This is a comment that I received that deserves to have its own posting.
Thank you George. Morrisville ain't perfect, we all know that. But here's the kind of vision we need to see the future.Hi,
I have thought long and hard about weighing into this blog discussion and have until this point remained a passive, yet interested observer. I told Cathy last week that I was not going to write on it and that I wanted to see what was going to happen during the course of these months with the newly elected school board members. I changed my mind. I predicted the outcome of the election but I wanted it to run is course and give it a chance. For the record, if anyone is interested, I voted for a mix of mostly incumbents and one new candidate even though I didn't agree or completely support the new school idea as presented,; especially the K-12 aspect in one central location. I felt the older kids needed a unique and separate High School experience to include a facility void of the younger children. Honestly, I am still somewhat warm to the idea of the Pennsbury merger even though I can appreciate some of the parents concerns about their children being lost or possibly shunned. Their concerns are heart-felt and honest which is sometime that has been missing in this entire process as of late. I would not support a system of farming out our children. I did see a lot of merit in the new school plan and still see a need for change, especially at our elementary school facilities. Initially, I didn't like or trust the process of the old school board, although I think they had the best interest of the community and the kids at heart. Believe it or not especially Sandy Gibson, even though I feel she was not the right person to present these new ideas and was at times very callus and heavy handed with the community. Looking back, we all were somewhat to blame for the fiasco we as communities have created. I felt the old board put the cart before the horse for the new school idea by not allowing the time to get our local finances in order. If they had been a little more patient, worked with the community leaders and been more willing to seek alternatives to the plan they put into place, I think we could have come up with a compromise to the existing plan. In retrospect, at the rate in which our borough has moved it could be another thirty years before we do anything to fix it so I can understand and appreciate their skepticism of our ability to lead as well. As a side note, I am of the opinion that what we need is to reduce the amount of local school systems statewide and go to a more centralized county system and a redistribution county wide of the tax base, but that is for another discussion.
In listening to all sides, especially Peter as well as some of the administrators, I have learned a great deal more about how our responsibility of education in our community is supposed to work and some of the reasons we are struggling. Looking and listening to all of the new elected school board candidates, I am not shocked to where we as community have come, but what surprised me was that it took a much shorter time than I ever imagined for them to become unglued. Some people within our community have questioned me recently as to where I stand on this and other matters. I was asked to be clear so, as always, I will be as honest as I can with my statements. All that I ask is that you please be patient with my response for it is very, very long and personal. I hope you will take it for what it is as a look into one person's viewpoint and remember that it is my opinion only.
Please remember this was our past experience I was asked to share with you:
In 1994, my wife and I with our then two toddlers were transferred from Long Island to the Philadelphia area and had to find a home/move within 60 days. The market then was similar to todays in that it was a buyer's market with lots of homes to choose from. We took a compass (geometry and algebra at work) and began to make several circles around the Phila./NY area map until we settled on this small town near I-95, Route 1 and the turnpikes. I was traveling a great deal then so transportation access was very important. We made three separate trips within a week to the Yardley/Morrisville area looking at approximately 30 houses. Ken, our realtor was confused as we were as to exactly what we were looking for in a house and community. On the morning of the third day and about the seventh house we looked at that morning, he decided to stop in at an open-house on Palmer Ave for some free food. The house was small, but it had a lot of charm, was within walking distance to the schools and the neighborhood had a certain feel to it that we really liked. It felt right. As my wife and I sat out on the screen porch eating our snack we both quietly asked one another what we thought about the house. In five minutes we concluded that we wanted to make an offer. It took our realtor a few seconds to comprehend the fact that we actually found a house/neighborhood we liked. The homeowner accepted our offer and we were all very excited(especially the Realtors).
