LAWRENCE COUNTY Rendell focuses attention on area

Over the last few years, Ed Rendell visited the county an estimated 17 times.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Shortly after being elected in 1999, Roger DeCarbo called a state office in Harrisburg for some information and identified himself as a Lawrence County commissioner.
The person on the other end of the telephone told him he had the wrong state and should telephone the Ohio state capital in Columbus.
"Right then and there I knew we were in sad shape. A bureaucrat who granted money to 67 counties didn't even know Lawrence County was in Pennsylvania," DeCarbo said.
That attitude seems to be changing as newly elected Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell has focused on Lawrence County during and after his recent election.
Rendell has made an estimated 17 visits to the county in the last few years on the campaign trail and shortly after his election, with the most recent stop earlier this month.
It's attention that Lawrence County hasn't seen in years from a governor, said Peter Vessella, Lawrence County Democratic Party chairman.
"We were shunned by [Gov. Richard] Thornburgh. We got nothing from [Gov. Tom] Ridge and [Gov. Robert] Casey just didn't seem to focus," Vessella said.
Rendell, by comparison, committed $15 million to infrastructure work to develop Millennium Park, an industrial park in Neshannock Township, shortly after taking office.
He also personally contacted a company interested in the site in an effort to woo them to Lawrence County, local officials say.
"We introduced him to [the Millennium Park project] as a candidate and he promised us if he won, he would follow through," DeCarbo said. "He called the company the night of the election."
The governor also made a vague reference to the project in his election night victory speech.
Local officials say hard work on their end and Rendell's background as mayor of Philadelphia are the key to the attention Lawrence County is receiving from the governor.
"He's the governor for us at the right time, and we are in the right place and the right time for ourselves," DeCarbo said. DeCarbo said Rendell understands the plight of local officials because of his time as a mayor.
Impressed by cooperation
Officials say Rendell is impressed with the cooperation among Lawrence County municipalities, the county and the local economic development corporation to create Millennium Park.
The city of New Castle has committed to extending sewage lines to the industrial park, which is in a neighboring community, and the county, several townships and the local economic development corporation have pledged millions of dollars to match the state funding.
"For every state dollar there are $2 being spent locally. It impressed him that we worked our cans off and we have our act together," DeCarbo said.
Vessella agreed. "Lawrence County stood out among other counties in being prepared for economic development," the county Democratic Party chairman said.
When it began
The work started long before Rendell became governor.
New Castle Mayor Timothy Fulkerson remembers taking candidate Ed Rendell on a tour of the county when he visited the 2001 New Castle Fireworks Festival. Rendell was impressed by the Millennium Park concept, he said.
"He said, 'There's all this highway and land with infrastructure and no one's taking it.' He looks at Lawrence County as being a key of western Pennsylvania and northwestern Pennsylvania -- to transform it into a vital part of the state," the mayor said.
DeCarbo said Rendell has been using Lawrence County and the Millennium Park project as a model when talking to other counties about economic development.
"He's holding us up as an example because he knows it's not only good for the community, but it's good for the whole state," DeCarbo added.
cioffi@vindy.com