April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
LOCAL RESOURCES
Moore does more to boost region
He wants to resurrect these relics of his 1970s childhood.
Mr. Moore is concerned about other areas across the Capital District, too. He eagerly rattles off a list - Troy, Mechanicville, Schuylerville - and adds neighborhoods like Albany's Arbor Hill and Schenectady's Hamilton Hill.
Government funding, he says, neglected such areas in recent years, leading to exponential growth in some suburbs, like Wilton, and decay or decline in a handful of other locales.
Mr. Moore believes residents' roles in reviving their communities can extend beyond lobbying their local representatives. He notes that Christians, especially, have a responsibility to contribute.
"Our obligation is to help the poor," said the lifelong Catholic, a parishioner of St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph parish in Rensselaer. "Every time I go to church, there's more reinforcement for me that we need to do more."
Already, Mr. Moore volunteers as chairman of his city's planning board, sits on a local economic loan committee, writes grants for an Arbor Hill youth mentoring program and supports other youth organizations, land preservation organizations and local businesses.
He's working on a book that would partly benefit local charities. He'll be teaching a class at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy next fall. He's pondering the creation of his own environmental consulting business.
Mr. Moore earned his bachelor's degree in environmental science at SUNY-Plattsburgh. After writing zoning and planning grants for the City of Rensselaer, he got his Master's degree in urban and regional planning at University at Albany and worked weekends for the Air National Guard for six years.
Catholic leaders continue to influence his career path and concerns: He avidly reads the writings of priests who combine social justice and environmental concerns. Nuns and brothers who taught him as a child also left a mark.
"The sacrifice and the dedication that I saw from the brothers and the nuns, that selflessness...it's a motivating force," he remarked. "There's always a conversation I'm trying to have with God to find ways to be a better Catholic, to be a better person. It's a daily thing."
During the day, Mr. Moore writes safety grants for the New York State Department of Transportation, disabling "illegal" trucks before they destroy the infrastructure of bridges and highways.
In between spending time with his wife and two young children, he has written several articles for local newspapers drawing attention to poverty, urban sprawl and threats to wildlife and watershed and outlining steps people can take to combat them.
The success of an individual community, Mr. Moore says, relies on the success of an entire region. Some of his tips include:
* Ask your local leaders to use a regional tax base model. If a new mall opens, some profits can be stashed in a fund for regional beautification. This will make the idea of increased traffic easier to swallow for residents of surrounding neighborhoods.
* Fight to give each neighborhood in a region its fair share of affordable housing. Individual zoning laws often make it difficult and expensive for developers to build apartments, but concentrating development in single areas leads to ghettos.
* Buy local products at farmers' markets and independent stores.
* Support zoning revisions to ensure compact, pedestrian-friendly development and energy efficiency.
* Donate to land preservation and conservation organizations that buy easements from farmers who would otherwise be forced to sell their land for housing developments.
* Support programs that help children who "didn't ask to be put into these environments," Mr. Moore noted. For instance, a group called "Men Organized to Develop, Empower and Lead" mentors adolescents in Arbor Hill, takes them on field trips and college visits, provides homework help and keeps them off the street.
With more than one million people living in the Capital District, Mr. Moore told The Evangelist, "There are so many untapped potential resources."
As for his hometown, things are looking up. According to 2010 estimates, the city of Rensselaer grew by about 1,630 people over the past decade. A new grocery store opened a few years back after 20 years without one.
A multiphase development project, de Laets Landing, will bring hundreds of residential units, retail space and restaurants, office space, a hotel and a waterfront promenade near the train station. Mr. Moore has counseled the project's developers on matters of design like lighting, benches and trees.
"We like to say we're on our comeback, but it's a slow comeback," he said of the city. "My goal right now is to just keep beating the drum. Some strong leader needs to come out of the woodwork and bring all these things together."
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