Visioning the Upper Delaware Coridoor

Visioning – thinking
outside the box

By BRADLEY W. MALLETT, Jr.

As an active participant in various endeavors throughout our beautiful Upper Delaware River Valley, I have come to understand that whenever you get a group of people in a room with diversified ideas, something positive comes out of it.

One such endeavor was the formation of the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway, more commonly known as Route 97. In the formation of the byway, many great ideas were exchanged. And I believe that we created a vision for the future with the optimum balance of commercial and residential concerns, while opening the doors to some of the greatest marketing tools available for our area. Everyone who participated seemed to do so because they cared about what was happening in their backyard.

So my first point of visioning for our future is that we must get more people involved in projects in the river valley so that all the ideas and issues can be addressed. Don’t leave it up to the same few that always seem to give of their time and energy.

Second, we need to embrace and enhance the Sullivan Renaissance Beautification initiative as a wonderful idea to bring about community pride and beautification to the river valley. When I heard Sandra Gerry speak of her admiration for the beautiful towns of Europe and how she decided to bring it back home, I was encouraged. I saw the same beauty when I was stationed there during the late 1980s. She has taken a vision and been blessed enough to share it with all of us. I commend all the people involved in the effort to clean up and beautify. This is the kind of vision that will create prosperity in the river corridor for many years to come. (I have to admit I didn’t get down and dirty, but I did assist in other ways. This year I hope will be different for me. How about you?)

Another more controversial concept and essential to our growth is the placement of cell towers in the valley. The large majority of people believe that the use of technology will enhance our quality of life by encouraging more high tech companies to relocate here. But while we want cell towers to work, we do not believe that we have to mar our pristine beauty with unsightly towers that provide the service.

I believe we need to research and implement proper planning and placement of multi-use towers. We need to encourage strategic placement of towers to provide the most coverage and convince other carriers (so that we have more choice) to utilize them. This can be done with a minimum of intrusion to our scenic beauty. There are so many different varieties of sizes and shapes that we must be able to come up with a viable solution acceptable to both the companies that build the towers and the people that want limited impact. I hope that all will consider the positive attributes of these cell towers before saying no!

Last, we should not forget the growth issue. People need to stop thinking inside the box of “not in my backyard.” Start thinking outside the box.

For example, how many of us have heard people talk about their children having to move away after school? Why can’t we develop more corporate parks and work at increasing the level of a highly skilled work force? I realize that not everyone can be a engineer but the more opportunities people have, the more inclined they will be to chose to stay or relocate here thus adding to the positive growth that I envision for this wonderful area.

[Bradley W Mallet Jr. is a Town of Delaware councilman.]