County executives from across the country are in Washington this week for the National Association of Counties meeting. On Wednesday, they put on a discussion about COVID recovery and infrastructure at the National Press Club with five county leaders, including Erie County's Mark Poloncarz.
While their specific titles vary, the issues were the same: COVID, infrastructure and the collisions with higher levels of government on those issues.
While Erie County doesn't have the problems of flooding and hurricanes of Miami and Houston's Harris County, Poloncarz said there is the problem of aging infrastructure and sewer costs.
"Being a slightly older community — this is our 200th bicentennial of the county — we have quite a number of sewage treatment facilities across the county that are owned by the county that need to be updated," he said. "Mayor Levine Cava talked about how nice it is and people are going down to Florida. That's true. But we actually look at it as we're going to be a place for climate refugees, because we have fresh water."
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he's in somewhat the same situation, protecting his county's parks from rising and falling Great Lakes waters.
"We do have the great Lake Michigan," Crowley said. "You think about climate change. Climate change is affecting our lakeshores, as well. For us, we want to make sure we continue to be a beautiful place. We think of Bradford Beach as one of the most beautiful beaches that you can come to in the Midwest. But in order to make sure that we can maintain that name, it's going to take some significant investments in that shoreline."
Boone County, KY Judge/Executive Gary Moore said his county is putting millions into broadband after schools were shut down by COVID and students had no way to connect their computers to class, something Erie County plans with ErieNet.
