At the Blair County Commissioners’ meeting held yesterday, funding for the Bellwood Borough and Snyder Township portions of the I-99 economic development corridors was decided.
Both areas are scheduled to receive money from the county to aide in bringing economic growth to these areas. Bellwood will receive $2,220 and Snyder Township will receive $6,120 as part of a community development block grant program “to promote economic development along the corridor” explained commissioner Donna Gority.
“Since the multi-municipality enterprise zone has been formed, the city of Altoona has been a state designated enterprise for sometime, their downtown area, or an expanded version of their downtown area,” said Gority. “A few years ago when there was a movement to get the municipalities along I-99 corridor together, the state agreed to allow the expansion of the city enterprise zone to include the other municipalities along the I-99 corridor.
“Some of the money to support the staff work for that comes from these funds. Instead of the municipalities of Bellwood Borough or Snyder Township having to come up with money of their own out of their very small municipal funds, the county community development block grant funds can be used for that as part of their share of it.”
In other news, Claysburg Kimmel Area School District requested that reconstructive work be completed on the roads directly adjacent to the school so it would be safer for motorists to travel. The district is currently undergoing some construction and remodeling of school buildings.
“They are demolishing an old high school and building a new one, I think it’s a high school,” said Gority. “This just allows them to reconfigure the right-of-way in that area along old Route 220.
“Now they have to back out onto the road, and that’s not a good thing, so this will allow for more turning radius.”
