Published: July 12, 2009 10:08 pm      

Mainline towns teaming up to find planner, grant writer

PORTAGE — The slow-moving wheels of progress are producing results for a handful of Mainline towns.

The latest initiative for Portage Borough and Portage Township is for a community planner through AmeriCorps.

The two Portages and Cassandra Borough also are developing criteria for a grant writer, who will beat the bushes looking for untapped funding sources.

Already in the works is a merger of the Portage Volunteer Fire Company and the Cassandra Volunteer Fire Company, a move expected to help reduce costs and bring improved fire coverage

– especially during the day, when volunteers are harder to find.

The merger should be completed by year’s end.

The AmeriCorps worker is the latest on the radar screen for the two Portages.

“It’s a good idea, and we’ve decided we’ll go along and pay a share of the costs,” Portage Township Supervisor Kenneth Trimbath said late last week.

“We have a couple good ideas where to start using the person, then we’ll go on from there.”

AmeriCorps was started in 1993 by the Clinton administration and to date has put 540,000 workers into a variety of jobs.

Portage Borough Manager Bob Koban views the person as someone who can pick up the pieces of a lot of things that need completed.

“This is a test thing. The opportunity arose,” he said. “It can wrap up a lot of needs.”

The agreement between the township, borough and AmeriCorps places responsibility for health care and half of the compensation with the federally-funded program, Councilman Ray Vandzura said. Vandzura is eastern regional coordinator for the Pennsylvania Mountain Service Corps.

The township and the borough will each pay $6,500 for the year of service.

The two municipalities already share a host of things, Councilman George Wozniak said.

Included are the library, fire and ambulance service, water and sewer, and joint recreation and planning commissions.

Some of the initial areas the worker could be asked to address are an emergency management plan, better use of the GPS information now available, Summerfest, the Crichton Memorial Park and others.

Candidates will be interviewed around the end of August, with township and borough officials participating, Trimbath said. AmeriCorps workers often are college students or those of retirement age.

The selection of a grant writer to work for the two Portages and Cassandra may take a little longer with officials yet to determine how the person will be paid.

One candidate is helping township and borough officials formulate expectations and a compensation plan, Koban said.

The idea is to have someone search for and prepare grant applications for the municipalities.

They would also be available for nonprofit organizations such as the park, planning commission, library and emergency responders.

Plans are to interview a number of other people with the township taking the lead developing an agreement through solicitor C.J. Webb, with review by Portage and Cassandra boroughs.

“We’re headed in the right direction,” Trimbath said.