With compliments, complaints and dime-sized red dot stickers, a group of more than 30 people at the community summit Wednesday made suggestions on how to improve one of the main corridors of the city's downtown business district, the 100 to 600 blocks of West Market Street.
"The five topics they deemed most critical were loitering, emphasizing landlord responsibility, a need for responsibility for maintenance, cleanliness and a lack of curb appeal," said Amy S. Burkhart, executive director of the Pottsville Area Development Corp., who hosted the summit at Pottsville Free Public Library along with city officials.
The public is invited to a second summit on the topic, which will be held at 7 p.m. on the second floor of the library at 215 W. Market St. People interested in attending should register by calling PADCO at 570-628-4647, Burkhart said.
In April, the city and PADCO started the first phase of a downtown anti-blight campaign with an evaluation of 61 buildings on that six-block stretch. It included a public survey conducted by PADCO and assessment of those buildings conducted by the Pottsville Blight and Nuisance Task Force.
The suggestions made during these events will be turned into action plans, and Burkhart said she hopes the residents and business people who came out to offer them will help the city make improvements.
"What we're going to be doing from here is creating groups to start working on these action items. We're going to be working on cleanliness. We're going to be working on curb appeal. And when I say 'we,' I mean everyone standing in this room. So please make sure we have your contact information so we can keep you involved in the process," Burkhart said at the end of Wednesday's summit.
City Administrator Thomas A. Palamar introduced the task force at the 8:30 a.m. start of the presentation. Using a slide projector, Palamar presented information, stating that the task force has evaluated 410 properties since it was established in April 2012.
There was also a presentation by a guest speaker, Randy Feathers, a representative of Operation Our Town. Formed in 2007, it's a partnership led by area businesses to fight drugs and violent crime in Blair County, according to its website at www.operationourtown.org.
Burkhart summarized the results of the survey in which 62 people evaluated the 100 to 600 blocks of West Market Street.
When asked the question "Do you think West Market Street has improved in the last three years?" 26 percent said "yes" and 73 percent said "no," according to the results.
Burkhart conducted a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats, or SWOT, analysis by asking the crowd what they consider the corridor's greatest strengths and weaknesses.
Diana McGeever, PADCO administrative assistant, listed the suggestions on a poster.
"We need to have zero tolerance for litter," Stephen R. Buzalko, owner of Buzalko Properties and Buzalko Woodworking, Pottsville, said.
"The street sweeper does a great job, but we don't want to clean the center of the road. We want to clean the areas near the curb. When the cars are parked there, there's a lack of enforcement," Patrick J. Murphy, president of Murphy Jewelers at 115 W. Market St., Pottsville, said.
"I think the number one thing we have to look at, before any of this can happen, is to make the downtown a safe environment. It is a very unsafe environment. Our employees will not even walk two blocks to get to their car. I'm afraid to walk from the store to my car across the street at Bob Green's parking lot when it's dark out at night. We have to identify the reasons it's not safe, and it is going to come down to all the drug addicts living in all the buildings all around here, all the Section 8 housing. That's got to get cleaned up or there's no point to any of this," Kim Murphy, Murphy's wife and the company vice president, said.
"I have been told on more than one occasion that people just do not feel safe coming here after dark," Nancy J. Smink, director of the library, said.
While loitering makes some businessmen in the area feel uncomfortable, some people at the summit suggested the threat of real danger was only a perception.
"I think there's a perception that it's unsafe, but I don't think it's that unsafe," Domenico Mercuri, owner of The Yellow Shoppe at 121 W. Norwegian St., said.
No one at the summit had statistics on armed robberies or other crimes in the area.
Craig S.L. Shields, chief executive officer of Barefield Development Corp., Pottsville, complimented the city police. And Jim Rose, co-owner of Buy Me Again, 311 W. Market St., Pottsville, said he's seen more police walking the streets since the city council hired Richard F. Wojciechowsky as its new police chief on Dec. 31.
"They walk the beat. I see them all the time," Rose said.
"The perception of public safety is important to the community," Burkhart said, instructing McGeever on how to write that suggestion.
From there, concerns about loitering were expressed. And when McGeever taped the posters with the problems identified up on the bookshelves, 22 people put the red dot stickers near the word "loitering."
The other four top issues identified in the voting process and the number of votes they received were: 16 voted for cleanliness, 12 voted for lack of curb appeal, nine voted for landlord responsibility and eight voted for a need for responsibility for maintenance.