The 45th Legislative District

Emotionally it's tough for me to choose between Josh Young and Barry Cassidy. Both men are in the race for state representative in the newly created 45th Pennsylvania House Legislative District. I know and like both of them.

But as a Coatesville resident who would love to see our area prosper there is only one choice. The 45th includes the City of Coatesville, the boroughs of Downingtown, South Coatesville, Parkesburg and Modena. Townships in the 45th are Caln, East Caln, Valley, East Fallowfield and Sadsbury.  Those municipalities make up our local part of the Keystone Corridor; see "Plan the Keystone". Barry Cassidy played a part in the development of the Keystone Corridor as a part of developing “Citizens for the Train” and work on the “Greenline” planned to link Phoenixville to Paoli by rail.  We are getting a new train station in Coatesville and Downingtown and improvements to the Parkesburg station in part because of Barry’s enthusiasm and hard work to develop rail transit.

Back in the 1990s Phoenixville was mostly known as a place to buy drugs.  Barry Cassidy removed the street dealers from Phoenixville one corner at a time. I witnessed Barry Cassidy change Phoenixville from a drug selling town* to what is now one of the most popular and sought after residential, shopping and dining areas in Chester County.

Barry brings years of experience working with PennDOT, Septa and Amtrak on corridor development.  As State Rep. for the 45th district he would continue that work.

One more thing, Barry is a tough manager; if you aren’t producing he will lean on you until you do. He had the emotional toughness to remove the street dealers from Phoenixville. He will need that emotional toughness in the State House. I heard Governor Rendell talk about the PA Statehouse, he said something like; These guys get out of bed every day not thinking about what they can do for their constituents, they think about what they can do to hurt the guy on the other side of the aisle. The ruthlessness of the Republicans in the Statehouse can discourage newcomers but I think Barry can roll with the punches.

*”About 2002, Phoenixville had a higher crime rate than Coatesville, according to Carroll. At that time, the borough began hiring more police officers while the city did not, he said. Now, Phoenixville has a much lower crime rate than the city, Carroll said.‘Adding extra cops is not the only answer to reducing crime, but it certainly helps,’ Carroll said,” 

FROM: 

Daily Local News 

DA warns against cutting city cops 

Published: Sunday, October 30, 2011