The Perry County commissioners are creating a new advisory board for grant applications that they hope could help the county be successful in getting larger amounts for projects.
The commissioners said the board of community members and key public officials would help to better guide the process. That would build on the increased funding the county and groups have received since it hired Penn Strategies to assist in grant applications.
“It’s been nearly a year and a half of successes,” Commissioner Gary Eby said during the May 16 meeting that took place in Penn Twp.
The advisory board would help vet the applications coming in, as well as set priorities for grants the county would apply for, he said.
The board would have nine people on it, including the three commissioners, said Commissioner Brenda Watson. The board would also include a representative from Penn Strategies, and Jason Finnerty who represents Perry County at the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission. It acts as the county’s planning department.
The other four spots would be community members, including two each from the Perry County Economic Development Authority (PCEDA), and the Perry County Economic Development Corp. (PCEDC). The authority is a general economic development, events, and marketing entity largely composed of business and community members in the county.
PCEDC is a separate entity created in the past to be an industrial development nonprofit to manage the business campus near Duncannon in Penn Twp. It’s still involved in such efforts although the properties were sold to Bill Roberts in 2018 to take over the sale and development of the campus, now known as Perry Innovation Park.
Roberts is a Perry resident and president of IBS Development Corp., a commercial developer. His wife, Martha “Marti” Roberts, is the chairperson of the PCEDA. The authority has an 11-person board that makes decisions about its initiatives.
Eby said having an advisory board could help the county and municipalities to get more grants. Competitive state grants often want to see that municipalities are part of long-range planning efforts. In that way, this could dovetail with the county’s comprehensive plan updates, too.
County officials have encouraged municipalities to participate in the comp plan update, currently under way. Adding their community development projects to such plans could mean they get help making them a reality.
Other communities are farther ahead in such efforts, getting larger grants in competitive rounds, commissioners said. Success there could be crucial to Perry County’s needs.
“We need to do a lot of catching up,” Eby said.
Jim T. Ryan can be reached via email at jtryan@perrycountytimes.com
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