2nd, 3rd Wards, and School district races matter! Vote November 5!

Thanks to the Gazette for the great coverage of the Indiana Borough Council election coming up this Tuesday, November 5. Despite my best efforts, Borough beat reporter Randy Wells put together a fine biography of my candidacy. Read about all five of the candidates for the second ward, including me and Don Lancaster running for the 4 year term, and Larry Dechurch and Brett Johns running for the 2 year term.

Don and I face off on who likes the 

borough more on WIUPfm 90.1

The Third Ward race is also heating up, with the rising candidacy of long-time Indiana residents Tara Federoff, and Jennifer Gonda-English (she's got a video!!). As write-in candidates, they're going to need lots of support, which they're hoping they'll get from residents and students in the 3rd ward.

The Indiana School District race is, as always, heated. This year it's been fueled by the current board's response to Pennsylvania's war on public education. The race is important, so check out the candidates, they just did a debate. It is important to note that contrary to recent ads in the Gazette, the current board did not pass a tax increase. They passed a referendum to ask voters what they think.

#awkward

So if you're in the 2nd or 3rd ward, or anywhere in the district, the good news is that people are excited enough about Indiana to be campaigning for a unpaid positions! Read or listen to the candidates,check their information online. There are many similarities in how we all care for our community, however, there are some stark differences, illustrated by these two recent letters to the editor, one from me, the other from my neighbor and principle opponent in this race, Bob Jobe.

And remember, go out and vote this Tuesday! These local elections effect your community!

Thanks for your support!

CANDIDATE: Gerald Smith

October 29, 2013 10:00 AM

Gerald Smith won Democratic and Republican nominations for Indiana council in the spring primary, but got the chance to start getting experience as a councilman without waiting for the general election.
Smith was elected by council in July to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Tom Shively. Shively’s departure was one of two vacancies for Second Ward council representatives within a few weeks earlier this year.

Smith enters next week’s general election as an incumbent with about four months’ experience as a sitting councilman.

A math teacher in the Indiana Area School District, Smith grew up in St. Louis and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and philosophy from Northwestern University. He taught in public schools in St. Louis; Portland, Ore.; Renton, Wash.; and Pittsburgh. He also taught in Africa while a Peace Corps volunteer. Smith left teaching from 2004 to 2008 to become a community organizer with the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations. With NWFCO, he coordinated a national health care coalition focused on eliminating racial disparities in health outcomes and worked as a regional campaign manager for the national health care campaign that resulted in the Affordable Care Act.

Since coming to Pennsylvania, Smith has been an active volunteer with local environmental organizations and Indiana County Democratic campaigns. He founded the Coalition for a Healthy County and the Indiana Neighborhoods Community Association and has worked with the Center for Community Growth, the Friends of Yellow Creek and the Three Rivers Community Foundation.

Smith said one of the main reasons he is interested in serving on council is because be believes in community, and the Indiana community is shrinking.

He noted Indiana’s population dropped 13 percent from 2000 to 2010, and last month he asked Indiana residents to share with council the reasons people stay, not leave, Indiana. He suggested policies could be adjusted based on that feedback from residents.

Smith said his experiences in community activism and in bringing people together to address issues and solve problems are assets he brings to the Indiana council table.

Smith said he wants to help expand Indiana’s reputation as a regional destination.
“We need to be proactive in developing and promoting Indiana’s reputation as a local and regional destination by building on our assets,” such as the Jimmy Stewart legacy and the Wonderful Life events.
He also supports doing more to promote the borough’s farmers market, finding ways to have local agriculture play more of a role in the borough and creating a “buy local” campaign to encourage residents to spend their dollars in the borough.

Smith considers the Indiana Free Library one of the borough’s “prime assets” and supports keeping it at its present location.

He believes borough government could be more efficient by reducing the number of council seats and by having a full-time borough manager as it has in the past.

Disclaimer: Copyright © 2013 Indiana Gazette. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.indianagazette.com/news/indiana-area/candidate-gerald-smith,18519161/

Candidates Take to the Airwaves, and don't forget to vote, next Tuesday, 11/5!

Election Day is Next Tuesday!
Please make sure to get out and vote for new energy and a positive direction for Indiana Borough. I'm proud to be supporting two other folks in Ward 2, Don Lancaster and Larry DeChurch. I'm also excited to see two community members who have joined in a write-in campaign in the 3rd Ward, representing a united student-resident voice. Read about them here.

Yesterday, all of us, plus Julie Adcock from the 4th Ward were featured on a brand new radio program; The Center Radio airs on Saturdays, at 11am on WIUP fm. It features analysis and discussion of issues relating to Indiana, tied to the film series also from The Center for Community Growth starting again this January.

Yesterday's debut broadcast was a round table call-in Q&A on Indiana Borough Council candidates. You can listen to the whole thing here.

