Friday Feature: Mount Morris, New York

“It kills me that the old guys in town meet to drink their coffee at McDonald’s.”

Greg O’Connell, Mount Morris, New York Redeveloper

  Main Street, Mount Morris, NY

 Greg O’Connell, a retired detective from New York City, arrived quietly in Mount Morris, New York (population 2,859). Just as quietly he went about buying up time-worn buildings along Main Street—20 of them in all. And now, not so quietly, he’s sprucing them up and bringing back a bit of luster to this old town in western New York. But why he’s doing it has had some locals scratching their heads. 

O’Connell says it’s simple: he wants to breathe life back into the town. He remembers it fondly from his college days at Geneseo, a few miles up the road. Back then, Mount Morris was a thriving village, with lots of farms and small factories. That was before manufacturing packed up and moved on, an expressway skirted the town, and Wal-Mart elbowed in. 

Lately, there’s been a buzz of activity as downtown comes back to life. Besides the renovations—O’Connell expects to spend about $1 million before it’s all done—high school students have been building and filling flower boxes along Main Street. Students from SUNY Geneseo are working on public relations and marketing strategies for the businesses. And Geneseo students staged a play in one of the empty storefronts.

Today, O’Connell’s buildings house more than 150 small businesses, among them an antiques store, barber shop, gourmet shop, Italian restaurant, deli, and coffee shop. O’Connell doesn’t charge an arm and leg for rent, but he does have a few requirements: businesses have to leave their lights on at night, stay open at least one evening a week, and change their window displays at least four times a year. O’Connell also fixed up and rents out the apartments above the shops. He says the way to keep downtown alive is to make it all about community.

O’Connell worries sometimes that the town won’t sustain its rebirth—that he hasn’t done enough to show his ideas will work. But the mayor of Mount Morris says what O’Connell is doing has lit a fire under the folks in town. Other businesses are spiffing up and going the extra mile, and the townspeople are putting a shine on their homes. O’Connell may have slipped quietly into Mount Morris, but his message is now echoing loud and clear.

Notable Folks from Mount Morris:

·        Early settler and namesake of the town was Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence and financier of the Revolution. Morris, considered the richest man in America in 1793, died penniless in 1806 in a debtors prison in Philadelphia.

·        Francis Bellamy, born in Mount Morris in 1855, wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. The Pledge was written and published in Youth’s Companion as part of a campaign to sell American flags to public schools. Originally, the Pledge was recited while doing the “Bellamy salute.” However, during World War II the salute was replaced—folks started placing their right hand over their heart when they saw that the salute resembled too closely Hitler’s Nazi salute.

·        Roscoe C. Barnes, born in Mount Morris in 1850, hit the first recorded home run in professional baseball. Not a surprise—he was also the first batting champion of the National League.

Sources:

Resurrecting a village by buying up Main Street

The Last Townie

Mount Morris Website

Mount Morris History

Mount Morris Wikipedia page

Naming Rights for Potholes

I wrapped up today’s commentary (Price Is Right) with the pithy little comment: “What’s next? Naming rights for potholes?” As it turns out, I am so behind the times. I did a quick Google search and found towns are doing just that. They have been for years. And not just towns in this country: England, Poland, Germany, South Africa, and Mexico are doing it. And not just naming rights—you can adopt one of the little buggers. In Iowa City, Iowa, the cost is $5 per hole. The city says it fills 300 to 475 potholes each day. In Krakow, Poland, the price is steeper, $95, but the city will erect a little plaque in your honor. So, if you want to live on in infamy­—or in comfort—check out your local government. There’s probably a pothole with your name on it just waiting for you.

Articles:
Adopt a pothole [Iowa City, Iowa]
City offers “adopt-a-pothole” repair plan [Kracow, Poland]

Price Is Right

“Clearly, the people of Altoona have a sense of humor—and an asking price.”

