In other business, local history and fitness buffs were set to inaugurate Clymer’s WalkWorks Program path this morning.
Ed Cochran, a member of the Clymer Water Authority, said he and councilwoman Brietta St. Clair Mighells teamed up to design the route and were ready to walk it, no matter whether anyone joined them.
WalkWorks is spearheaded locally by Indiana County Office of Planning and Development, and is a joint project of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
With a mission of increasing physical activity, communities are encouraged to devise walking routes that encompass local points of historic interest.
Local volunteers with interests in physical fitness and community history serve as walk leaders and narrators to tell about the sites on the way.
Cochran said the WalkWorks path in Clymer measures between 2.25 and 2.5 miles but lamented that it has not yet been included in the countywide promotion. Other WalkWorks paths in Blairsville, Ernest, Glen Campbell, Indiana, Homer City, White Township and at the Penns Manor School Complex are promoted in brochures and online.
“We were asked to be part of that program … we’re not getting a whole lot of response back, so we proposed that tomorrow would be the start to it,” Cochran said. “I’d just like to invite everybody to come out and show we do have some support from the community.”
Clymer’s route is introductory and subject to temporary change. Parts of the path are torn up for work by the gas company, Cochran said.
“We’re going to meet at the Little League field,” Cochran said. “That’s where they proposed the start would be. We’ll go across the trail, down Rodney, up Franklin, up Sixth, then down Morris and back up Franklin and down” to the ball field again.
Cochran said he plans to lead the WalkWorks route Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. A shorter path covering only about six blocks, the Slow Walk, would be offered on Wednesdays. Signs have been posted to guide walkers on the route any time.
WalkWorks’ success, Cochran said, might depend on promotion through local businesses and the Two Lick Valley Social Center as brochure distribution points.
“We’re not going to let this subside,” Cochran said. “I’m going to try to run with this and make it work.”
“We just can’t be discouraged,” Mighells said. “There’s been no advertising. Let’s see what happens when we get some advertising.”
Council also adopted an ordinance that provides for use of eminent domain and a declaration of taking to obtain additional land for Sherman Street Park.
Ordinance No. 356 condemns Lots Nos. 83 and 88 along Sherman Street, also bounded by Beech and Seventh Streets, and dedicating the land for public recreation.
The land now is occupied by Britsky Truck & Excavating Company, owned by John Britsky and William Britsky.
The ordinance was adopted on a 5-0 vote by President James Marsh and members Mighells, Louis Tate, Joseph Krolick and Steph Brilhart. Council members John Hughmanic and John Buterbaugh were absent.
Extracted from: Clymer officials assess summer flooding
CHAUNCEY ROSS chauncey@indianagazette.net
https://www.indianagazette.com/news/local/clymer-officials-assess-summer-flooding/article_d240950f-f9e1-5caa-a06e-a1a208e04e68.html
8/10/2017