Gap financing for first-time homebuyers, a bike lane pilot program, behavioral and mental health deescalation social worker on calls with police and the continued improvements to Journey Bank Park at Historic Bowman Field.

These are among the proposed and ongoing projects that residents of Williamsport might not be aware exist and those they will be hearing about in the near future.

Mayor Derek Slaughter and the city administrative team of Valerie Fessler, director of the city Department of Community and Economic Development, and Bill Scott, city engineer sat down for a video interview lasting about 45 minutes to go over these projects taxpayers will be seeing.

Melanie Shutt, grants administrator and Scott Williams, assistant director of the city Department of Community and Economic Development and city plannerDepartment of Community and Economic Development were in attendance in the room.

Assistance for low to moderate income households

Part of the role of the department where Fessler, Williams and Shutt work is to administer the funds that are given to the city by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

“We are considered an entitlement community by HUD and receive an allocation every year to benefit the low to moderate income population of the city,” Fessler explained.

“We receive HOME funding each year, and the priorities right now with that funding are to support the work of Greater Lycoming County Habitat for Humanity.”

“We are supporting their new builds (six) on Scott Street and looking forward to seeing those six total homes come to fruition with the support of the city’s HOME entitlement funds,” she said. “Those funds are really meant to provide safe, affordable housing for people in our community.”

“The other thing we are focusing on there is a gap financing program for homebuyers,” Fessler remarked.

“For individuals who are looking to purchase a home if they are approved for $100,000 and they

fall into the low to moderate income bracket that the department is required to follow but that is just not enough to get them into that home. We can consider them for some gap financing,” she said, adding it is to “make up the difference for what they are qualified for and what the home purchase price is. We are looking forward to helping folks in that manner.”

The department also manages Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding.

“Right now we are using that funding with emergency rehabilitation of their home,” Fessler said. “Whether it is a hole in the roof or an accessible issue to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act compliance the department can help people to get those projects done in their homes.”

The pilot bike lane project

“We are spending some of those funds on the bike lane project,” she said.

That is the pilot program at Shaw Place Park to Brandon Park and to Loyalsock Township and Millers Run Trail and along with connectors to the Susquehanna Riverwalk. This would be a pilot program to see how it works out and to get the motorists used to sharing the roadways with the bicyclists. It would be designed to provide safer access to and from the parks, especially for the kids riding their bicycles.

The path has only been introduced as a concept but there is the CDBG funding that can get the project started. It has been discussed by the bicycle committees and bike clubs. Councilwoman Liz Miele, chair of the city finance committee, urged the rest of council to consider putting $20,000 into this year’s budget for the pilot bike path but that was rejected in favor of exploring the CDBG funding.

Miele, an avid bicyclist and promoter for safe streets and connectivity in the city, also said the program would be a continuation of the ideas discussed and recommended over five years ago but which stalled until they were restarted under this administration.

Additionally, the department also is doing some street reconstruction in the low to moderate income neighborhoods in the city and proposed a sidewalks replacement program. The department is exploring CDBG use for a potential sidewalk rehabilitation program, Fessler said.

“We like to creatively use these funds to benefit individuals in ways that there aren’t other funding sources available so we are just in the beginning stages of how we could do some sidewalk replacements across the city and use the funds for low to moderate income areas,” Fessler said.

“We are definitely focused on some more safe routes to school,” she said.

“We want to make sure that the children who are walking to school can get there and get there safely. “That is part of the “Safe Streets for All” study where we will be focused a lot on the Market Street corridor,” she added.

There was plenty of discussion recently by the City Council about the need to make sure the kiddos are safer when they cross busy roadways such as Market and Hepburn streets, especially in the area of Curtin Intermediate and Cochran Primary schools.

Public safety

Slaughter said he is enthused over the success so far in areas of public safety, specifically two programs that are under way. One of those is the critical intervention team that has rolled out and is implemented and out on the street.

“That is going very, very well,” Slaughter said. “Having a social worker along with our officers when there is a behavioral health or mental health call is just going tremendously well.”

The addition of the social worker specializing in these kinds of incidents deescalates the situation when somebody is in a crisis and then is able to connect them to the resources they need to get out of the crises and gives that person a better chance to become a productive member of society.

The crisis intervention program is possible due to Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) for the grant to allow the city to get this program started.

“We are hoping to clearly keep this going for many years,” Slaughter said.

Also in the Bureau of Fire, the city filled a union position that was vacant for a number of years — the fire inspector.

Today, Fire Inspector Stephen Yonkin does proactive work on residential, commercial and industrial buildings – helping to get inspections done on remodels and rebuilds – whatever needs to be updated or upgraded.

Journey Bank Park at Historic Bowman Field

“A lot is going on at Bowman Field,” Scott said.

All new netting was installed as part of the Major League Baseball (MLB) changing of requirements, their standards, which said that any MLB related stadium with its pedestrian and fan areas had to be covered by netting, he said. The stadium is a city-owned property and home of the Williamsport Crosscutters of the MLB Draft League.

This fall, the city will be replacing the outfield wall and fence after the baseball season is over in September.

At the time of the interview the city was having a contractor work on waterproofing the right field deck known as Loggers Landing. The waterproofing need dates back many years prior to the Slaughter administration. It happened when there were initial upgrades. Apparently, the landing was leaking back then, and was never addressed.

“So, we are addressing it now because it is leaking pretty badly,” Slaughter said.