Bill Schirf, Mayor of [former] Altoona, Pennsylvania

What’s your name worth to you? Kind of a hard question to answer. Maybe not for women—it’s still common for ladies to give up their surname on their wedding day. And not a hard question for the town formerly know as Altoona, Pennsylvania (population 46,287). For the princely sum of $25,000 they traded in their old name for “POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Pennsylvania.” Doesn’t really trip off the tongue, does it? The town agreed to adopt the moniker for the next 60 days as promotion for the tongue-in-cheek product placement movie, POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, by filmmaker Michael Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). The mayor says the town could use the exposure, and the $25,000 will be put toward enhancing the police department. What’s next? Naming rights for potholes?

Read the Article ® The price was right: Pennsylvania town will rename itself after movie

Facing Tough Times

“People in Prineville have learned not to expect too much.”

John Shelk, Managing Director of Ochoco Lumber

Facebook and Prineville, Ore., become friends

Prineville, Oregon (population 9,000) is facing tough times. Its five saw mills, which once employed 1,200 people, have closed. Les Schwab—the number two tire company in the United States whose headquarters have been in Prineville since 1952—is gone, too. In the last 18 months more than 1,000 residents have left the area, and unemployment is the highest in the state at about 20 percent.

But Prineville isn’t a town to give up—it’s not in its DNA. Founded in 1877, Prineville was a major player in Oregon, until it was snubbed in 1911 when the railroad bypassed the city and laid tracks to the south. Undaunted, the townsfolk raised money to lay their own track. The railroad did a booming business hauling nearby timber to market until the eventual decline of the timber industry. On the entertainment front, the town has boasted a pretty little movie theater, the Pine Theater, since 1938. It was shuttered in the 1980s after an easement dispute, but a couple of newcomers with a can-do attitude slogged through the paperwork, legal requirements, and renovation, and reopened the Pine Theater in 2007. In 2010, the theater opened a second screen.

This month Prineville got a much needed economic boost when Facebook opened its first data center in a brand spanking new building. The town threw a big bash and invited lots of locals, state officials, and a couple of Facebook executives—even Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on hand. Facebook, which will employ around 35 folks, isn’t going to save the town, but it’s a big help. In fact, building the data center employed more than 1,300 temporary workers, half of whom were from the Prineville area. And the site is large enough for future expansion.

Yep, Prineville is facing tough times, but it’s not like it hasn’t done that before. And with the friends it’s got, you gotta like its chances for success.

Sources:

Facebook and Prineville, Ore., become friends
Prineville, Oregon Wikipedia page
The Pine Theater [This sites gives a nice little history of the theater]
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook visits Prineville Data Center and community party

Count Me In

“Every person is important.”

Marty Scrogham, Former Mayor of Indianola, Illinois

Small town shows surge in census

The results of the 2010 Census are in. Small towns watch these numbers closely because it takes only a few residents to bump their numbers up or down. And because part of each town’s funding is derived from Census numbers, that bump can be a budget boom or bust. Here’s a quick accounting of a few small towns in the news: 

·        According to the Census, Indianola, Illinois saw a 33.33 percent jump in population: from 207 in 2000 to 276 today. The count is accurate, says Village President Donnie Turner, but statistic is wrong: there aren’t any new residents at all. It’s just that when the Census was done in 2000, a whole lot of people were missed. After suffering the budget effects of the miscount at that time, a dedicated group of community volunteers made sure it didn’t happen again.

Read the Article ® Small town shows surge in census

·        Culloden, Georgia saw its population drop: from 223 in 2000 to 175 today. But town leaders have a plan to get those numbers back up—simply push out the boundaries of the town. It would add 50-75 people and a much needed boost to the budget. The plan is in the preliminary stage—finding out if the neighboring landowners want to become Cullodenians. Cullodeners?

Read the Article ® Tiny Culloden seeks to quadruple city’s size

·        Clayton, Alabama locked in a big population jump: from 1,475 in 2000 to 3,008 today. And it’s all thanks to one neighbor. In 2009, the town redrew its boundaries to include the nearby Ventress Correctional Facility and its 1,600 inmates. Not only do the numbers look good on paper, but the move adds up to cold, hard cash. Clayton sits in a part of Alabama where revenue from an oil lease is divvied up among towns based on population. Pretty slick.

