Re: What do you think about the Showcase Communities?

[Eileen Carey <EileenC@ci.bridgeport.ct.us>]

Hello -

Bridgeport, CT was not successful, as you know, in receiving the final
award.  We were among the 40 chosen to apply for the second round of the
applications, but did not make the final cut.  

Our city decided to join together in our application, with two other
pilot communities in the area, the Naugatuck Valley and New Haven, which
brought the communities on the application to 11.  We did not want to
compete against each other and wanted to take a regional and global
approach to brownfield redevelopment.  CT is not a large state, and the
communities in the application are in close proximity to one another.
We felt that since the theme of the application was cooperation, we
would work together and build upon that theme.  Brownfield issues do not
end at a municipality's borders.  We submitted a strong application to
redevelop 2 brownfields in each of our communities (totaling 6), by
pooling our resources, expertiese, and success or failures.  

Since we submitted our application, our communities have continued to
meet at least once a month and have developed many ideas, as well as
brought many others into our working group.

It goes without saying that we were very disappointed in the results, as
we thought our application was good and we had support from our Region
headquarters.  It was felt that our collaboration idea was not explained
clearly enough, which is a very fair assessemnt.  We are much further
now with our working group than we were at the time of the creation of
the grant application.  The issues which I am disappointed with is that
two of our cities, Bridgport and New Haven are EC's and the other issue
is that the bankruptcy issue was brought up.  I was very disappointed
with that news because of the very positive turnaround this City has
achieved in the past few years.  The pullout from bankruptcy was was
over 8 years ago.  The City has proven its ability to work its way back
and has two very large development projects underway, one is a $14
million redevelopment of a brownfield into a ball park and the other is
a waterfront development of a billion dollars of a former power plant.

I hope there is a possibility to submit our application again, and we
look forward to working together with the $200 K which we were awarded.
It is wonderful for communities such as Bridgeport, who has so many
brownfield sites, that the issue being brought to the forefront.  The
Showcase application was so appealing to us because it did not look at
the issue as only an environmental problem, but a problem which affects
the entire community.  I think the entire process and even the Showcase
idea was a win for all of our communities.  Obviously, we would have
preferred to have won, but there is always another chance.

Thanks for the opportunity to express my opinion on the process.
>----------
>From:  Career/Pro[SMTP:cpro@igc.apc.org]
>Sent:  Monday, March 23, 1998 3:08 PM
>To:  cpro-brownfields@igc.apc.org
>Subject:  What do you think about the Showcase Communities?
>
>Hello Everyone,
>
>Last week's announcement of the 16 Showcase communities brought more 
>attention to the EPA Brownfields program and the other federal 
>agencies involved in Brownfields.  I know that a lot of people on this 
>newsgroup are involved with a Showcase Communities and I think it 
>would be great to hear your thoughts (positive or negative) about the 
>Showcase communities that were selected.  Perhaps we could get a brief 
>report about your Showcase community.
>
>People could talk about some of the details of their BF Pilot Project. 
>Are there any lessons that can be passed along to other cities?  What 
>defines a "successful" BF redevelopment?  Here is a list of those 
>communities in case you forgot.
>
>  Baltimore, MD 
>  Chicago, IL 
>  Dallas, TX    
>  East Palo Alto, CA 
>  Eastward Ho!, FL 
>  Glen Cove, NY 
>  Kansas City, KS/MO 
>  Los Angeles, CA 
>  Lowell, MA 
>  Portland, OR 
>  State of Rhode Island 
>  St. Paul, MN 
>  Salt Lake City, UT 
>  Seattle, WA 
>  Stamford, CT 
>  Trenton, NJ 
>
>
>
>
>Tony Chenhansa
>CAREER/PRO
>
>