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Change agents

Several members of the community spoke to the commissioners about the permit application regarding the Warren Generating Station. John Able raised the alarm about oversight of the discharge into the Allegheny River changing DEP programs. He alleged that will change what’s processed, how its processed and what contaminants are in the treated material. Able noted the 28-page permit application is “very difficult for a layperson to decipher” and said it would be “extremely beneficial for the citizens of Warren County to have an opportunity to discuss the permit” with the ...

Trails at Jakes Rocks: Destination, Warren

The Trails at Jakes Rocks have made it to the big time. The mountain bike trail system was recently ranked at the top of VisitPA’s list of ‘Heart-Pumping Mountain Bike Trails.’ VisitPA is the official tourism website of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic ...

LERTA approval pending WCSD ratification

A residential tax abatement initiative has one final hurdle to clear after the county commissioners approved the ordinance on Wednesday. Commissioner Jeff Eggleston noted the ordinance has been up for public review on the county website for a couple months. “All of the townships and municipalities that are expected to sign ordinances in the next couple weeks are listed,” Eggleston said. He explained that the county’s ordinance - which was approved unanimously - will then go to the school board, who will have “to pass their own resolution that would ratify all of the ...

City Council addresses local businesses

A local business owner spoke to Warren City Council on Monday to praise the work of city staff as he rebuilt his business but also to contribute to damaged city equipment. “The fire we had, the rebuild we had. We couldn’t have done it without the cooperation we got from the city,” Corky Fry, who owns Warren Tire Center, said. The fire in June 2018 completely decimated the shop on Warren’s east side. Fry specifically thanked the department’s director, Terry Williams, Ellen Nelson the department’s secretary, and commercial UCC Inspector Russ Braun. “A lot of times ...

Tax program takes aim at zones of opportunity

Tucked into the 2017 tax cuts were a few pages establishing a program aimed at providing a shot in the arm for communities that had yet to rebound from the 2008 recession. The program created a tax incentive to encourage development in over 8,700 Census tracts, 300 of which are located in Pennsylvania and one which is located in Warren County. They’re called opportunity zones. And local officials recently heard how to take advantage of the opportunity in a presentation from Tim Wachter with Knox Law Public Strategies. In short, the opportunity zone tax incentive program – aimed ...

Taking sides

Did an increase in New York’s minimum wage hurt businesses in New York state located near the border with Pennsylvania? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says the minimum wage did not hurt job creation in New York. The Empire Center for New York State Policy says it did. What is certain, according to Empire Center statistics, is that the five-year statistics for comparing Chautauqua County, N.Y., with its Pennsylvania neighbors isn’t flattering. THE LOCAL STATISTICS The Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyzed federal job statistics in an effort to quantify if New ...