(12/2021) This year’s County Commissioner Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) Fall conference was held in Hershey at the Hershey Hotel from November 21-23. For this month’s column I will give you a "day in the life" accounting of this conference. I tried to write this as the entire conference, but it just got too long, so for this article it is only the first day of the conference. CCAP hosts two conferences a year, the Fall conference is the smaller of the two. Beyond the educational and networking opportunities, this conference is about setting the next year’s priorities for CCAP. I believe that all counties sent at least one commissioner with many having all of their commissioners in attendance.

Saturday November 20, 1 - 3 p.m., Community and Economic Development Committee meeting

Many commissioners serve on at least one CCAP committee. There were about six of us in attendance. I say about because some Commissioners chose to be on multiple committees, even though all of the committees meet at the same time. This means a few arrive an hour or two late. In my humble opinion it is better to focus on one committee and maximize your effort, than to be poorly involved in a few.

Our main purpose today was to recommend priority areas for CCAP to focus on in 2022. Each committee votes on a few priorities and they are forwarded to the entire association of commissioners to vote on which will be the top priorities and thus garner the most staff focus in 2022.

We spent a good deal of time discussing Broadband, especially HB 1075. This bill will create a state broadband authority to oversee state broadband projects. Their first task will be to create a state broadband plan, so that the state can access federal funds. Without a plan the state would not have access to the $1.6B funds from PA for broadband from the federal infrastructure bill. This could mean over $20M for each county in PA. The state better get a move on! This broadband authority would serve as a one-stop shop for broadband. The two critical levels of service for broadband are: 1. Unserved. This means that a household or business has download speeds less than 25 Mbs and upload speeds of less than 3Mbs. 2. Underserved is download speeds less than 100Mbs and upload speeds less than 20Mbs. Some areas of Adams County are unserved, but many areas are underserved.

Second major priority was transportation funding. With new infrastructure funds counties must lobby the state for our fair share. We need to prioritize working with municipalities on repairing local and county bridges. Push for counties to have greater input into state long-range transportation plan. We felt that by focusing on local roads and bridges, that we could work with the township and boroughs associations to magnify a local voice, otherwise the lion’s share of the federal money might just fund state roads.

Other priorities: blight and hotel tax/tourism. Both will be back burnered. They are important, but we felt that in 2022 broadband and transportation must be the top priorities. I learned about Act 152 that allowed counties to add a $15 transfer fee to set funding aside into a county demolition fund exclusively for blight removal. Adams County does not do this and it may be a good investment for properties such as the old foundry by the Allstar Complex or the of Maytag building in Biglerville. I need to look into that.

Also of note, being in a room of other commissioners hashing out ideas is fun, but as a whole we talk a lot.

3:30 – 5 p.m. General Policy Session with all Commissioners to discuss and set the CCAP top priorities for 2022. After presentations we each voted via on-line survey on the priorities. The 2021 priorities were

1. Election reform: pre-canvass and mail in ballot application deadlines, 2. Broadband Expansion, 3. Emergency Medical Services Crisis, 4. Human Service funding protection, and 5. Increase funds for community based mental health services. (Spoiler alert: The 2022 priorities are very similar.)

Committee chairs gave reports on top priorities for each committee (Ag committee, community and economic development, Assessment and Taxation, county governance, courts and corrections, election reform, energy environment and land use, Human Services, Emergency Management and Veterans Affairs). For the record some committees did a great job of focusing on a few achievable goals, others wasted time putting forth clearly unachievable, unrealistic, and mostly illegal goals. Of all of those brought forward my favorite named one was from the governance committee to end Right To Know Law -Vexatious Requestors (governance). This is when a person just floods the county with petty requests simply intended to slow down government or are simply absurd requests. It’s a thing. If you know me, you know my top priority is broadband.

After the final presentations we all voted and ended the official business of the day. But wait, there’s more. Then you have all of the hospitality rooms that vendors set up to ply commissioners with food and alcohol, while they educate them on their products. These range from election equipment (I now have a nice beer coozy that says "I voted") to architectural, financial, or medical services. Mostly I stick to the vendors that we already use. Two of the things I hate about being an elected is people sucking up to me and me being expected to suck up to others. I excel at neither, so I mostly just watched football, chit chatted, and ate food until I got bored and the Dallas Cowboys disappointed me. Some people love this part of the conference, for me after the "meat" of the conference I mostly just miss my wife, dogs, and recliner back at home.

I wish I had more space to share with you the other days of the conference. The second and third days are filled with educational sessions on various county topics, updates from state officials and our national association, and being entertained by vendors that want counties to buy their products. The State updates were great, we had updates from Elections, State Prisons, and the PA Attorney General on the opioid crisis and a federal litigation update. If you want any more details or just want to get more information on how county government is working for you, let me know. I am always available at mqually@adamscounty.us. Until then, rest assured my brain is always running over ideas on how to improve our community and occasionally I get the support to put them into action. Be well. Wear your mask. And Get that booster. Winter in Coming.