As an appointed official once responsible for helping to ignite the redevelopment process in Norristown immediately after the FBI cleaned house, I can honestly say that I do not believe that their failure is due to the reasons stated within the article.
Public safety, the business environment, taxes and council itself really needs to be addressed prior to any redevelopment talking place.
With a police force that has been consistently working undermanned for years and in a police department that is not even remotely suitable for a force of this size, it’s very hard to hard to move ahead. As was the case in Delaware County, Chester County and elsewhere, public safety is the keystone in this foundation!
Additionally, municipal council needs to be business friendly. When a great philanthropic family offered 15 million dollars to build a child health care facility with the support of CHOP in a soon to be vacant storefront in town, right across the street from a brand new, underutilized multi-level mixed use parking garage and around the corner from the regional transportation center, Mr. Gary Simpson and his band of supportive council members looked to, and succeeded at, driving them away because they would have preferred to move this facility to a soon to be hospital in the northern part of town and far from these valuable resources. That center would have occupied a dead storefront in a key pa t of town, brought in taxes and possibly taxpayers and put bodies on the street.
Finally, when you take into account the complete failure of municipal government to hold key appointed officials accountable for a total lapse in judgment over the construction of 770 Sandy Street and the ultimate condemnation of this structure, why would anyone own to live there? Those displaced residents were forced to continue to pay taxes to Norristown for over a year while they were evicted from their new homes due to inadequate construction standards that were never revealed at anytime throughout their municipal inspections that had been ongoing for years.
To pay for all of this incompetence, Norristown residents have to put up with significantly higher city & school taxes then all of their surrounding towns. For what, a town which has a dead main street or a town that has some of the worse schools in the region? For a town that has most of the section 8 housing vouchers of the entire county?
Norristown is a beautiful town. The housing stock is amazing; it has two miles of developable water front, access to key highway links, a prime location on the Schuylkill River Trail System, a beautiful zoo and parks. I saw all of this potential when I decided to work for them as I believed in the possibility. The greatest detriment to growth and development that I witnessed at that time was council itself. I still believe that to be true to this day.
Now, onto the article…
A Latin phrase adorns Norristown's official seal. Fervet opus - "the work boils."
And it once did. Norristown's mighty industrial base and status as the seat of Montgomery County government helped muscle the area to prosperity.
That was decades ago. As nearby county seats faced many of the same challenges and evolved into communities bubbling with energy, Norristown flailed.
"Everybody wants to see the county seat improve," said Montgomery County Commissioner Leslie S. Richards. "We're one of the wealthiest counties in the commonwealth, and [residents] want to see a county seat that resembles that."
Municipal Council President Gary H. Simpson promises better days are coming: "Norristown is the next hot and popping thing." Read more here…
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