Jim Roddey's take on Cranberry probably won't be appearing on a township billboard anytime soon.
Explaining the necessity of completing the Mon-Fayette Expressway before beginning all-out redevelopment of southern Allegheny County, he said, "We don't want to create another monstrosity like Cranberry."
Mr. Roddey can safely say the things that occur to all of us when we're stuck at the Route 19-Route 228 intersection because he's the chief executive of Allegheny County and we're just poor saps stuck at the intersection. In Butler County.
He has a point, but it's not a selling point. If we weren't still stuck at the Route 19-Route 228 intersection, we might suggest a more upbeat take on the reality of Cranberry: "The shopping America loves, the traffic America hates."
Between 1990 and 2000, the population of Cranberry almost doubled. It's safe to assume that the people who moved there in the past decade were aware that others had moved in first. The newbies arrived anyway. It's safe again to assume that's because they wanted to be there. It's where the stuff is. Jobs, stores, schools, intersections 10 lanes wide.
And now, new parks.
The people who live in Cranberry know all too well what might lead a leader to dismiss the town as a "monstrosity." And they are proving -- one smart decision at a time -- that the best solutions to a community's problems come from the community itself. They can mitigate what's "monstrous" with creative planning and civic-minded residents.
Like the need for parks and nature trails to offset the area's vast tracts of concrete. For the past few years, municipal leaders have been ceaselessly but quietly, oh so quietly, seeking land for public use. Cranberry is so desirable to developers that the township can't afford to compete on a level playing field to acquire, well, level playing fields. (All that kiddie soccer, you know.)
All they could do was make the need known in certain quarters and hope that intermediaries would approach landowners about favoring a sale to the government. It's hard to imagine how much tact is needed, really, to ask: "When you've 'bought the farm' could we buy your farm?"
Ten days ago Eugene and Dee Graham, still very much alive, settled the deal to sell their family farm to the township. Eugene Graham's ancestors were among the first to settle Cranberry. Their 105 acres lie along Rochester Road, ideally situated to the community's collective needs.
The Grahams are receiving $1.68 million -- only $16,000 per acre, while land on either side of theirs is going for $25,000 to $30,000 an acre. Yes, the township has released them from paying a transfer tax of about $30,000, but they could have gotten a lot more for their land from another party. They chose not to. And they're asking for only half the payment up front, with the rest due in four years. That saves the community another $200,000 or so.
The people of Cranberry owe a debt of gratitude to the Grahams, who are themselves people of Cranberry. The citizenry also should be grateful to their leaders -- both politicians and bureaucrats -- who've worked so hard and so creatively to make the monstrosity more livable.
Cranberry still needs a few more like-minded inhabitants to come forward. You can't take it with you, you know, especially if you're trying to haul it through the Route 19-Route 228 intersection.
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