(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Springhill Senior Living in Erie, Pennsylvania, offering a wide range of maintenance-free apartments with balconies and patios, and garden homes designed to provide an active and engaging lifestyle, where residents can spend more time focusing on what they want to do, not what they have to do.

Springhill also includes a continuum of quality healthcare services for added peace of mind.

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- [Narrator] "Chronicles" was made possible thanks to a community assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority, SpringHill Senior Living.

Support by the Department of Education and the generous support of Thomas B Hagen.

- [Narrator] This is WQLN.

Previously on part one of "Joyce Savocchio."

- Well, it's very hard telling one's life story.

- [Speaker] Esther and Danny were well known in the Erie community.

All politicians are shaped by their environment, and that's particularly true of Joyce Savocchio.

- There's a difference between power and influence.

- Since I was the first woman to be in that office, that I had a responsibility to do the very best I could, and in fact, be better, in a sense.

I felt a great responsibility so that it wouldn't block the way for other women.

We must first honestly address the depth and reality of Erie's growing fiscal crisis.

You need a team.

(multiple radio frequencies playing together once) (multiple radio frequencies playing together continues) (multiple radio frequencies playing together continues) - [Reporter] As well as senior citizens.

More money would be pumped into clean water programs, the war on drug abuse, the prison system, job creation and education.

In fact, the biggest share of the general fund budget is earmarked for basic education.

- We've tightened our belts, we've invested wisely in the necessities, and we've lessened the impact of essential spending by spreading it over time.

- So I'd like to introduce to you Governor Robert P. Casey.

Governor.

- Thank you, David.

Good afternoon everyone.

I'd like to welcome you to this teleconference on the subject of local tax reform.

- Right after the primary election, where I was the Democratic candidate for mayor, I thought I had to take action right then and I went down to visit Governor Casey and brought with me a plan, of what I felt would be a good plan for Erie and the kinds of directions we should go in.

There were 11 items listed there.

I met with him and he looked it over and he laughed and I said, "Well, governor, this is no laughing matter."

And he said, "No," he said, "I'm happy."

He said, "This is the first time, that I know of, since I, that Erie has a plan."

What Governor Casey had said to me as he looked it over, he said, "Can you really do this?"

And that's the first time I think I really had to truly think like a mayor.

And I said, "Yes, I think I can do it."

And he said, "Well, if that's the case, it's Erie's time."

- I think this is so important for people to understand.

This is the most difficult time in the history of the city of Erie, okay?

And in all of Erie County.

This was the time of the highest unemployment.

And this was when the industrialization occurred.

People, companies were leaving, they were closing down.

People lost their jobs.

If you looked at the future, it looked as if it was not only cloudy, but pretty not receptive, not something that was going to be better than the past.

I think that this is the most important thing that Joyce and I both grappled with.

We need to feel good about ourselves and we need to know all of those attractive parts of Erie County and to be really the ones that tell others who are outside of the county about the wonderful things that we have here.

And this is part of that.

- The passion that she had for Erie was right out there for every and visible for everyone to see.

She wore a pin every single day A large pin right there on her lapel, a big pin that said, and it's just said one thing, "Erie," and it was all sparkly like rhinestones, and it promoted Erie all the time.

Now, right around, or a little bit before that time that she became mayor, we had an elected official, a school board member actually, that somehow got on "The Johnny Carson Show," late at night and Johnny Carson used to interview audience members.

- Hi there.

- [Mary] Hi.

- [Jerry] Hi.

The curtains must be beautiful.

(all laughing) - [Johnny] Oh, wonderful.

- Hi there.

What's your name?

- Mary Lamry.

- [Johnny] Read the tag, silly.

Can you see?

(all laughing) - Where are you from, Mary?

- Erie, Pennsylvania.

- [Jerry] Are you kidding?

- No.

(all laughing) - [Johnny] Why would she lie about that?

- Right?

Right, who would make that up?

Go ahead.

What's your question, dear?

- You just asked me a question and asked me if I was kidding.

And I'd like to ask you now if either you or Johnny could identify "The Mistake on the Lake?"

(audience laughing) - Well, it depends on how far gone she is.

(audience laughing) - I don't know.

I could talk about the lark and the lagoon, but the mistake on it.

I really don't understand that.

- [Jerry] I don't either.

