But none of that progress erases the cold realities of 2020.
Even as people fought the grip of the virus, millions of Americans, including thousands in Erie and Crawford counties, lost their jobs. Businesses closed their doors and thousands of area residents lined up for free food distributions.
In April, Erie County s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate soared to a staggering 17.2%.
The local economy improved from that point, but slowly. Efforts to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus left entire sectors of the economy staggering.
By the end of March, Erie-based Curtze Food Service, which serves more than 10,000 restaurants and other food-service customers in eight states, laid off about 200 of the company s 800 employees,
Erie County elected officials will be zeroed in on Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday as Wolf presents his 2021-2022 budget.
It will be Wolf s seventh budget proposal as governor and it comes as the commonwealth wrestles with the uncertainties of an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a snowstorm that dumped several feet of snow on some parts of eastern Pennsylvania on Monday.
The address, originally planned for Tuesday morning, has been rescheduled for Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, which reported that Gov. Wolf s office announced that the snowstorm prompted restrictions on highways across Pennsylvania and the cancelation of legislative hearings and sessions.
Conversations about equality and racial justice.
Like the rest of the nation and world, Erie County was affected by all of those events in 2020, and they understandably wrested attention and energy away from the region’s renaissance movement.
But that does not mean the momentum forged over the past few years aimed at bringing improved leadership and transformational change to the region and created within Erie’s civic and political landscape has disappeared.
“In a normal year, any one of those things would have been a major conversation, let alone three,” James Grunke, CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, said of the past year s history-making events. But it’s important to acknowledge that economic development and progress in Erie have not stopped. We probably have more streets blocked off because of construction right now, for example, than we have had in decades. And there’s more coming.”
The Erie County Community College has received an early Christmas gift from Gov. Tom Wolf in the form of a $10 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project grant.
The grant money is the first funding allocated by the state to the new community college, which the Pennsylvania Board of Education approved in July. Plans call for the college to begin offering classes in the fall of 2021.
The community college was the largest project in Erie County to receive RACP funding. Nine other projects received a combined $13.5 million, of which $3 million was previously pledged.
The community college money will be used for capital costs, including the acquisition, construction, renovation of property and buildings where classes would be held, as well as the machinery and equipment necessary for the operation of the college and education of students.
Ball Corporation Builds Aluminum Can Manufacturing Plant in Pittston, Pennsylvania areadevelopment.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from areadevelopment.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.