ALCS President Re-Appointed to Two Boards
January 5, 2019
Appalachian's founder and president, Josh First, has been re-appointed to two boards, the Dauphin County Planning Commission and the Capital Region Resource Conservation and Development Council.
The Dauphin County Planning Commission oversees the planning department of Dauphin County, the seat of Pennsylvania's capital city and the nexus of I-81, the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76), and major routes 15, 11, 322, 422, and 283. At the meeting point of all of these major highways, Dauphin County is a destination, a stop-over, and a pass-through for millions of people every month. Penn State Hershey, Hershey Medical Center, and many other significant institutions draw professional people and their clients from around the east coast.
"Dauphin County makes me really proud, and I am so honored to be selected by our county commissioners to represent their interests on the commission," says Josh First.
"Our county is really well run, totally professionally run, with both parties agreeing that the wellbeing of the citizens here is paramount above all, above politics. Having served in federal, state, and local government service, my own philosophy of government is that government is here to help the citizen. We are not here to boss people around or take away their property rights. Rather, we carefully help individuals and communities find their own way through modern development pressures," First says.
The Capital Region Resource Conservation and Development Council serves the south-central region, Dauphin, Franklin, York, Lebanon, Lancaster, and Cumberland counties, and it is devoted to natural resource conservation, farming, water quality, and sound land management beyond the common municipal boundaries that define most land development parameters. Instead, CRC&D focuses on regional solutions to local and regional problems. Stormwater management and impacts on the Chesapeake Bay are common subjects around which the council's participating counties gather.
"Capital RC & D is a very well run arm of government that reflects the richness of its partnership roots spanning from local to federal government. Our organization is exactly the way that government problem-solving should be achieved. The issues are timely, the solutions are often amazingly simple, and they are always community-based. Serving on this board has taught me a great deal about government that I never saw before, and I am thankful to the staff and fellow board members who put in so much effort for the greater good," says First.