- I'll give you a clue.

Another.

- [Jerry] Is there a historical something relating to "The Mistake on the Lake?"

- Well, not really historical.

I'll give you a clue.

Another comedian who was often on this show was married there, by the name of Bob Hope.

- [Jerry] That might have been the mistake he made.

- [Johnny] Mistake on the lake.

- I really don't know.

The mistake on the lake.

- Occasionally, Erie is called "The Mistake on the Lake."

It's located between two larger cities, which are Cleveland and Buffalo.

And this is also.

(audience applauding) - I don't wanna forget this night.

Would you just hold there?

(all laughing) Mistake on the lake, that's cute.

Would you just turn with your head the other way right now?

Could turn all the way around, you're fine.

- That was the attitude then, that we were our own worst enemies.

- I think there's some truth to the fact that we view ourselves as underdogs and somehow in competition with the larger cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

And I think that is kind of a motivating force.

But I think it's also an advantage.

You know, you have to strive harder or you have to be better than to be considered equal.

So I think that can be a positive force.

It can also be a negative, where people get so in a rut of thinking that they're an underdog, that they almost deserve to be an underdog.

One very crucial and central issue when I was in office was whether or not Erie met the distressed status or guidelines of the state.

So there's the feeling that a community has when you're distressed.

What it basically means if you are truly distressed is they send in from the government, advisors.

And you have to follow the advice of the advisors they send.

So it now takes any kind of power, control or thinking out of your part and puts it in somebody else's hands.

That couldn't happen.

- There was a pushback in 1992 about the '90 census around that same thing.

Poverty creates that kind of tension, whether it's police community relations or whether it's just violence in the neighborhoods.

- All they do is harass people and think it's a joke, see.

Ain't no gangs.

We can't say nothing 'cause look, 'cause they can take us to jail.

We ain't got no authority over them.

- There's always been a racial problem, whether people wanna admit that or not.

And I think we're still going through it, of course.

We will not now, nor ever, tolerate police brutality and we will enforce our policy of excessive use of force.

So when you look at Erie and even till today, there are division lines.

- One of the things about the city of Erie, I see it divided on ethnic lines and educational lines.

- It's because of people like you.

America will never survive.

- The thing that you have to keep in mind is you're there to represent everyone.

The people that voted for you, the people that didn't vote for you and the people who didn't register or vote at all.

And hopefully if you do a decent job, they will, you will encourage more people to come out to vote.

At the same time, Erie's population was dropping.

When I came into office, Erie was the third largest city.

When I left office, it was the fourth largest city.

Allentown beat us.

- The de-industrialization hit the northeast and hit these communities like Buffalo, Cleveland and Erie harder than the rest of the country.

And that's because we had such a large population of our working population that was employed in industries.

And we lost a whole lot, we absolutely did.

How do we struggle to keep something, not only something here, but to keep a future that shows growth and possibilities to keep young people here, to keep young people wanting to locate in Erie?

- I got my first job, I was 19 at the time, at a factory on 12th Street.

And I loved the job, I was going to Gannon at the time, it was the summer between my junior and senior years.

I earned enough in one summer to pay for my fall and spring semesters at Gannon and actually had some extra money, built a great relationship with the people I worked with, most of whom were a lot older than I was.

We would get together on the weekends and do things and I was doing so well there that when I went back to Gannon, I stayed on part-time and kept working there.

I thought, "Hey, I could use this money and I like these people."

So it was incredible.

That kind of job doesn't even exist in Erie anymore.

- So here we are in the '90s, with Mayor Savocchio inheriting that and trying to be a change agent and be transformational and be inclusive and try to figure all of that out.

- To have a distressed city would not only have the consequences that we normally think of, but I think would psychologically and every other way, was not good for Erie, was not good for the people of Erie, was not good for its progress, was not good for its economic development.

So it's very important that the financial things that we deal with have to be taken very seriously and have to be worked on, even if they take longer than we would like.

- Read my lips, no new taxes.

(audience cheering) ♪ Go get, go get the money ♪ So I go get it, get it, get it ♪ ♪ Hate means I do something right ♪ ♪ Right, so I'm a let 'em ♪ I let 'em ♪ Yeah, I let 'em, yeah, yeah ♪ Yeah, I let 'em, I let 'em ♪ Yeah, I let 'em, I let 'em ♪ I hit the middle and I hey ♪ Yeah, I let 'em - We're all in this together.

