Meyner Center Hosts Conference on Intermunicipal Cooperation

About 80 local officials and municipal managers from the Lehigh Valley recently attended a conference on intermunicipal cooperation hosted by Lafayette’s Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government at Kirby Hall of Civil Rights.

The main benefit of cooperation cited at the conference, held May 20, was the ability to control land development and its impact on taxpayers more effectively. The Meyner Center distributed a report on ways to improve intermunicipal cooperation, which was based on interviews led by Diane Elliott, the center’s director for public service, with officials from the 63 municipalities in Lehigh and Northampton counties and Phillipsburg, N.J.

The study grew out of a 2003 report by the Brookings Institution, “Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania,” which criticized the Lehigh Valley’s “fragmented” municipal government. The study noted the Valley has 14 governments per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 6.1 per 100,000 people.

“Pennsylvania’s cities, towns, and older suburbs are declining as the state sprawls,” states the Brookings report. “Pennsylvania’s economy is drifting as it responds incoherently to continued industrial restructuring.” The report explains that the large number of municipalities and Pennsylvania’s own bureaucratic fragmentation have “often caused jurisdictions to compete against each other rather than act together on tough problems like land-use planning and economic development.” The report recommends “that Pennsylvania assess its state-local government system, foster more coordination through its own actions and incentives, and make it far easier for governments to want to work together to do so.”

The conference highlighted efforts already underway in municipalities and provided information on ways municipalities can work cooperatively, how to fund these efforts, and how state and county governments can assist local efforts. The goal of the conference was to provide municipalities with tools and contacts to make inter-municipal cooperation work for them.

Sessions included:

• speech by Lafayette President Arthur J. Rothkopf ’55;
• presentation on the Brookings report by Janet Milkman, president & CEO, 10,000 Friends;
• panel discussion on models of intermunicipal cooperation with Bill Brackbill, secretary, Nazareth Area Council of Governments; Tom Gorr, chair, Upper Macungie Board of Supervisors; and Joe Krumsky, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services regional representative for the Northeast Region of the Commonwealth;
• keynote address by Ken Klothen, executive director, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services;
• panel discussion on comprehensive regional planning and land use with Robert Freeman, State Representative, 136th District; Michael Kaiser, executive director, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission; and Mike Frank, director of community planning, Heritage Conservancy;
• panel discussion with Frank Colon, Hanover Township supervisor; Roy D. Seiple, chief of Colonial Regional Police; and Tom Mellott, outreach coordinator for the Program Information Section of the Land Recycling and Cleanup Program in the Office of Community Revitalization and Local Government Support.

For more information, contact Elliott at (610) 330-5856.