Earlier this month, Pitt’s ARC-ACRI took our long-awaited trip to Fayette County.
Our group, the Sustainability Capstone, has been thinking about this visit since we began our project in late August. All the research, interviews, and analysis we have done up to this point has been in an effort to be as knowledgeable and thorough as possible in our discussions when we made it to Uniontown.
The entire ARC-ACRI class stayed at Touchstone Center for Crafts in the town of Farmingtown. Touchstone is a nonprofit dedicated to the arts with workshops, studios, and, luckily for us, sleeping accommodations. It was a great homebase for us to rest, eat, and convene. However, most of our time was spent in Connellsville, where our stakeholders of the Fayette County Cultural Trust are, and Uniontown, the site of our project focus.
Going into the weekend, our group had scheduled an interview for Friday morning with Crystal Simmons, the Director of the Uniontown Redevelopment Authority. That afternoon, we had a lunch at the Connellsville Canteen, to which we had three personal attendees: Scott Dun and Vincent Vicites, both Fayette County Commissioners, and a community member named John Detisch. Beyond this, we planned to visit automobile manufacturers (and adjacent businesses) – of which there are many in Uniontown – to gauge business interest in the space industry. We had QR code surveys and questions prepared for any interested businesses or individuals. We also prepared questions for community members regarding Phillips Discharge in Uniontown.
On Thursday evening, as the whole class sat around the dinner table planning who would go in which car the following morning, I was really nervous. I didn’t know what to expect out of our interviews and discussions. What if our questions didn’t spur conversation? What if we aggravated people? What if Crystal asked us questions we didn’t know the answer to? What if when we left, all we had done was waste her time?
Despite my worries, Friday morning came. Our sustainability group woke up, ate breakfast, and headed to Uniontown for our interview with Crystal.
We ended up speaking with Crystal for over an hour. The conversation was rich with valuable insight on the state of Uniontown’s economy and government.
Crystal told us a lot of critical information that we were missing about Uniontown. She told us that the city’s current, crystalized priorities are a new comprehensive plan, blight remediation, and an application to PA’s Strategic Management Plan Program, or STMP. Uniontown’s larger, thematic priorities are housing, infrastructure, and job creation.
From what we learned during our conversation with Crystal, Uniontown’s governmental gaps can be divided into two overlapping categories: human and financial. The human capacity issue can be further divided into two subcategories: vacant/nonexistent positions and unenacted positions.
One of the problems facing Uniontown’s government is that it does not have adequate staffing/representatives in and on their municipal boards; there are positions that exist but are not filled. These vacancies include:
- the Program Manager position at the Uniontown Redevelopment Authority
- staffing on Uniontown’s Municipal Authority; Crystal told us it is the board members, not paid staff, who record meeting minutes and keep the authority running.
- board member positions on Uniontown’s Planning Commission.
Other gaps in Uniontown’s government refer to positions that still need to be created. These include:
- A Business Manager position
- A City Manager position
- An HR department
- More code enforcement officers
When we asked Crystal about her thoughts on the Keystone Space Collaborative, she said it was something she would want Uniontown to be a part of, but it wasn’t feasible right now. In short, it was more what she didn’t say about the Keystone Space Collaborative that showed where Uniontown’s needs lie. Crystal, rightfully, did not want to engage with the subject. She wanted to talk more about what Uniontown needed right now. Due to this, and our impending lunch, we scratched our plans to visit automobile manufacturers in the area.
The next meeting I would like to highlight here is our sustainability capstone’s conversation with Fayette County Commissioner Scott Dun. This conversation helped us better understand some of Fayette County’s setbacks and goals. One interesting thing we discussed was community input on solar. Dun explained that while many Fayette County citizens support solar energy in theory, they are resistant to it being implemented in their community, something Dun called “NIMBYism”, or “Not in my Backyard – ism”. We talked about how this could relate to the reclamation efforts of Phillips Discharge. In order for the Pennsylvania DEP to reclaim Phillips Discharge, they will have to set up treatment plants on some lots of private property. Dun confirmed our assumptions that “NIMBYism” could be an issue in this effort. We had planned to spend some time during our site visit (and subsequent visits) to collect more community input on this matter. However, in a matter of hours, it became clear that our project could add much more value to Fayette County if we switched courses.
It was clear from our conversation with Crystal that there are more fundamental needs that must be met in Uniontown before they can consider economically invigorating the area via the space industry. To meet this need, we are shifting gears. We are going to synthetize our research findings regarding the status of reclamation of Phillips Discharge in Uniontown; we will do the same for the research we have on the Keystone Space Collaborative and its feasibility and receptibility in Uniontown. The purpose of this is to ensure that the next cohort does not repeat our research. While we did not go in the direction we originally thought we would, we believe the work we’ve done, so long as we record it, is not in vain; either previous groups will know not to pursue our original angles, or, if they do, they can use our research to inform their own.
Beyond some diligent archiving, we will be moving our focus to Uniontown City Hall. In fact, just this past weekend we went back to Uniontown to meet again with Crystal and some other city hall representatives. These other attendees included representatives from the zoning department, parks and recreation department, police force, redevelopment authority, and city council. During this meeting, we had attendees write out the needs, challenges, and hopes for each of their departments. We then had attendees go around and select six of these that they thought would be most important to address in Uniontown. We also had attendees rate the functionality of the different parts of Uniontown City Hall, such as Planning Commission, elected officials, and fire department. We collected this information with the goal of creating a gaps analysis and/or organizational chart for Uniontown’s government. In my opinion, the goal of this endeavor should be to highlight where Uniontown has the most need and create a prioritization list based on the feedback we received from our two site visits. I believe this data could be sharpened through more engagement. Perhaps with our now established relationship with Crystal, we could administer the same data collection via a remote survey of the rest of city hall – or at least more representatives. This prioritization list will ideally serve as a jumping off point for the next cohort of students. We will develop a more complete crystallization of our final deliverables after we have analyzed the data from our last site visit. However, I believe the outcomes detailed above will be included.
Something unique that I saw in Uniontown compared to the urban areas I am used to – Pittsburgh and northern New Jersey, for example –was a deeply ingrained culture of personal investment and an evident sense of belonging within the community. This goes beyond a mere appreciation for the area; it reflects a collective commitment among its residents to actively contribute to the town’s welfare and future. I don’t mean to imply that people in urban settings lack community care or civic pride; rather, I think that in more transient urban environments, where people frequently come and go, a cohesive community investment is harder to maintain. In Uniontown, however, I could see this dedication in action. The local representatives were actively invested in our meetings; they took the time to tell us about their community.
In an age where many areas struggle to cultivate a unified community spirit, Uniontown stands out as a place where people seem to genuinely prioritize their town’s well-being over personal gain. This is a strength of Uniontown that I don’t think can be overstated.
In conclusion, our sustainability capstone’s conversations with Uniontown community members provided more fruitful insight than distant, impersonal research ever could have. Meeting with local representatives and stakeholders highlighted both the dedication to overcoming current limitations and the commitment to revitalizing the town’s future. By documenting our research and establishing clear priorities, we aim to provide a foundation for future groups to build upon, empowering Uniontown to reach its full potential. This journey underscored the importance of community-driven progress, something I think Uniontown really embodies.