There's more local discussion on local office with the a School Board debate this Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30pm at East Pike Elementary School. Check it here.

Election day is right around the corner, make sure to talk to your neighbor, your vote matters!

Vote Tuesday, November 5!

Now is the time for a community conversation - September 17, 7pm

Save the date - September 17, 7pm.

Indiana Borough Council - Work Session

80 N. 8th Street

One of the primary reasons for my interest in becoming a borough council member is because I believe in community, and ours is shrinking. While recent School District enrollment numbers are increasing, the Borough itself has shrunk by 13% from 2000 to 2010 - mostly families and seniors. Why is no one talking about this?  

Families and seniors are the glue that hold communities together.  They go to work, pay taxes, attend church and community functions, serve on boards and committees, and invest in schools.  They are who our kids play with, we invite over for cookouts, collect our mail when we are away, and who are always around to talk politics downtown or in our driveway.  They are a vital and often unseen part of the fabric that sustains a community and keeps it vibrant.  Without them a community will decline.

In a healthy community I would think that when people start packing their bags or looking for other places to settle, those of us who care about that place should pay attention.  We should demand that local government study the issues by engaging residents and neighborhoods and adjust policy based on this feedback. I believe that the question is less about what makes people leave, but rather, what makes people stay.  

It’s time to engage with you. On September 17, 7pm, at the regularly scheduled Indiana Borough Council work session we will begin to engage in a process to envision where we see our town. As a representative of our borough, I need to hear from you.

I ask that you come to our September 17 work session and be part of the conversation. Where do you see Indiana in 5, 10, 20 years? What assets are we ignoring? How do we tap into our strengths? I ask also that you not be convinced that there are easy answers. This is not a choice between either a Vegas, or Bedford Falls. For one thing, at least one of those places is fictional! More importantly, that’s too simplistic. Indiana,  PA is a unique community within the region. This in itself is an asset. Are we all that we can be? I also ask that you think positively, there are plenty of negatives to go around.

If you are unable to attend on September 17, I encourage you to reach out to your Borough Council member this month. Contact information can be found on the Borough’s website.

Also, please, leave a comment here or on Facebook. Do you have questions about what's going on with the borough? Lets start the conversation now.  

This visioning process only starts on September 17; I hope our community will lead the Borough Council into the coming years.

And oh yea, make sure you're registered to vote!! It's time for a fresh start in Indiana Borough, and it should start with you!

EDIT: 9/12/13 A helpful note from Borough Council person, Peter Broad: 

Peter Broad I agree with G 100%. However, I don't think people should think that the meeting next Tuesday is going to be some kind of open forum where there is a healthy give and take between council members and the general public. I do think that such an open forum, or even a series of them, should be an important part of the visioning process. A council work session is more of a place to learn what issues the council is considering than it is to participate in a dialogue. Members of the public in attendance will each be given three minutes to state their concerns, but normally there is little or no interaction with council members. After this so-called public participation period, the council turns to its agenda and moves on. Work sessions are limited by law to two hours, and no votes can be taken. That said, I think a good turnout of interested people, even if they don't speak, can have a positive effect by making the council members aware that there are community concerns and people willing to take the time to show them.

Thank you Indiana, PA!

You've just put me and Don Lancaster on the November ballot!!  Thank you!!

Donald Lancaster and I have spent the last couple weeks walking the 2nd Ward and talking with folks. There's a lot of common themes: neighborhood schools, keeping our library where it is, and being proactive about teaching our student neighbors what community means!

Tomorrow's primary day, so don't forget, vote twice for community: Gerald Smith, and Donald Lancaster!

Thanks to the Gazette for a great article!

Thanks so much to the Indiana Gazette for the write up on my campaign!

I think one thing that separates Don Lancaster and I is that we see the IUP community as an asset, not as a problem. That's not to say there's not issues of neighbors clashing with students. However, living on the border between family neighborhoods and dense housing I've found the best defense is a good offense. We try to get to know our student neighbors every fall, and remind them that they're not on campus, and that there are families and elderly folks nearby. It's my experience that students want to be good neighbors, but sometimes they need to be shown how. Sometimes that takes just a conversation, and other times it takes a call to the borough police. But, the fact is only around 30-40% of borough police calls involve students - not bad considering they're about half our population!

Anything else you want to know? Email, call, leave a comment, let me know what you think!

INDIANA BOROUGH: Three seek seats on council

May 15, 2013 11:00 AM

Click For Gallery

Two four-year seats on Indiana Borough council, representing the Second Ward, are up for election later this month.
Incumbent councilman Robert Jobe is the sole Republican seeking a nomination.
On the Democrat ballot, three men — Larry DeChurch, Donald Lancaster and Gerald Smith — are vying for the two available nominations.

