Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton ANF Bradford District Ranger Rich Hatfield speaks as part of a panel discussion during Tuesday’s outdoor recreation event at the Conewango Club.

Funding. Connections. Partnerships.

That summarizes much of the local feedback that state outdoor recreation officials heard during a stakeholder meeting Tuesday.

The funding piece may be the toughest nut to crack.

“We can’t get the federal support that we need because so much of that decision making is based on job creation,” Jim Decker, WCCBI president/CEO said. “These recreation projects don’t bring with them a lot of jobs.”

But what they do, he said, is create a community that people may want to talk a look at.

“Tourism dollars are great,” he said, but “we need a community that is active, attractive and vibrant.”

He highlighted the Trails at Jakes Rocks — trail counters counted 37,766 people between May and December of last year where a $3 million investment brings an $8 million annual impact — as well as the downtown Warren riverfront development, which carries a projected $11 million annual impact on a $10 million total cost.

He also acknowledged that the downtown Blair building is 98 percent vacant but argued that these outdoor projects are key in addressing that.

“I know in my heart we will not fill that space if we do not do these types of community projects,” Decker said.

We gotta get to the funding people. They have to look beyond the jobs,” calling it a “recipe for disaster if we don’t change that mindset.”

Tuesday’s event included a panel discussion that included ANF Bradford District Ranger Rich Hatfield, Andy Georgakis with the Warren Cycle Shop, Nicole Carrier with Creek Bottom Canvas, Piper VanOrd from Allegheny Outfitters and Ta Enos with the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship.

Enos said she’s seen “outdoor recreation getting more cohesive as an entity” at the national level.

Because of the pandemic, she said that space is “supercharged. It’s on steroids now.”

She questioned why Pennsylvania doesn’t have a more prominent place in the space.

“We have more hunters per capita than anywhere else,” she said. “We are such a heavyweight in this space. At the national level, we are not seen that way.”

Georgakis highlighted how connections and partnerships brought the Trails at Jakes Rocks into existence.

“Partnerships… that’s what it’s all about for us,” Hatfield said.

He explained that, in the past, the Forest Service would have dictated the “best use of a piece of ground. That’s just not the case anymore.”

Including the needs and desires of the community is “just the way we do business now,” acknowledging that the TAJR project “would not exist if it was left in our lap to do. We were able to pull it off with the help of community leaders. That’s how it happens.”

He views ongoing discussions about the future of Kinzua Beach in the same way.

“If it were an easy answer it would already be done,” Hatfield said. “There is something needed at Kinzua Beach.”