Read the Article ® Census: Clayton's population more than doubles

·        Connell, Washington is home to the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, but unlike Clayton, Alabama, it’s doing its darndest not to include the inmates in its Census count. Connell, with its 2,700 residents, and Coyote Ridge, with its 2,371 inmates, tally up to 5,071 people. This is a problem. In the state of Washington, towns over 5,000 are no longer considered small and must compete with big cities, like Seattle, for state grants. The legislature has stepped in to help and with the governor’s approval, Connell will get to keep its small town title.

Read the Article ® Legislature OKs bill that helps Connell avoid big-city status

·        Little Plato, Missouri (population 109) has a big title. After the latest Census figures, it has been proclaimed the official center of the United States population (total: 308,745,538). Census officials say the U.S. population has been steadily moving southwest, but this has been the most extreme shift to the south: 23.4 miles to be exact. Plato will receive a plaque to display proudly, at least until the next Census in 2020.

Read the Article ® Small Missouri town becomes new center of U.S. population

A Tale of Two Cities

“To lose your school is to lose your identity as a town.”

George Canon, Town Supervisor of Newcomb, New York

Rural New York school recruits overseas students

The tiny town of Andrew, Iowa (population 431) is my neighbor. Only a few miles down the road, it’s the typical small town: a smattering of houses, gas station, restaurant, bar, post office, fire department, and school. The school, a K-12 with 267 students, has been the pride of the community for 122 years. But it’s been on shaky ground these last few years. With dwindling student numbers and the resulting loss of state funds, parents and the community have pulled together to keep their school open: planning and strategizing, fundraising and belt tightening, and class sharing with a nearby school. This year, bowing under economic pressures, the school made the tough decision to reorganize. It will graduate its final senior class of 24 students next month, and when classes resume in the fall the school will operate as a K-8.


A thousand miles to the east, Newcomb, New York (population 445), tucked into a remote valley in the Adirondacks, tells a similar story but with a different ending. Even though the town’s population has been steadily shrinking since a local mine closed in the 1970s, enrollment in its school, a preK-12 with only 86 students, has grown. How can that be? About five years ago the school superintendent started thinking outside the box, way out—global, in fact. Clark “Skip” Hults began marketing Newcomb Central School as an American prep school for the international set. He had everything he needed: high educational standards, college-level courses, community support, and a picture-postcard setting. It’s working. This year, 29 of the school’s students are international or out of district: their home countries range from France and Russia to Iraq and Viet Nam. Each student pays $7,000, which includes a top-notch education and housing with a local family. The school’s students, both local and international, like the setup. The local kids say they like getting to know students from around the world, and the international kids like the small community—though it did take some getting used to. When they heard they were going to New York for school, some of the foreign students pictured big city and bright lights. What they ended up with are stunning mountain vistas, clean air, small town hospitality, and no cell phones (the mountains block the signal). After a bit of adjustment, the international kids say they love Newcomb. They wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Read the Articles:
The 1st day of the last year
Rural New York school recruits overseas students
Newcomb Central School offers an international learning experience

Bountiful Harvest

“It’s all about buying local.”

Tracy Durfee, Member of First Presbyterian Church

  Veggies & fresh eggs anyone?
Photographer: Nigel Wedge

Sow and Ye Shall Reap
Buy local. It’s more than a catch phrase bandied about by politicians or a slogan slapped on a billboard. It’s darn good advice . . . especially when it comes to locally grown fruits and veggies. But farmers markets in small towns often struggle getting folks to buy into the message and buy up their produce. In Cottage Grove, Oregon (population 9,187), the First Presbyterian Church is doing something about that. For the last three years they’ve hosted a “Meet My Farmer” event after Sunday worship. It's a chance for farmers to display their bounty, visitors to snack on home-grown goodies, and relationship building to begin. It’s working. Visitors and farmers alike packed this year’s get-together—the biggest one so far. Farmers offered everything from onions and eggs to homemade sweet treats and smoked salmon. A couple of growers provided information about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, which allow customers to “subscribe” to a weekly supply of produce. And one grape grower ended up with a extra-special customer: First Presbyterian has selected his bottled grape juice to be used in its communion services. In choosing a local grower, church leaders are simply practicing what they preach.
Read the Article ® Event features produce from its producers