Former Senator Polls the Pittsburgh Region

The region's wants and needs will be assessed for the next few years by a new effort called the Regional Visioning Project, headed by the governor's former Southwest Regional Director Allen Kukovich and funded by several local foundations. The program will poll the residents of 30 counties in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio on what they think should happen to the Ohio River Basin -- and there is no limitation or category in which to respond. Kukovich says the aim of the project is not necessarily to accomplish many things in a few years, but to "change the collective mindset" of the region and attain a "shared vision." In doing so, Kukovich and his team will use both in-person interviewing and online polling to get a grasp on what the citizens of the area really want to see occur. Kukovich says it was not hard to decide upon the scope of the region in question, which includes 14 counties in Pennsylvania. "We think it fits for a number of reasons: culturally, because of the way the media markets form, because it's all part of the Ohio River Basin, and because there's certain natural resources that are common and indigenous to the region," says the former state senator. Kukovich hopes to make this the largest study of its kind in America by reaching more than 20,000 people across the four states.