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GERALD SMITH

Indiana Area High School math teacher Gerald Smith said his experience in community activism and in bringing people together to address issues and solve problems are assets he could bring to Indiana council.

Smith grew up in St. Louis and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and philosophy from Northwestern University. He taught in public schools in St. Louis; Portland, Ore.; Renton, Wash.; and Pittsburgh.

He also taught in Africa in 1999 and 2000 while a Peace Corps volunteer and worked with communities in east Africa on increasing access to quality education.

Between 2004 and 2008, Smith took a break from the classroom and became a community organizer with the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations. With NWFCO, Smith coordinated a national health care coalition focused on eliminating racial disparities in health outcomes and worked as a regional campaign manager for the national health care campaign that resulted in the Affordable Care Act.

Since coming to Pennsylvania, Smith has been an active volunteer with local environmental organizations and Indiana County Democratic campaigns.

He founded the Coalition for a Healthy County and the Indiana Neighborhoods Community Association and has worked with the Center for Community Growth, the Friends of Yellow Creek and the Three Rivers Community Foundation.

Smith said he wants to help expand Indiana’s reputation as a regional destination.

“We want to see Indiana flourish and continue to grow, to become a regional attraction,” he said. “I know that takes work. That’s what council does.”

He said that since moving to Indiana he’s been advocating changes aimed at increasing Indiana’s “livability.”

“I’d like to step in and help make things happen in a real way,” he said. “We need to be proactive in developing and promoting Indiana’s reputation as a local and regional destination by building on our assets,” including Indiana’s “small-town attractions” like the Jimmy Stewart legacy and the Wonderful Life events.

He said he’d like to do more to promote the borough’s farmers market and find ways to have local agriculture play more of a role in the borough.

“Like it or not, one of our biggest attractions is the night life here,” he said. He’d like to see downtown businesses “package” the amenities they have and capitalize more on them by coordinating with IUP when special events are held on the campus.

Those are examples of the “common-sense connections” he’s been proactive in creating and promoting, he said.

Indiana, too, he said, could use a “buy local” campaign to encourage residents to spend their dollars in the borough. More of an effort needs to be made to retain dollars now being spent elsewhere, he said.

Smith called the Indiana Free Library one of the borough’s “prime assets.”

“If we are serious about attracting people to Indiana, we have to hold on to that free library” at its present location, he said.

Asked what he considers to be strengths of council, Smith said, “Council members are very committed. They take their positions seriously.” Council, he added, “has a long history we can build on.”

But an improvement, he suggested, would be to make council easier to manage by reducing the number of council seats.

And he believes the borough needs professional leadership.

“We need a (full-time) borough manager,” he said, adding it’s “not fair” to ask William Sutton to serve as both borough manager and police chief.

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DONALD LANCASTER

Donald Lancaster believes one of the most helpful attributes he could bring to Indiana council is his enthusiasm for the borough.

While strolling recently to a touring Broadway show on the Indiana University of Pennsylvania campus, he and his wife commented, “Where else could we walk to see a Broadway show and afford to live there?”

“Indiana is one of the special communities,” Lancaster said. “I think we have a gem here. I want to see it continue to grow in a positive way. I want to build on it.”

Lancaster moved to Indiana in 2003 when his wife began teaching tax law and accounting at IUP.

“We’ve decided to stay here” in retirement, he said.

Lancaster grew up in Westmoreland County and earned a bachelor’s degree in speech communications from Penn State University and a master’s degree in special education from Duquesne University. From 1979 to 2011 he was a special-education teacher of students with severe emotional disorders and behavior disorders in Pittsburgh public schools. Since he retired he’s been involved in several community projects, including the Horace Mann Elementary School charette, a community brainstorming session on improving the grounds, playground and front entrance of the school.

He’s also been involved with a group trying to connect the Hoddlebug Trail to downtown Indiana.

He’s concluded that the things he’d like to see happen in Indiana can be most influenced by an elected representative.

“Running for council dovetails with everything I want to do in the community,” he said.

“I’m a big supporter of the local library,” he said. “For a small borough, we have a really good public library” that’s centrally located. “I’d like to see the library stay where it is,” he said.

Most of the organizations working to improve Indiana have limited budgets, and Lancaster suggested groups should come together and pool their advertising resources. He’d like to see Indiana — with its vibrant downtown business district, festivals, IUP attractions and other amenities — promoted as a destination within a 60-mile radius.

“It’s an alternative way to stir up money” and be an extra source of revenue, he said.

Lancaster lives along Marsh Run.

“We were flooded twice in the past year” by sewer backups, he said. “I’d like to see some remediation” for Marsh Run flooding but without destroying the green spaces in some areas along the stream, he said.

Many governments become reactive rather than being proactive, he said, and he’s in favor of improving communications between council and IUP.

