SUNBURY — Twenty years after winning his first election as mayor and four years after losing his fifth re-election bid to Mayor Jesse C. Woodring, David L. Persing is throwing his hat back into the ring in pursuit of the city’s top job.
He’ll face Democratic challenger and city bar owner Scott Johnson.
“I just thought the city wasn’t going in the right direction, and I thought with my past experience, I could improve on that,” Persing, 58, said recently about his decision to run for office again.
One of his first priorities, if elected, would to bring the community back into the fold when it comes to city endeavors, and as part of that, Persing vowed to bring back his annual State of the City Address.
“It’s not a community effort anymore,” Persing said, pointing to work in Cameron Park that he said did not take into account the opinions of longtime park contributor Gary Leister. “You’re better off getting different ideas even if you don’t agree with them.”
Johnson would like to see the city develop a marketing campaign that would promote what the city has to offer, from recreational venues to business opportunities.
“The city is putting $1 million into its downtown, and we haven’t done $1,000 worth of advertising,” Johnson said. “You can see the effects going on, but unless you’re driving through downtown Sunbury, you’re very unaware.”
Johnson also supports resurrecting the city’s redevelopment authority as a way of improving city properties.
Defunct since 2007, the authority in the past offered grants to first-time home buyers. Johnson would like to see a new authority use seed money — a grant or a loan — to purchase and rehabilitate properties and put them back on the market.
“It creates a better tax base,” Johnson said.
Persing supports bringing a community college to the city, whether it’s on Market Street or not.
“We could never be able to put up the (money) being looked at today, but I would guarantee a 100 percent effort from the city in any way that we could help. The economic impact would be huge,” Persing said. “This would lead to many positive improvements within the City of Sunbury for many years to come.”
Johnson also supports a city-centered community college, but wants it on Market Street.
“It almost needs to be downtown,” Johnson said, in order to foster the highest level of economic development.
Persing also hopes to see a hotel/convention center in the city, whether it‘s built new or put into one of the city’s vacant buildings. It’s a dream the former mayor has long supported.
“It could happen if the college would become a reality,” Persing said. “I just think that’s a perfect scenario. Property values (in the city) and clearly beneficial for that level of investment and the more of that you bring in, the more opportunity you’re going to have for the people who want to invest.”
Persing supports the city’s recent use of grant money to fund surveillance systems in Stroh Alley and throughout the city and to place laptops in police cars, saying, “Police presence is huge in a small community likes ours. Just that public view makes an impact in the neighborhood.”
Contrary to reports that the police station, in the 400 block of Market Street, is inadequate for the department’s needs, Persing said he believes its location is perfect, as well as its price — it was given to the city during Persing’s tenure.
“It has a very positive impact on our downtown development,” he said. “It represents safety and quick response time to any downtown situation, and that is important to the citizens of Sunbury and people from outside of our town who want to invest here.”
Johnson, too, does not support abandoning the gifted building, nor does he support the construction of a new city hall without first acquiring some kind of capital from the sale of city-owned property.
“We acquired that building for $1,” Johnson said. “If it needs improvement, that’s a possibility. We’re not in the business of incurring long-term debt — we just got rid of it.”
Persing also said he would like to see stricter enforcement from the city’s code department.
“The code office has to work with people,” he said, “but there are properties in every neighborhood that clearly people aren’t working with us. When you allow a property, a mismanaged property, to affect the property values of your neighbors, that’s the city’s responsibility to get in and stop that.”
Persing has been employed at Wood-Mode for 40 years. He and his wife, Kathaleen, have three grown children and live in Sunbury.
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