This means we must make government work for the people who pay the bills.

- The problem was that the city of Erie had what we would call junk bond status.

We didn't have the financial ability to float bonds.

We didn't even have the financial ability to buy insurance to buy bonds.

Not only was that true, but there was a lot of debt.

There was also the consent decree that Mayor Tullio had signed, that the bay was polluted and was seeping into the lake.

- [David] I think one thing that startled her, somebody from public works department wisely told her that she needed to understand the challenge of the city not just above ground, but below ground.

And so they took her underneath the city of Erie, where she was startled as it became obvious to her that so much of the infrastructure of the '30s and '40s that had come together and the '50s was just in terrible disrepair and riveted her attention to infrastructure.

- The sewer system that most cities had, including Erie, was a singular kind of sewer system where any water, wastewater and regular rainwater would go into one main sewer line.

And so the decree said you have to divide them.

Wastewater has to be separate from any other kind of water deposit.

And they gave you a timetable that you had to meet.

If you didn't meet that timetable, you would have to pay a thousand dollars a day until you did and so it had to be met.

- It's kind of crazy, but there's a long history to water in Erie.

Mayor Savocchio, in talking to her, she realized that they needed somebody to do something and it wasn't gonna happen with her council.

And I think in addition to financially helping out the city at the time, I think she understood the need to improve the system to keep it viable and reliable.

- The future of the city was at stake because the water issue was so important, not just the city.

I mean, look at water problems across the country today.

Imagine if we had not solved that water problem then, could we be another Flint today or another Jackson, Mississippi today, had we not met that water challenge then?

- So right there you were looking at almost five, half a million dollars just in debt with the inability to float a bond issue.

And if you couldn't float a bond issue, you certainly couldn't do the clean bay and the sewer system, among other things.

- I think as we go further down into the '90s, austerity and doing more with less are going to be the watchwords in government.

And I think this really does begin the new era.

- This is a community on the Great Lakes, next to a state park that is one of the most popular public parks in the continental United States.

A community that desperately needs this infrastructure investment.

- I was told that it's impossible and these financial houses are not going to come.

And luckily somebody contacted me that had work for Moody's and they said, "I think I can get this for you."

And they did.

And they came.

The first time they came, they wanted a tour of what they considered our quote unquote worst neighborhoods, whatever that meant to them.

And then after they did that, they interviewed all of the council members and then the last interview was me.

And while they asked me several questions, the main question, and they pointed this out that it was very important, was what was my vision for Erie over the next five years?

(long swooshing sound) (long swooshing sound continues) And so that was done and I had to wait two weeks for an answer.

The answer came back.

The city of Erie's bond rating has been upgraded from a double B to an A minus.

In other words, where we would have been very happy with an upgrade of one investment grade, we have received an upgrade of two.

- [Reporter] The improved rating means Erie and its authorities can attract better interest rates and more business to the city.

Now, the city is looking to float a multi-million dollar bond issue to make some major infrastructure improvements.

- We're looking at sewer projects, both sanitary and storm water sewer projects.

And we are looking at street projects, that's what we mean by infrastructure.

- The city employment structure was very often one that was more favorable to friends.

And I think very often that the water department might have been a vehicle for patronage during the Tullio time.

- My predecessor, and also our former chairman of the board, who we named our water plan after, the board named the water plan after, Richard Wasielewski.

He was like a mentor to me when he was on the board here.

Lifelong Erie-ite, involved in Erie politics his entire life.

He used to joke that every time Mayor Tullio went to a wedding, he'd get three new hires on Monday.

Mayor Savocchio then, I think she had to take the steps that she realized that could not continue and be viable.

- That patronage was gone.

What she did was to make the water department an authority.

That making it an authority and putting it in under the jurisdiction of people who had, in their kind of playbook, this is what we need to do, this is how we are going to move forward, this is how we are going to make water the best that we can have.

And the Water Authority, I think, has been very instrumental in all of the advances the economy of the city and the county have made.

- When you're an authority, the government body that initiates that has to guarantee bonds.

And in return, if they ever wanna take that authority back for any reason, they have to assume all of those bonds.

So I knew over time that would be an increasing burden on a shrinking population and that just couldn't happen.

