I serve on the Board of the Allegheny Mountains Convention and Visitors Bureau. We are currently engaged in a Long Range Planning process. Part of the process is to identify both current and needed assets in the travel and tourism arena, including several categories. I would love to have your input into this process. Can you please respond using the following categories: Attractions, Dining, Lodging, Retail, Entertainment, Transportation and Other. Please tell me what we have already that you enjoy and what we don't have that you wish we did to enhance our area for both residents and visitors. Thank you for your help in making Blair County better, Blair County CommissionerDonna Gority
The drug problem would not be so bad in our area if the rehabilitation houses would not have been started in the first place. Donna Gority is an advocate for the children in our county (which is good), but has turned her back on the elderly. She brought in a management company to Valley View Home (Blair County's Nursing Home) and now the residents are suffering from huge staffing issues as well as other financial woes. With a monthly fee of $28,000.00, Affinity Health Services should be doing better, but instead, they're running the facility into the ground. The budget they published is false. Operating expenses were purposely not included and Donna Gority was fully aware. How do you prepare a budget and not put the operating expenses in? To fool the public into thinking the company could make money? The elderly need us just as much as our children and youth do. Maybe she should spend time cleaning her office and she would be better suited to organize and prioritize other issues. It's been 24 years, surely she could have done more!Maybe it is time the community start attending the commissioners meetings every Tuesday at 10 a.m. to hear what is being discussed. It is open to the public. It is a shame that more people don't get involved.SharonAltoona, PAWhat do you think?
I was born in this area and grew up in Hollidaysburg, graduated from Hollidaysburg High School, and frequently travel. I've been to more countries than I have fingers and still think that Blair County is overall a great place to live. If you look at it, we have all of the seasons, everything we need to live, and big cities within an earshot in any direction. The people here are great, which is a big part of why I like the area. I especially like being in big cities, but everyone gets tired of that life eventually but in Blair County you have a mix of both. To be fair, I have to tell what I think the downside to living in a place where everybody knows everybody. Everyone knows what you are doing and where you live. Same goes if you start a business, but if you are in a big city all of that kind of goes lost.You don't have much of a drive between urban and suburban to rural here, though. There are just enough things here to keep you busy while you plan for your next big trip. It's the perfect area to live when you like to travel. Some might say that living in a big city or at these vacation spots would be ideal places to live, but if you did what would be the point in going on vacation?DaveHollidaysburg, PAWhat do you think?
