C. Michael Foote

LANCASTER TWP — From borough to township, shrinking to growing, Indiana County to Butler County.

New Lancaster Township manager C. Michael Foote will see a number of changes from his prior job as Indiana borough manager.

But that doesn't mean he's out of his element.

“That's really what I've learned and what is transferrable, both from Indiana and from my previous municipalities and some of the work I've done over the years: You just have to be able to listen because the community should decide what their culture should be and the community should decide how they want to pursue the future,” Foote said.

Foote, who began his job Sept. 20, has his work cut out for him. Chief among the outstanding tasks is an overdue update to the township's comprehensive plan, a function the township began in 2019, but was derailed from finishing amid the pandemic and staffing turnovers.

The completion of the plan, Foote said, will help not only the township prepare its future, but also his acclimation to Lancaster.

“That's going to be part of my early assessments: Looking at the budget, looking at the needs, listening to the supervisors and what their vision is,” Foot said. “And then, also, coming up with an idea of how we can create an environment where folks could come in for a town hall-type meeting or some sort of public forum … for the community to get together and have conversations, so their voices could be heard.”

In fact, the listening — taking guidance from the community — seems to be a major part of Foote's management philosophy.

“I'm certainly coming in to this community with a fresh set of eyes, but with no agenda,” Foote said. “I really want to listen to what folks have to say.”

Foote said he's been practically all around the country: He grew up on Long Island in New York, studied and lived in Florida, worked in the mountain west and now finds himself in Western Pennsylvania.Foote said he understands the skepticism toward development, and added he's seen the detrimental effects of it.“What I was able to do is to see some of that early growth in Florida. I was actually able to be in a community that had family-owned businesses, and all of a sudden the family-owned businesses went away,” he said. “Downtown was so different and so depressed.”Not all development is inherently bad, Foote noted. He said his time in Boulder, Colo., showed him how growth could be good for the community.What's important, he said, is to handle growth in a beneficial way for Lancaster or wherever else experiences it.“I think some of those experiences help me to just have a perspective of, 'OK, if things are changing, how might we steward that? How might we facilitate that?'” he said.But it's vital to listen to residents, he added.“I've had people say, 'We don't want to be like Cranberry,'” Foote said. “OK, I better figure out what happened in Cranberry, so that you don't want it to look like that; we've got to figure out how to avoid that.”

Much as there's skepticism toward development, Foote said there is a nationwide skepticism toward government and government spending.He understands that, he said, and noted he wants to combat such skepticism in Lancaster.“It's really doing our best to be as transparent as we can and communicate as well as we can, to share what our needs are so they understand that we're not just being frivolous, but that we're being good stewards of their money,” Foote said.An important part of being open with the township's money, Foote said, is to look at and organize the township's staffing.“I look at it as a challenge in terms of how do we bring staff on in the proper manner?” he said.Foote, a former business owner, said he will look at the township's staffing situation the same way he did when he owned two businesses.“I've learned the hard way in business that, as you grow, there are those pressure points where the dollars are not always matching the need,” he said. “I always look at it in terms of investing: What do we want to invest in today that's going to help us address concerns in the future?”