Erie, seeking revitalization, goes all in on opportunity zones

• Ed Mahon
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  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Ed Mahon / PA Post

A tribute to President John F. Kennedy greets visitors at the entrance to Erie’s city hall on Sept. 12, 2019.

Could provision in Trump tax law reverse city’s decline?

Ed Mahon / PA Post

A tribute to President John F. Kennedy greets visitors at the entrance to Erie’s city hall on Sept. 12, 2019. (Ed Mahon / PA Post)

A bust of John F. Kennedy, the nation’s only Catholic president, sits in the entrance of Erie’s city hall.

“Back in the day, Erie — there was like a church on practically every corner,” Kathleen Schaaf,  an Erie City Council member and former full-time Catholic school teacher, told me. “I know my grandfather was just like really big into JFK.”

The Kennedy tribute struck me as interesting for a few different reasons.

For one, when I was a kid, whenever I visited my Grandmom Nora’s house on Rundale Avenue in Yeadon, Delaware County, I always saw a bust of the nation’s 35th president.

Back when the Democratic senator from Massachusetts was elected president in 1960, Erie had about 140,000 people. Now it has about 96,000.

That population loss came up in interview after interview during my trip to Erie last month. I made the five-hour-plus drive for two stories.

The first one looked at how a bunch of people teamed up to put pressure on a polluting coke plant and the state officials charged with regulating it.

The second story, published online this morning, looks at how elected officials, business leaders and others teamed up to attract new investment into the city.

Two different topics — but both highlight a community’s mission to reinvent Erie.

(For more context on the second story, check out Spotlight PA reporter Charlotte Keith’s story that explains why so many communities are not benefitting from the new tax incentive.)

And here’s one other reason the Kennedy bust caught my attention. Back in 2016, Erie County flipped in favor of Republican Donald Trump.

Two years ago, the city of Erie came closer than usual to voting for a Republican for mayor. John Persinger “brought a viable Republican challenge to the Erie mayor’s race for the first time in decades,” GoErie.com reported.

Now, Persinger is the CEO of the Erie Downtown Development Corporation. He and the city’s Democratic mayor, Joe Schember, are working together to lure investors.

“They were opponents, but they were the right kind of opponents,” Rick Jacobs, who has worked with both men as the CEO of Accelerator for America, told me. “They opposed each other based on their approach to a job, not based on personality. And I think there’s a lot to be said for Erie in that ethos that a lot of us could learn from.” — Ed Mahon

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