Outside Erie

When Kathy Dahlkemper embarked on her campaign for Pennsylvania’s 3rd House District more than a year ago, the country wasn’t facing the economic meltdown.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers were not on the verge of bankruptcy.
Credit was easier to access. Unemployment was low.
Now, as she prepares to take office after her victory over incumbent Phil English, […]

This week’s top comment comes from Matt, who wrote to weigh in on the issue of broadband access in Erie.
Here’s what he had to say:
As a local techie - this issue has been around for years and several projects in the last few years have brought significant investment to the region.
The main issue with fiber […]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today outlined a plan that would encourage municipalities in New York State to consolidate.
According to a news release:

Simply put, our system of local government is broken. It has been outpaced by globalization, regionalization, and an ever changing marketplace. The density of local government in New York is astounding. There […]

I recently received a note from an Erie businessman who is worried about the region’s continued troubles with high-speed Internet infrastructure.
This is an issue that received a lot of attention in this space about a year ago. And, frankly, it’s still a significant problem.
Here’s what the businessman (who chose not to use his real name) […]

The USA Today has an interesting feature on the air quality at schools nationwide.
As part of its package, it has an interactive database that allows readers to see where individual schools rank nationally in terms of air quality.
Not surprisingly, many Erie schools grade quite poorly.
The lower the percentile, the worse the air.
Check out the air […]

I had the opportunity to interview incoming U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper this morning about her agenda and what she’s been learning as she prepares for her new job.
I’ll be posting a longer q-and-a from her and from my recent interview with outgoing U.S. Rep. Phil English soon.
But I do want to pass along a theme […]

We spend a lot of time in this space talking about downtown development, tourism, transportation, and economic development.
But we haven’t really spent any time talking about public libraries.
Most of us take libraries for granted. They’ve always been a part of our lives — and they’re typically supported rather silently through local taxes.
Michelle Sanson, a Cleveland […]

Phyllis Kuhn at the Lake Erie Research Institute reports this morning that the Hirtzel Foundation has given her organization a $250,000 grant to purchase a confocal microscope that can be used by medical and academic researchers in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Penn State Behrend has also provided more than $100,000 to house the instrument and employ technicians to […]

An anonymous commenter has floated a pretty grandiose idea as a potential new development at the vacant GAF site on the bayfront.
Here’s what he had to say about it:
I made a proposal about a year and a half ago to build a indoor white sand beach with palm trees, aquarium and restaurant complex on the […]

If you think the debate over plans to build a tires-to-energy plant on the Lake Erie shore has been intense, brace yourself for what could be an even more caustic battle over the possibility of wind farms on the Great Lakes.
The Washington Post reports on the early efforts to develop offshore wind farms in Michigan, […]