State needs to encourage different fix for Campbell

Campbell is in financial trouble -- AGAIN!
Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery placed the city in fiscal emergency last week, which means a state-appointed commission will be formed to oversee development of a plan for recovery.
Campbell's financial struggles are extensive, repetitive, well-documented and almost commonplace. It takes only a quick glance through a card file on the city to see a troubling pattern. Look at a sampling of headlines from The Vindicator, some going back more than 70 years:
U"Club leaders want state to run Campbell" (April 1933)
U"Campbell receivership is seen as possibility" (November 1933)
U"Campbell fiscal crunch echoes its crisis of '30s" (September 1983)
U"Ohio auditor lifts crisis in Campbell" (July 1986)
U"Campbell aches financially; layoffs studied" (June 1988)
U"Money woes imperil city, official says" (February 1992)
U"City finance director expects bumpy road" (January 2001)
U"Mayor: "City in distress" (November 2001)
And finally, last week:
U"Campbell mayor seeks assistance in resolving city's financial crisis" (June 2004)
"We knew it was coming for a long time," Campbell Mayor Jack Dill said in last week's story about the latest fiscal emergency.
Dill's comment referred only to the current crisis, but given the history, it wouldn't be a stretch to interpret it this way, "We knew it was coming because that's just what happens in Campbell."
It's time for the state to help Campbell break the pattern, and it can do so by strongly recommending that the city take a regional approach to its problems. The city has shown repeatedly that it cannot stand on its own for very long.
Regionalization would allow Campbell and surrounding communities -- Struthers, Lowellville, Coitsville and (dare we say it, Youngstown) -- to join forces to provide an array of administrative and safety services without any one entity being forced to carry the financial load.
In 1992, an effort to combine Campbell and Struthers courts into one operated and financed by the county had some support at the state level, but legislation to make it happen never materialized.
When the state lifted the crisis for Campbell in 1986, Ohio Auditor Tom Ferguson acknowledged the city's problems were "far from being solved."
Clearly, he was right.
This time, a different approach is needed.
In discussing the latest problems, Dill has announced he is looking for three professionals to volunteer (the deadline to apply is next week) their knowledge and expertise to shape a plan for the city. Those volunteers will work with city leaders and the yet-to-be-appointed state commission.
Whatever volunteers are selected must be willing to look beyond their city borders to solve the problems within those boundaries. City leaders need a change of thinking on how to fix Campbell. Territorialism isn't working. Mayor Dill is hoping that completion of a bridge will spur industrial development. That's a nice idea, but it may or may not happen.
The answers to Campbell's woes need to be addressed regionally. The state needs to encourage it, the local leaders need to plan it, and the residents need to support it.
Anything less will produce nothing -- except more troubling headlines.