News organizations love the year-in-review feature.
You know the type. A reporter ties together a bunch of news events from the past year, and somehow tries to find a common theme, a common thread, something to bind it all together.
It was the Year of the Recession, one might say. Or: It was the Year of the Manufacturer Recall.
Or, more likely: It was the Year of Many Things. (That way, it’s easier to write, no?)
For 2010, here’s my take:
It was the Year of Extremes — at least in the State College area.
Our region didn’t see anything terribly new or wildly unimaginable in 2010. There were no dramatic changes of course, no serious reversals of direction that I could detect.
Instead, we saw eye-popping new extremes in key trends already coursing through our local news cycles.
Consider: We already knew we have a culture of substantial alcohol abuse here. But 2010 saw a new extreme — however symbolic — when the State College schools superintendent, a Penn State alumnus, was picked up for DUI.
Likewise, we knew for some time that fiscal stress was coming to the school district itself. The signs were there. But in 2010, the reality of that stress delivered a tangible extreme: The school board cut more than $3 million in expenses, largely through attrition, for the current school year.
At one point, such a thing would have been unimaginable for the school system famously dubbed a ‘world-class’ district. And for the next school year, cost cuts are nearly certain to be deeper still.
Financially, things don’t appear much better up the hill at Penn State. The university has become accustomed to seeing relatively lackluster support from the state government. But that trend hit its own extreme in 2010, as the state appropriation appeared — and continues to appear — in serious limbo for 2011-12.
The university still doesn’t have a solid sense of how much money it’s likely to receive from Harrisburg. In a worst-case scenario, Penn State could be forced to execute ‘the most significant budget cuts in our history,’ university President Graham Spanier has said. (Remarkably, that news doesn’t seem to have gained a lot of traction in much of the local media. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea.)
On another front, back in downtown State College, we knew that Fraser Centre had been long delayed. The multi-use project, backed by local governmental entities, was to have gotten off the ground a couple years ago on the 100 block of South Fraser Street.
But even Fraser Centre’s trend of delays reached a new extreme in 2010: Without dissent, Borough Council extended a deadline for a $1.8 million land payment that the project developer owes to the municipality.
Penn State football wasn’t immune to the scourge of new extremes, either. As my colleague Matt Fortuna noted over the weekend, coach Joe Paterno implored reporters not to ask when he’ll die.
Yikes. Talk about an extreme — quite the morbid step beyond retirement speculation, eh?
Of course, there was plenty of the latter in 2010. Arguably, those rumors climbed to rampant new extremes, too. Mike Poorman and Jay Paterno covered that amply.
Our region’s extremism, however, also saw trend-bucking exceptions in 2010. (What would a year-in-review be without its anomalies?)
The nonprofit State Theatre, long saddled with debt, is now seeing steady improvement in its financial outlook, as we reported. That’s very welcome news for the region’s performing-arts lovers.
And as national headlines lamented ongoing woes for businesses large and small, a group run by Penn State students — Innoblue — promised to give local entrepreneurs a new venue to foster their innovations.
What will 2011 hold for us and our new-found extremes? Hard to say. A lot hinges on the economy.
Whatever happens, we hope you’ll stick with us as StateCollege.com chronicles the next chapter.
