Mayor: Issues can be overcome

The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette has been exploring a series of issues that have anticipated potential obstacles for growth in Lancaster — right now, and in the years ahead. A number of local citizens, elected officials and business leaders have been asked by the Eagle-Gazette to discuss these issues and those discussions have taken place. The idea now is to pass the thrust of these discussions along to the public and start more discussions and dialogue to see what we should do to lessen the obstacles or even eliminate them. The following are some of my thoughts on some of the issues.

•Closing the skills gap: Without a doubt, if you don’t have the right marketable skills, getting any job is very difficult. It doesn’t matter if you have a high school diploma or a college degree if the companies in your living area aren’t hiring your skill sets. Obviously, having a diploma of some sort will usually improve your chances of getting a job. Even more obvious is if you have no diploma, then getting a job is much more difficult.

Gone are the “manufacturing” days where a hard-working person could easily find a job and having a diploma was not a necessity. First, there are not as many such jobs today, and second, those getting those positions often times are better (or even “over-”) educated. The general thought here is to survey the skill sets in demand locally and then provide programs that will train individuals to get those skill sets. That programming could happen in a combination of ways through our public schools, our local university and government-backed training programs. One observation is that many local companies do hire people with the basic necessary background and then do on-the-job training. This happens for office work, semiskilled and skilled labor, but probably not sufficiently to decrease the skills gap.

In studying employment issues for the city of Lancaster, I have personally discovered that some of the gap is being filled by people living outside Lancaster. In reviewing city of Lancaster employees, more than half of our firemen and policemen do not live in our city. We think that carries across most of our other departments as well. I believe that would be similar for other large local companies. As some people feel the need to travel outside of Lancaster for their jobs, the reverse happens as well.

•Maintaining regional hub status: Lancaster has successfully maintained itself as a retail hub for many decades. Although our population growth has its positive spurts as well as slow growth, we continually add new businesses and restaurants year after year. That new growth was pointed out in my recent State of the City address last Wednesday.

Our history of such growth is illustrated by the Plaza Shopping Center in the 1960s, the Kroger/Kmart complex in the ’70s, the River Valley Mall in the ’80s, the Lowe’s/Bob Evans/Pier 1 area in the ’90s, and the Ety Road explosion in 2007-08. Just in 2014 alone was the backfill stores such as Taylor Rental, Konami Restaurant, City Electric, Tractor Supply, Sav-A-Lot and Specialty RV Service Center as well as new construction of Standing Stone Bank, Big Sandy, Aldi, Five Guys, Sherwin-Williams and Cinemark Theatres.

Although the dynamics of the U.S. 33 bypass around Lancaster, the bypass around Nelsonville and the soon-to-be built Carroll interchange all make it easier to get up and down U.S. 33, it has not been an apparent detractor to the retail sales in Lancaster. The local bypass was projected to reduce the big trucks going through Lancaster and the people that were on a long trip and didn’t need to stop in Lancaster; ergo, the “bypass” worked. The average daily traffic on Memorial Drive is back up to the old numbers (probably higher), which means we have more cars traveling Memorial Drive and therefore more shoppers and more diners as well as more people going to and from work on the road.

The Eagle-Gazette is looking for feedback from the community. Everyone today seems to have an opinion on most subjects. I have given some thoughts on two of the five topics. Please join in on the conversation and give the paper your thoughts on the topics. The more people that participate, the broader the spectrum for make Lancaster a better place to live, work and play.