The next week we came back to Morrisville on our way down from LI to visit our families in the DC area and were greeted by several people walking a picket-line outside of the High School. We walked over and asked a neighbor what was up with these people striking. We found out that they were the maintenance, janitorial and secretarial staff. They were being outplaced by private contractors, a new catch term most of us sooner or later may have learned. We became worried when another neighbor on the street that day told us about all of the problems within the school system and how it may not be a good idea to move here. We immediately made an appointment with the Superintendent of Schools to discuss this issue. We were young and didn't really consider the schools being an issue because we both grew up in Northern Virginia and attended one of the best public school systems in the country, so to us good education was simply a given. The superintendent told us that the school system was in transition and that it did have some problems, but that he felt optimistic that they were being addressed. We asked if he had a child of school age if he would put them in the school system. He gave us an honest but unsettling answer and it was NO! As you can imagine we had a very long, tense trip home. Our parents advised us that this home we were purchasing may not be the right move and we should rent for another year or two. We felt the time was right and we wanted to finally own something of our own (well, in 30 years). We figured that we could always sell and move to a bigger home in a few years. By the time the kids were ready for school we could address the issue.
In the next several years, we really fell in love with our community. You could see more and more young professionals moving into the area and the face of the neighborhood changing for the better in that everyone was fixing/expanding on their homes. We had multiple borough projects going on including the 1995 Imagination Island. The most impressive part of this project, other than everyone working well for a common cause, was that the children were asked to draw and design the new playground. It was exciting to see what they came up with and, in retrospect, we adults should have taken their cue on how to work together. These and other positive signs in the borough were exciting and optimistic.
This does not mean everything was great, for from time to time, we saw large cracks in both our school system and our borough council. We would also read and hear about our problems from friends living outside of the borough. The way they perceived Morrisville wasn't very flattering. They would always ask if we liked living here and my answer was always an emphatic YES! So much so, I made a conscious decision that I had heard enough about the bad image of the community and that too many of the old Morrisville guard represented the interests of "old-timers" as my neighbor calls them. I felt we needed some balance and I wanted to get involved. Too often we read and witnessed the politics as usual both from the borough side and school board side with yelling, screaming, and intimidation, along with grandstanding from many civic leaders. We did see what we viewed as signs of corruption and abuse of power with self-serving interests of both the council/administration on all sides of the coin. We asked ourselves, "Where was the balance in government and what did this discourse provide our neighborhood in terms of solving some of our issues and projecting a more positive image?" Not much! As someone from a different time and place, I felt that we were sitting on a gold mine living along the river and our proximity to the transportation hubs to/from NY and Phila. which was the same thing that attracted our family to Morrisville to being with? I thought at that time that, as a community, our problem wasn't that we were afraid to think, we just didn't think big. As the years have gone by I realized that we are simply shortsighted and afraid to work for anything new that was truly going to help us. It was easier to blame our surroundings and not stop, look in the mirror and finally take a look at ourselves.
Why I became involved:
In 1999, I applied for and was selected for an opening on the Morrisville EDC which I had a great interest of joining. I had previous experience in college working for the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology (VCIT) through my university, JMU. This was a cutting edge, outside-of the-box state-supported think tank that in the late 1980's attracted BILLIONS in new technological businesses generation to the entire region.
Over the course of the next few years with my tenure on the EDC, I saw that our community government was stagnant. The futility of our EDC members for fifteen years in trying to attract new businesses, along with the suppressive control of many on Borough Council dictating terms and conditions on the business sector was disheartening. These are some of the same people who were yelling the loudest about their twenty years of frustration over the lack of progress. All of us were now as frustrated as the business sector had become with the entire process. We had business people, some who had been raised in the community, disheartened about what the downtown had become a ghost town. These people especially remember what it was once like as a hub to the community in years past. Whatever air that was generated in our community balloon during the 1995 Imagination Island project was quickly being deflated.
Finally, something was beginning to happen:
In 2004 we had on the table a commitment from two cousins who grew-up in the borough, Chris and Ed Cacase. They had worked on many projects throughout the country but had decided to set up an office in our downtown area. With the direction of the Bucks County Redevelopment Corporation, Morrisville Borough, the Morrisville Authority and finally the Morrisville School District we were able to make our first significant land development deal in the downtown area in over 65 years. Surprisingly, it only took Cacase Builders 5 months to go from design/permit stage to ground breaking and another 9 months of construction to its completion. Amazing! I have been around construction for many years in one capacity or another, so I know when something is constructed well, and this was one of the best scheduled and constructed buildings I had been associated with. They did not scrimp on materials and they used both union and non-union labor to build it. It was designed/built to last and everyone prospered from it. Best of all, I felt they involved all of council and at times bent over backwards to make sure that we weighed into the design process, something they did not have to do. One of the valuable experiences they did learn because they were somewhat naive on certain aspects of the process was that little nuances such as having a groundbreaking ceremony or a formal dedication of the building, although seemingly trivial, helped grease the wheels for more larger, more beneficial future construction to ensure continued growth.
