Erie Mayor Joe Schember will leave April 13 for a week-long economic development tour in Zibo, China, one of Erie’s four sister cities, with the aim of rebuilding a foundation for future Chinese investment in Pennsylvania’s fourth largest city.
Gary Horton, president of Erie’s NAACP, and Chris Groner, director of the city’s Department of Economic and Community Development, will accompany Schember and his staff.
“We want to foster a good sister city relationship with the people of Zibo,” Schember told Pennsylvania Business Report. “We ultimately want to rekindle what has been missing between our communities and share things that will benefit both cities.”
Schember, a Democrat who was sworn into office in Jan. 2018, said that while Erie’s manufacturing sector has struggled since the late 1960s, his administration is focused on rebuilding the city and finding ways to bring in the necessary investments to do so. The mayor, who previously served as the chairman of the Erie City Council’s Finance Committee, said that under the previous mayoral administration, Erie was on the brink of bankruptcy and had to find ways to balance the city’s budget, even including controversial decisions to eliminate positions in the police and fire departments.
“The plan for this trip is to not talk about specific investment and financial gains between the cities,” Schember said. “There hasn’t been much contact since 2006 so right now it is very important for the Mayor of Erie to meet with the Mayor of Zibo and build that relationship back.”
James Grunke, president and CEO of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, has been helping Schember and his staff frame and identify projects for potential funding and put together the general presentation that the mayor will share with the Zibo delegation.
“This is step one in building a long-term relationship,” Grunke said in an interview. “There’s a correlation of foreign investment in addition to domestic investment and higher job creation. Part of our job is demonstrating why investing in Erie makes good sense and highlighting projects that showcase why Erie is a good space for that investment.”
Schember said that, once the blocks are established between Erie and Zibo, Grunke will most likely accompany future development tours as specific investment talks begin.
This will be Schember’s first time traveling out of the country during his time in office. Last year, he attended a conference in Las Vegas to discuss Opportunity Zones, another success for the city. Created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, an Opportunity Zone is an economically distressed community where new investments, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment. Erie submitted eight Opportunity Zones for the revitalization of the city’s downtown. All eight were state and federally approved.
“Future investments, both foreign and domestic, will be vital in creating a chance to modernize Erie and our manufacturing industry,” Schember said. “One of the main objectives of my administration is to reconnect our downtown neighborhoods to the Bayfront through the development and enhancement of the Bayfront Parkway.”
The Bayfront Parkway, which has served the community since the early 1990s, serves an east-west connection only, making it very hard for people to get from downtown to the Bayfront, Schember said. Creating a north-south connection for the parkway will not only rebuild access and business on the Bayfront, but it will also provide critical transportation infrastructure needed to support the growth of the region.
“Now is the time to start the conversations again,” Schember said of his upcoming trip. “Erie is ready for this and we want to rekindle as many of these foreign sister city relationships as we can.”
Following the trip to Zibo, Schember said that the next steps will be continuing talks with Erie’s three other sister cities: Merida, Mexico; Lublin, Poland; and Dungarvan, Ireland.
“We want both sides,” Grunke said. “We want to show why it makes sense to invest in Erie and what Erie companies can do for foreign businesses. Simple, but necessary.”