck. Local governments don’t collect gas tax from their residents – states do. But adding another cent or two to that tax in order to maintain local roads is something the General Assembly has declined to do. Instead, they’ve kicked the can over to local governments.

We’d like to see that change. But we don’t see much likelihood of it in the foreseeable future. So instead of waiting for the good fairy to arrive from Harrisburg, Cranberry’s Board of Supervisors is now considering the difficult step of raising local property taxes to keep Township roads from falling into disrepair. It’s not a particularly welcome proposition, but we hear the state Commission’s message, and we’re serious about making sure Cranberry doesn’t fall victim to the state’s political paralysis while our roads fall into a state of disrepair.

PA State Transportation Advisory Committee December 2011 Report- Financial Needs of Counties and Municipalities For Highways and Bridges

As always, I would appreciate your viewpoints- email Jerry.

Tag(s): transportation, road maintenance, Pennsylvania infrastructure

Nov 19

Cranberry’s taxing dilemma

Posted on November 19, 2011 at 10:24 AM by Jerry Andree

I work for Cranberry’s Board of Supervisors. The Board has made it abundantly clear that they expect their Township to be well-managed, responsive to residents, and a community of choice for people to live, work and play. That’s not a new philosophy; it’s been their guidance for years.

Even so, I agonized for several months over proposing that the Board consider a modest property tax increase for Cranberry’s 2012 budget – the first one since 2004. I wasn’t troubled about the increase being too big – it would actually only average about $64 a year, bringing the amount the average homeowner pays in Township real estate taxes to $356 a year. Instead, I was worried that America’s political discourse during the past five years or so has recast the notion of taxes from being the price we pay for public services, to being a distinct form of evil. That same line of argument has also painted government itself as a malevolent force – a disease that needs to be beaten back.

Of course, nobody wants to be seen as an advocate of evil. So, just for the record, I want to make clear that I too am against evil, and so is our Board. At the same time, however, we are also charged with responsible financial stewardship. And acting responsibly – paying our debts, maintaining our assets, providing the services people demand, and planning ahead – all require a certain amount of money.

Until recently, a significant share of that money came back from Harrisburg, to which our residents regularly export their income, sales, and gasoline tax dollars. But since the middle of the last decade, the transfer of tax dollars back to local governments has steadily declined while the cost of providing just about everything has soared. Our Library, for example, has seen all of its costs go up, while its state support has dropped more than 40 percent since 2004; even less is on the table for 2012.

In the past, the share of Pennsylvania’s gasoline tax returned to local governments paid for repaving local roads and provided the equipment used to maintain them. Now it pays less than 50 percent. Other programs returning federal and state tax dollars to local communities have also been curtailed. As a result, the gaps between what things cost and what we receive to pay for them have been steadily widening over the past decade. And it’s been compounded by a stream of new but unfunded mandates on municipal governments coming down from state and federal authorities.

So we’re faced with an unhappy choice. We can leave taxes at the same level and, over time, allow the roads to deteriorate, let the parks decline, turn our backs on building maintenance, reduce library hours even more, and cut back on fire and police resources – essentially kicking the can down the road and turning those problems over to future Boards and Managers. Or we can make the decision to step up and pay for the things that really matter – the ones we truly value. And that was the course I recommended to our Board.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people really don’t mind living in a community that’s a little run down. Maybe we can handle a few less fire trucks and police cars on our roads. Maybe we should ask our volunteer fire fighters to spend their time passing the boot instead of training. Maybe clearing roads in the winter really isn’t such a big deal after all; we can always say that clearing them a day later is okay. Maybe our athletic fields would be better off overgrown. Maybe having a top-notch credit rating isn’t all that important. Maybe repaving doesn’t really matter that much, particularly if you want to show off your SUV.

On the other hand, maybe those things really do count for something. At least that’s what I suspect, and that’s the reason I’ve asked our Board to consider raising people’s property taxes. Here’s why: Over the years I have been tremendously impressed by the pride Cranberry residents have in their community and its resources. And it’s not just boastful chest thumping; they also understand the connection between feeling good about a place and its economic vitality. I am convinced that Cranberry is the reason Butler County ranked sixth highest in the nation for creation of new jobs. It’s why, year after year, new companies move here along with good, family-sustaining jobs – an explicit goal of our 1995 Comprehensive Plan. Our essential premise, then and now, is this: when you create a great place for people to live, everything else will grow out of that.

However, maybe I missed something here. Maybe community decline is something people really are prepared to accept in return for keeping their local taxes the same, despite inflation, despite growing demand, and despite declining state and federal revenue.

Am I wrong? I’d welcome your thoughts and suggestions as we formulate our budget for what looks like a very demanding new year. But beware: as the 2012 elections approach, we should brace ourselves for even more heated rhetoric and misleading bombast about government and taxation.

Feel free to write to me at: jerry.andree@cranberrytownship.org.

For a more detailed decription of the 2012 Proposed Budget, click on the following link:

http://www.cranberrytownship.org/index.aspx?NID=1833