Economically, the good news was yes, we did have a great new building in the downtown area but the bad news was that we now needed a second, larger building in the same geographical area. In the grand scheme of things, 19K sq. feet of new retail space alone is not going to invite the interest of what we really need and that is a large host business that can and will employee a lot of local residents who, in turn, will support all of the businesses in our downtown area. We needed to build up our economic center and create a new micro-economy. In my opinion this is the silver bullet that will save our town.
Over the course of the next three years, the Cacase building saw several new, entrepreneurial companies such as Atomica and Edible Arrangements provide diversified services to this downtown project. To date, the center is near capacity with all space occupied and soon to be opened. I was encouraged when they formed a development company Penn-Jersey Realty Corporation to further develop projects. I bet many of you are unaware of this because you have never stopped in to patronize some of these new shops. Why not? Quite simply, even though we have had significant progress in the landscape of our downtown area it is not what we think of when we do our shopping or as a place to visit as a destination spot in the borough. Now, imagine a new bakery or coffee shop downtown. How about a new Hallmark store or a really funky retro clothes shop for the kids/younger adults? How about a flower shop or some specialty shop? What about a town center with a fountain, flowers or tree plantings? On the borough side, what about a service that simply washes the streets once a week to help keep the area cleans and inviting. The 2007 University of Pennsylvania Graduate students design study talked about all of these ideas and more. These were ambitious, lofty conceptual ideas that should be considered as creative alternatives to our current downtown area.
Last year, the business owners filled out an extensive survey asking some of these same questions. What we found was that they wanted many of these things as well, but the single most requested item they felt that would change their economic fortunes and assist them in making a go of it was a new, large anchor building with needed additional parking. They want people who are affluent, with good paying jobs and liquidity to move into newly formed office space near their services to save their investments and livelihood. Remember, they are the ones assuming the risk of their investment and we must help them in every way possible to succeed. In exchange, their endeavors must provide us with everyday services that we require. Ideally, we need diversified businesses, not additional cigarette shops or nail salons (not that these businesses don't fill an economic niche because if they didn't, they would not be in business). With diversified businesses and services will come advancements in the amount of liquidity that is brought to the Borough and money that is spent on these services.
Bottom line to this economic Manifesto:
We must support these developers as the EDC has tried to do and pave the way for a fair and equitable way to get a land development deal done as soon as possible. If we fail to do so, our community government and school system will eventually perish! The option to "keep things as they've always been" is no longer viable. The world around us is competitive and progressing. Morrisville cannot survive if we won't change with it. We need leaders who understand this simple, basic premise, not pessimism or doom and gloom from the same tired people who supposedly represent our wishes and ideas. Quit bitching and do something about it!
Try this - Stop, close your eyes and imagine for just a moment that you are sitting at an outdoors cafe in the springtime eating lunch and watching people in professional clothes or uniforms walking in our downtown area. They are state workers buying our goods and services from our businesses, dining at restaurants like Concerto Fusion, Ben's Deli, Anthony IV or some other restaurant not yet opened then stopping to shop at the SPRINT Store or stopping in to make an inquiry with one of our realtors about an investment opportunity opportunity. How about the businesses on the other side of our business district like Cafe Antonio, Garden Farm Market, Giant Foods, Sam's Shoes or Casino Tony Goes? When both residents AND outside consumers become accustomed to patronizing our entire business community and have a positive experience to tell others, they will come, shop and invest. Suddenly, we have manufactured our micro-economy. Does this sound too optimistic and far-fetched? I see it all over small communities all around the country everyday where, ten years ago, there was no sign of economic development or life in their area. It doesn't just happen. It happens to people who are not afraid of planned, steady progress and government working with the private sector to make it count.