(tense music) - Good evening and welcome to "Focus," I'm Phil Fatica.

In January of 1990, Joyce Savocchio took office as mayor of the city of Erie.

Miss Savocchio has had to deal with a variety of problems, perhaps opportunities, besetting Pennsylvania's third largest city, ranging from budget deficits to public safety, to the transfer of the city's water system to a water authority.

Mayor Savocchio joins us tonight on "Focus," to answer your questions, your concerns about our city.

Mayor, thank you for joining us and taking time out from a most busy schedule.

You're on the go, virtually the minute you get up in the morning, it's from the get go, away you go and until late at night, does that wear on you?

- Well, I think if you stop and think about it, it would probably wear you down.

But for me, I think it's a very exhilarating thing because most of the commitments that I have are with people and for people.

And when you're with people and they're so positive about everything, that does pump you up and you wanna do more.

- Erie is growing again.

And yet on the other hand, there was almost a move to establish a distressed city status.

How can you balance the two, one's growing and one, we're distressed?

- First of all, we are growing.

In fact, you've seen the report issued that Erie now rates first in the state of Pennsylvania for job opportunities.

And I think that's something that we've been saying for a long time.

- [Phil] Something to crow about.

- Yes, I think so.

And we also see a lot of movement in the city itself and a lot of inquiries.

So I think those all speak highly for the future.

We are on the move.

I truly mean that.

And I think people are going to see some substantial change in the next couple of years.

My belief was the way in which you rebuild the city is to start from under the ground up.

And I think it formed, really, a main part of what my administration was all about.

I got the name of being "The Infrastructure Queen."

And my response to that was always, "I like to dig dirt, but good dirt."

And if I look back on it, the number of really major infrastructure projects that took place, were probably more in a decade than had been done in several decades before.

The message is a simple one and I ask you to carry it throughout this great city.

Erie is working and Joyce Savocchio is the mayor who makes it work.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - If they were tagging her "The Infrastructure Queen," I saw her more as "The Communities Queen."

- She had to work very hard because she couldn't always get four votes to proceed with her agenda.

But she was on the phone, in our face saying, "But did you know this?"

And "Let's have a meeting.

We need to discuss this problem.

We have to find the money."

So she worked it and she made it happen.

- I had to respect her tenacity and also her willingness to do what was best for the city of Erie and the residents.

I mean, she was looking out for them.

- Joyce invested in a sewer system in this neighborhood and then she put a street with a new, some kind of asphalt mixture, it improved the value of the homes in the neighborhood.

It stabilized our neighborhood and it gave hope to the people in neighborhoods like ours.

And so she wasn't just a physical infrastructure queen, she was a human infrastructure queen as well.

- You can't say something's impossible.

You have to say something is possible.

There's a whole difference in an attitudinal approach and what you can do.

You know, sometimes it's so hard to advise yourself but I've had the time and space now to look back and I think if I started all over again and had to go and live through those 12 years, I would say keep your passion, keep your energy, but develop a little bit more patience.

- If you look at all the things that have started to take place under Joyce's administration and are now continuing, you can see that there's a legacy there, that's gonna go on for many, many years.

- What she did in terms of the bayfront, okay, and to upgrade the sewage system of the city of Erie was tremendous.

It was absolutely essential and one of the most productive advances in the city's history.

- There's no way that I can believe that the outlying areas around Erie could have grown and prospered in the manner that they have without the infrastructure investment.

I just believe that when you evaluate the Savocchio administration and her 12 years, she's been the most transformational, successful mayor in Erie in the last 50 years.

- The example she set, I really personally believe, at least based on my knowledge I feel she's the best mayor we've ever had.

- I think if I achieved anything, I helped to bring the community together.

I helped to give us common purpose so we were headed together in the right direction and through that, made our community better and gave everyone a share and a sense of pride in our community.

Without that, things get a little shaky.

And most of all, I think by doing that, at least I hope, I gave hope for the future.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Something that makes us complete ♪ ♪ When we finally see ♪ Here with the sun on our backs ♪ ♪ It's all we need ♪ Together with hearts intertwined ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ There's nothing quite like it ♪ - [Narrator] Chronicles was made possible thanks to a community assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority, SpringHill Senior Living, support by the Department of Education and the generous support of Thomas B Hagen.

- [Narrator] We question and learn.