Federal officials visited Bradford on Thursday to listen and to offer advice on making the best use of federal programs in rural communities.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Joe DeFelice and Thomas Rossomando, national advocate for manufacturing and technology of the Office of Advocacy with the Small Business Administration, sat down with Bradford City Mayor Tom Riel and Sara Andrews, executive director of the Office of Economic and Community Development, to discuss how their agencies can help.

“I decided to get out and really see the region,” DeFelice said, explaining he’s visiting 13 counties in three days. “Secretary Carson’s big push is about Opportunity Zones.”

He said he wants to expand interagency cooperation and cooperation with state agencies and local partners.

“My goal is to dictate up to Washington rather than dictating down. Too often they come up with cookie cutter approaches out of DC, one-size-fits all policies that don’t really work, especially in rural areas,” DeFelice said.

In his rural visits, he’s learning a lot about problems that rural Pennsylvania has.

“I’ve learned a lot about infrastructure in the last two days — water, gas, sewer, broadband. This is high on my radar screen when I go back,” he explained.

“We’re about making your jobs easier, and also lend our expertise where we have it and also let you know about programs that you may not have been aware of,” DeFelice said.

Rossomando talked about economic development. “We handle any small business owner (or non-profits), 500 employees or less, that has a federal regulation issue that is stopping them from expanding their business, something in their industry or hiring new people.

We come in and we fight for them.”

He explained there is an Office of Ombudsman that also can help fight for small businesses.

Right away, city officials knew of several local facilities that could benefit from such help.

Andrews mentioned Zippo Manufacturing Co. and its issues with copyright infringement and tariffs, and American Refinery Group Inc. with Environmental Protection Agency issues.

“We’re a small community, but we have international companies here,” Andrews said, expressing her gratitude for their offers of help.

Riel also mentioned the Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers Association and the issues they have had with burdensome regulations, and recommended they speak to president Mark Cline.

Rossomando asked for contact information to see if he could offer additional tools to help them with their issues.

Andrews gave an overview on the city’s efforts, with its two opportunity zones, revitalization efforts and blight reduction, and the funding sources the city is using for projects. DeFelice commended their efforts and their use of state and federal funds to leverage additional money for improvements.

Andrews showed photos of the blighted neighborhoods that have been revitalized, and explained the neighborhood partnership program where local business partners have helped with funding in exchange for tax credits with the state.

“We removed blight, we added new housing. It helped to stabilize the city’s tax base, it helps to provide new stabilization of our housing stock,” Andrews said.

When the OECD joined forces with its neighborhood partners, they asked the business leaders to identify what issues they see that need addressed.

“This is what our companies have told us, when we come into the community, our gateways are blighted,” she said. “They basically said they are concerned about the blight in the community. That was one of the first things they wanted, was to redo our code enforcement program.”

Andrews said the partners put up the money to purchase software for the newly created property maintenance department. Riel explained they had to restructure the code enforcement program which wasn’t working, and modeled it after another community’s program.

“I can’t blame it on the former employees. The city didn’t give them the proper program or the tools to do their jobs,” Riel said. With a revamped system and the proper tools, now the department is working well. “They are gaining ground.”

He and Andrews talked about the housing stock, and how it was built during the oil boom and not necessarily for longevity.

“The two biggest things I learned doing these neighborhood projects is number one, you’ve got to have partners. You can’t do it yourself,” Andrews said. “We were able to put together a lot of funding sources. In the first neighborhood we had 13 funding sources.”

She said they’ve used HOME funds and Community Block Grants, but have also been able to use those to leverage other funding.

Nodding his head, DeFelice said, “That’s how you do it.”

Riel said, “What Sara’s done down there, she’s received awards from the state.”

“Congratulations,” DeFelice and Rossomando said.

DeFelice said many communities use the money to handle a single project instead of combining sources like Bradford does. “You are light years ahead on the community development aspect of it and in cleaning up blight.”

They also discussed Opportunity Zones in other communities, like Erie and Bellefonte.

DeFelice explained the incentive for investors in the opportunity zone program is deferring taxes for ten years, a decrease in taxes and at the end of the 10-year program, taking a tax-free profit. He recommended setting up an investment fund for use in the opportunity zone.

“That money comes here, that money stays here,” he said. “If you’re going to invest somewhere, invest in your hometown. You could break even and still make out. Erie is great for that.”

He also recommended loans and federal grants for the city to consider that would help with funding projects.

“There’s 160 federal actions that you as an opportunity zone get preference points for which means that you jump in front of the line for competitive federal programs,” he said, adding he will send a primer to the city about accessing these funding sources.

“We need to do some homework on this,” Andrews said.

DeFelice recommended contacting U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., about holding a roundtable here for additional information.

After the meeting, Riel and Andrews took the officials on a brief tour of the city.