Warren City Council members appear likely to include at least $75,000 in the city’s 2026 budget to support Warren Worx.

Reasonable people can have differing opinions on “The Place To Become” branding effort, the first big thing to come from Warren Worx. Some will love it. Others will dislike it. Still others will be so confused that it will mean nothing to them.

Warren Worx is undertaking some nice projects that, realistically, didn’t need a new group. We’re talking about things like signs, wifi hotspots throughout the county, events like a rib festival or helping with another round of Kinzua Rocks the Wake or a river sojourn from Warren to Pittsburgh that sounds like a blast but could just as easily be spearheaded by the Warren County Visitors’ Bureau or even the Route 6 Alliance. Events and infrastructure are nice, but Warren Worx needs to be more than that.

The steps that will determine if Warren Worx is worth the public investment is if it ends up being a solution to our county’s population loss problem. According to a presentation at last week’s City Council meeting, Warren Worx will focus on two strategies in 2026 – retention and growth – to help retain residents and grow the population.

Retention efforts will include advertisements – including newspapers, social media, digital ads and merchandising in Warren County – community collaboration and events in an effort to keep more Warren County residents satisfied enough to stay rather than look for greener pastures.

Growth efforts will focus on an awareness campaign outside of Warren County aimed to educate a targeted audience about the county using print, social media, streaming radio, streaming video, digital ads and billboards. Target areas are Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and southeast Pennsylvania, Buffalo and Rochester in New York and the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus areas in Ohio. Warren Worx will look to attract the 18-44 year old demographic as well as outdoor enthusiasts, those who enjoy fitness and exercise, homeowners, location independent people who can perform their jobs outside of bigger cities and those looking to move from urban areas.

We won’t know by the end of 2026 if those efforts bore fruit or not. So the Warren Worx team is really asking taxpayers to take a leap of faith that this investment will pay off. If not, we will have squandered an investment that could have paid for a multitude of things – including tax relief for city and county residents.