The town’s daily newspaper put forth its annual ode to the local economy today, which, to say it metaphorically, is like trying to put a spit shine on a turd. But give them points for trying.
This effort goes under the banner of “Vision 2023,” which might be a Freudian homage to the elitist Vision (Myopia) 2025 effort with which the newspaper has had something of an incestuous relationship in recent years, not limited to the former newspaper publisher moving on to a paying role with the Myopia folks.
This business/industry roundup had been the “Industrial” edition when I first worked at the newspaper in the mid-1970s and somewhere along the line had become “Progress.” Maybe there have been other labels along the way before “Vision,” but I cannot recall them.
The execution of this Vision edition was poor graphically, with the cover page looking like a ransom note of clipped letters. We think it was supposed to read “What We Make.”
Allow me to confess that I did not pay the $3 tariff for the product, nor do I subscribe since the circulation department long ago ceased to be able to deliver daily without incident. A copy arrives at our house on publication dates courtesy of a neighbor, a friend of my wife’s, who subscribes out of habit and is quick to share it after scanning it quickly, hoping that someone else can get some value from it.
Today, while conversing with the wife on another topic, this woman neighbor offered as an aside that there was a section in the newspaper indicating all the positives happening in Johnstown, but she can’t really see these improvements.
She should not feel alone,
In this very same copy of the newspaper, regular portion, there was a front-page headline “Foul play in bar owner’s death?” That man, Lance Ross (no relation that I know of), apparently was beaten to death early in the week. Originally his demise had been blamed on a fall. An autopsy indicated a beating.
Yet another unsolved murder in what used to be nicknamed the “Friendly City.”
We should dismiss that, just as Philadelphia should ditch “City of Brotherly Love.” Truth in advertising and all that.
Move inside today’s Johnstown Tribune-Democrat to the A section and one finds on A3 the headline “DA: Johnstown drug warrant sweep arrests nine adults” and also a separate story headlined “Detective: Man supplied fentanyl in fatal overdose.”
As written here before, Johnstown’s growth industries are crime, poverty and nonprofit organizations often designed to enrich management and friends.
Browsing quickly through the Vision section produced no concession of this reality, just some familiar optimism that is short on basis.
The statistics to be found outside the Vision PR effort continue to paint Johnstown as an area of high crime, low income and a degree of stagnation that is difficult if not impossible to surmount.
So, save the $3 and keep your eyes open as you travel around the area. Check out the streets in various stages of disrepair, the abandoned and decrepit buildings, the empty storefronts, the lines at the soup kitchen, the hordes who descend on stores around the first of the month when government money is direct-deposited into accounts.
That’s the true Johnstown Vision 2023.
Sam Ross Jr's site 