Meeting growth in Pike County

By TOM KANE

MILFORD, PA — The Pike County Commissioners created a new position, Director of the Pike County Office of Community Planning, at its meeting on July 13 and named Sally Corrigan to fill it. The administrative position will have a salary of $41,000 a year.

The commissioners chose Corrigan, who was hired as a Community Planner last year, over former Planning Director Mike Mrozinski. When the department was reorganized a year ago and changed from Community Planning and Human Development to the Pike County Office of Planning, both Mrozinski and Corrigan were given the title of Community Planner.

Mrozinski has been working for the department for 12 years.

“It was a difficult decision to make in choosing one of the two people in the department,” said Harry Forbes, chairman of the Pike County Commissioners. “Sally has demonstrated that she has administrative ability and a strong work ethic which the department needs, now that it will be comprised of three full-time and one part-time person. Mike is an excellent employee whose abilities are top notch.”

“We need to plan not just for now but for the future since the county is growing so rapidly and faces the possibility of having a bond issue passed by voters,” said Commissioner Richard Caridi. “This means that the department needs to have someone with administrative ability and experience to guide the department and to oversee the bond issue if it is approved by voters.”

The commissioners agreed to add another full-time and a part-time position as soon as possible.

“The Community and Natural Resource Planner, the department’s third planner, will work mainly with the county on its open space plan,” Corrigan said. “A second focus will be to provide planning reviews and assistance to municipalities.”

The Department of Community and Natural Resources (DCNR) and the Department of Economic Development (DCED) are funding the position.

The part-time position is for a field person for the Pike County Gypsy Moth Program, paying $15 per hour for approximately 24 hours per week for 12 weeks, Forbes said.

“We recognize the importance of planning at a time of unusual growth,” Caridi said. “We need to assist the county’s municipalities as they face the challenges of growth.”

Corrigan fits the bill

Sally Corrigan, 51, of Carbondale, PA is no stranger to administrative jobs. She was the district manager of the Pike County Conservation District for five years before she came to Pike County Planning.

Before that, for 10 years, she was the director of the Lacawac Sanctuary in Wayne County. For four years prior, she was the director of operations at TravelLearn, an international continuing education program serving several universities in the country.

Her earliest work experience was in the employ of the National Wild Turkey Federation in a program called Women in the Outdoors in Northeastern United States.

“I’ve mostly been in jobs that were related to the outdoors,” Corrigan said.

Now she’s trading her outdoor work for a desk job.

“A top priority will be to render assistance to the county’s municipalities wherever we can and to especially help them with grants,” she said.

Another priority will be to oversee municipalities’ planning efforts, looking at their ordinances and offering them recommendations.

Corrigan, who has a degree from East Stroudsburg University in interdisciplinary environmental studies in biology and history, will encourage townships to become involved in multi-municipal planning, which is also a priority of the Commonwealth. “We will be providing officials with the kinds of information they need to create multi-municipal programs with neighboring townships,” she said.

A large part of the county’s new comprehensive plan, which is now being disseminated, will be a survey of open spaces. “We will be looking to identify environmental sensitive areas that can be rendered as open spaces,” she said.

This fall, the county will present a referendum to voters, who will decide whether to authorize a bond to pay for open-space preservation. The effort is being called “The Scenic Rural Character Preservation Bond.” Corrigan’s department will oversee this bond issue if voters pass it.

A survey held by the organization “Keep Pike Green” indicated that there would be 60 percent approval for the measure, she said.

Corrigan’s efforts will also be directed towards Pike County’s participation in the completion of a Geographic Information System (GIS) with the National Park Service and other counties along the Upper Delaware River corridor.

“The GIS will provide a growth model showing where we’ve been, where we are and where we can go in terms of future growth,” she said.

“I feel good about the administrative experiences I have had and my ability to help the county as it faces the challenges of growth.”