Everyone's Opinion Newsletter

In response to Commissioner Gority's inquiry for the Board of the Allegheny Mountains Convention and Visitors Bureau, the limitations of the choices of the presented poll leads me to open my response. Our area needs four things to improve it for the residents and visitors. Jobs, jobs, jobs, and transportation.

We live in a depressed area with industry flight and industrial base blight. We have plenty of restaurants, lodges, and malls (stores). Far more than is needed for an area with this population. In fact, any additions to these categories would only cause another entity within to fail. The idea of a convention center to bring more commerce to the Altoona Area has resulted in the Center taking business from other traditional venues. The Center managers managed to take the Keystone Festival from Lakemont and failed to sustain it. We need growth in manufacturing industries to improve or sustain the current capacity of the tourist support industry. With the exception of Rail-Fest (which has become less attractive under NorFolk) and an occasional convention (like the PA Women's Federation Convention) all that is available for tourists is the picture of depression and department store savings.

In these times of gas price gouging, it would be good to offer an extension of AmTran to the rural reaches of the county or some parallel entity to offer mass transit options. However, without the aforementioned jobs our politicians are only putting a band-aid on our problems.

Oh, and balancing the county budget would be nice.

Peace, Progress, and Fiscal Responsibility,

Poeman

Pennswoods

(Official Response Requested)

What do you think?