Imagine expanding our business community to include South Delmorr Avenue along the river to the south end of town and linking it with a newly formed train station located at the old fire station next to the Amtrak rail line. After all, the borough already owns the required land for parking adjacent to the building and getting rid of this financial burden for the Morrisville Volunteer Fire Department would allow them to invest and upgrade their other station on Pennsylvania Avenue as they have been struggling to do for years. Remember, it takes a very special person to run into a burning building that everyone else is try to run out of. This type of investment would be a huge support for them and would benefit the entire community. Help support them and the concept of a transportation hub in the borough! We would need to get our local representatives in Senate and Congress working for us to help make these things happen.
It's the economy stupid-
The question has always been, "Why aren't these things already happening?" Why do we passively wait when we have a local developer with a proven track record in the borough that has the financing in place to do something about it? The simple answer is, "Because we are too busy, too consumed with killing ourselves, that's why!!" I sit at our council and school board meetings listening month after month to a minority of people who come to the mic and feed us doom, gloom and fear from both sides with whining, crying and animosity and offer little or no constructive suggestions to help fix things. Quite honestly, I am at a loss for why someone would challenge the choice about losing a small area of our park, a former borough dump area that we haven't used in years versus the opportunity to gain in added tax revenue and growth of our business community that could help support our schools and keep Morrisville alive. Ask yourself, at the end of the day what would rather hug, your happy, well-educated child or a few less trees? Everyone wants better schools and borough services while others would only support a new office building as long as it is in an industrial area outside of our designated downtown area. They don't get it!! The notion that people are going to invest in an area that can't support these businesses is wrong. Simply stated, no one is going to invest in Morrisville because we are bullied, embarrassed and afraid of ourselves with no clear vision or leadership committed to driving future economic progress in our borough. As a result, I see our community chasing away a strong Superintendent and her administrators. Both sides of the debate must stop beating the crap out of one another for it is affecting both our children and our community-at-large. Neither one can take it anymore.
Build our economy and it will in turn build our schools and help pay for our needed borough services. As parents, we must work with our school teachers and administrators to help to better educate our kids. Read to them at an early age and encourage them to strive to do their best. Go over their homework with them and if they tell you they don't have any, find out why not. Teachers, use your allotted time in the classroom to teach not help with homework assignments. I know you are frustrated because many of the kids will not complete the assignments if you don't take the time in class to tutor them. This is the parent's; job (not the Grandparents). As parents, you must learn to schedule time to help their children at home. Don't leave it up or assume the teachers will take care of it; they should be using the entire block time to teach new concepts, not tutoring homework in class. Turn your T.V. off and become an involved parent. If your child is failing offer them help, don't ignore them. If you don't know enough to help them, look for outside resources to assist you. Kids, let's face it. You need to push harder academically. We cannot help you if you don't accept the need to respond to these challenges to the best of your abilities. Remember, whether you realize it or not you are competing in a world market and you must prepare for the pressures you will face in this open market and we must do everything we can as a community to prepare you for this challenge.
Finally, as leaders, listen to our community for it is awake and speaking, yet we are deaf to its voices. Anything short of this will be our downfall to our future. Borough Council and the Morrisville School Board members must take a calculated chance and embrace the ideas of investors; these entrepreneurs; these visionaries; these people of risk. Negotiate with them in good faith working together to help fix our problems for after all, we need each other. Developers, better learn how government works and quit trying to blame them for all of your problems in this process. The reason they are at times skeptical is because communities have in the past been burned by less that scrupulous builders and we are sometimes weary of the process. Quit pitting the school system and the borough system against one another in order to get a land development deal done. Some of the mistrust came from the attempted premature land acquisition deal for the elementary schools. As elected community leaders we have taken an oath to insure that government protect the rights and interest of its constituents and the community-at-large. We too often forget that government should also be about helping people to help themselves, not inhabiting their livelihood and our economic futures. They must protect the rights of its taxpayers and perform these services within the eyes of the law.
I know that annual double-digit school and borough tax increases are not what we want nor deserve! We are seeing them because we have waited too long to develop our local economy and address the problems we are now facing. Let's all work together to fix them before they fix us!
Again, sorry for this long blog, I guess I had a lot to say!
God Bless,
-George
Special to the Business Journal