“We need to think about how we can work with the university and developers” to plan for the future, he said. “The university is one of our biggest assets. … Whatever’s good for the university will be good for the community, and vice versa. … We shouldn’t be doing things in a vacuum.”

As for skills that will helpful as a councilman, Lancaster said his years as a special-education teacher prepared him for dealing with all kinds of personalities and taught him to listen and mediate.

He also said that during the time he’s lived in Indiana he’s never met his representative on council, and he and Gerald Smith, another council candidate in the Second Ward, have discussed getting out into the community and perhaps hosting small informal gatherings to chat with constituents.

“We want to be more visible, so people know who represents them on council,” he said. “People should know who we are.”

LARRY DeCHURCH

 Larry DeChurch was born and raised in Homer City and attended Laura Lamar High School.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree in management information systems and computer science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

For 32 years he was employed in the Pittsburgh area as a software engineer for Mellon Bank and Bank of New York. He and his wife, the former Victoria Belash, an Indiana native, moved back to their hometown areas when DeChurch retired three years ago, and they bought a home along Indiana’s Elm Street.

DeChurch said he discusses Indiana issues with neighbors and friends, but it’s unlikely their discussions alone will lead to many changes.

“I needed to put myself in a decision-making position,” DeChurch said.

He and his wife like Indiana — that’s why they bought a retirement home in the borough — but, “I think there’s some improvements that can be made,” he said.

DeChurch said he has concerns about some past decisions council has made and about issues now before council.

“My wife and I both feel we need a very strong library here in Indiana,” and it should be kept locally, in an easy-to-get-to location, he said.

He also feels IUP student rental properties have “sprawled” too much into Indiana’s residential neighborhoods.

“I see student rental housing everywhere” and it discourages families from buying homes in the borough, he said.

On a recent warm weekend he saw many rental properties where students were drinking and partying on porches.

“If I had young children, would I want to put them in an environment like that?” he asked.

The large number of IUP students living off-campus puts a strain on Indiana’s infrastructure, he said. Two residential properties that once had two families now may have dozens of student tenants.

He also noted that a significant percentage of the Indiana Borough Police Department’s calls and expenses are related to IUP students.

“I don’t think IUP pulls its weight as far as monetary matters are concerned,” he said. “I think there’s really a disparity there.”

But he emphasizes he is not “anti-IUP.” The university is an integral part of Indiana and provides many jobs and incomes and keeps the community vibrant, he said.

DeChurch also said borough residents should have peace of mind that the borough’s infrastructure is being maintained “so they don’t have to hold their breath every time it starts to rain, wondering if they will have to deal with water in the basement yet again,” he said.

He also believes the size of council contributes to the body being “unwieldy” at times.

“There are probably too many members,” he said, but he doesn’t agree with at-large representation. He feels council members should continue to be elected by wards and he favors ways to increase citizens’ participation in council’s actions and to give borough residents more of a vehicle for expressing their concerns.

DeChurch said his education and work experience — he was in charge of large, multi-million dollar projects while employed by the banks — and his strong background in computers and “the power of information” would be his most valuable assets as a councilman.

DeChurch also operated heavy equipment for 3 1/2 years and is familiar with construction techniques, and he was the leader of The Cobras rock band that was popular around Indiana in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

Disclaimer: Copyright © 2013 Indiana Gazette. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Me, my wife, Dr. Amanda Poole, Griffin, and Zuzu.

Greetings voters,
My name is Gerald Smith. I am asking you to support me for Indiana Borough Council to represent the 2nd Ward.

I believe right now is an exciting time for our community, and I am excited to help make sure Indiana, PA continues to be a great place to live. Here's my vision on how to get there:

Embrace and expand Borough and community assets

I plan to promote and develop Indiana's reputation as a local and regional destination by building on our assets. These assets include our "small town attractions" like our Free Library, our Jimmy Stewart legacy, and the Wonderful Life events. They also include our farmers market, a vibrant downtown, a diverse array of arts and entertainment and of course the most active night life in the region.

Encourage local investment

I'd like to encourage a buy local campaign, so that people in the borough can invest right here in our own communities. We should be supporting local farmers, craftspeople, small businesses and contractors. Borough residents want to shop local; we should make it easy for them!

Build infrastructure for development

We need to improve the physical infrastructure of the borough, such as our storm water management system, as well as continuing the streetscape improvement projects. In addition, the borough should be actively pursuing opportunities to pull together large stakeholders in our community for collaborative projects. This means building regular lines of communication between decision makers at the borough, IUP, the school district, major regional employers like IRMC and industry, and business groups like Downtown Indiana.

Attract and retain professional leadership

If Indiana is serious about developing into a regional destination then one of our smartest investments is in professional staff to help lead this community into the 21st century.

I'd love to hear from you! Drop me an email through this link here, give me a call at home, or stop me in the street.