Down River 9/23

By John Lipez

Flan with the Promising News:

Wednesday of last week was the first time to the best of Down River’s knowledge that the Clinton County Economic Partnership went outdoors for its annual membership meeting. The event was staged at the open-air pavilion at the Clinton County Fairgrounds and longtime CEO/President Mike Flanagan had some promising economic news to share with the assemblage (there was also good breeding news from partnership operating board facilities chairman Dan Harger, this about the prompt response he observed from seven female elk to a bugling elk near Kettle Creek earlier this month, but that’s another story for another time).

CEO Flanagan offered an update on four projects still in the hopper, three of them in western Clinton County, the other just off Interstate 80 in the southern portion of the county. If all come to fruition, it will make for outstanding economic news. But be forewarned, none of these will be happening overnight.
Here is Mr. Flan’s listing with the anticipated time frame for those projects coming to fruition/:

First up is Croda, Inc.’s new facility at the William B. Garbrick Sr. Business Park in Lamar Township. This one is on the surest footing, with Croda expecting a new production facility up and running at the old BJ Services acreage in a year and a half.

Next into the starting blocks should be/would be the Renovo Energy Center project. In the works since 2014, project developers are hoping to be underway with the construction phase later this year or early next year.

The other two projects Mr. Flanagan noted will take a little longer. Apex Solar wants to put a solar field on cleared woodland near Keating, but a check at the county’s Piper Building said the company has not submitted any development plans thus far. Sources say that project could be in a waiting mode for a while, waiting for a guaranteed spot on the power grid.

And that KeyState Opportunty gas petro plant proposed for West Keating is still in a planning mode; nothing on a specific time frame of late for that one.

So there’s promising good economic news out there, but be patient.
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Tough Times at the Haven – Part Two:

Lock Haven University marked its 150th anniversary last year and it is doubtful there was ever a more challenging year than 2021.

So where are we in September of 2021? Looking at this point again as very challenging. We really don’t know a whole lot more than a year ago, given that 2021 is the transition year into the fall of 2022 when the newly configured integrated thing-a-ma-bob of Northeastern PA University or something to that effect comes into being.

Is there a name yet? Will there be NCAA-affiliated sports teams? What about the old Armstrong house on Water Street that served as the residence for the local university president for half a century? Will the greater Lock Haven area community lose even more interest with what is or is not going on at “the Haven,” as LHU now likes to call itself.

Do I sound a little bitter? Hard not to be. It probably didn’t help the other day when the local media carried a story that LHU Interim President Bashar Hanna “visited” the local school. Well, thank you, Interim President Hanna for “the visit.” And when Lock Haven visits Bloomsburg for football next month (where Hanna is the president, not the interim president) will he sit on the LHU side for one half and the Bloom side for the other? Will he entertain himself in the president’s box at the football stadium?

Yes, this is all being sorted out and yes, something had to be done about the declining enrollment all across the 14-school state system (about to, through integration, become ten schools? twelve schools? whatever).

Interestingly, Down River was told the enrollment decline across the system has continued for the current school, but the DR source said LHU was the only school to show an increased enrollment for the fall. We’ve been trying for a couple weeks to get an enrollment figure as a follow-up, but so far without success. There certainly would be some irony if Lock Haven would be the only state school to show an increase (and also a wonderful tribute for the LHU staff to pull this off in such contentious times).

No, LHU won’t disappear; state legislation prevents the complete disembowelment of any of the 14 state schools. But what will be left? We don’t know. Probably some bureaucrat in a state system office in Harrisburg right now poring over the numbers for LHU and Mansfield in the “northeastern” configuration and Clarion and Edinboro in the western set-up to determine which programs stay and which programs go and who stays and who goes.

Demographers should have spotted the downward trend in enrollment in Pennsylvania a decade or two ago. Fewer kids and fewer state dollars from the state legislature, a recipe for disaster someone should have seen coming.

For whatever reason, this “integration” has, from the outside, turned into one of chaotic, uncharted waters with no apparent short-term winners. Hold on Bald Eagles, hold on Lock Haven community members who still take pride that our town is home to LHU. Check back in a year and we’ll see where we all are.