Erie mayor, Joe Schember addressed the city one final time in a news conference on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Schember gave out eighteen keys to the city to community members who have gone above and beyond to serve the Erie community.<\/p>\n
According to Schember, “These are all people that did incredible work, a lot of them with youngsters, some with older people too. Mainly bringing youngsters along to make Erie a better place as they get older.”<\/p>\n
Recipients ranged from community leaders like Roger Richards and Ron DiNicola, to city employees like Dave Rocco, and long-time council members like Mel Witherspoon.<\/p>\n
“You just do things because it is the right thing to do. But years later, someone recognized that and is so appreciative\u201d, said WItherspoon.<\/p>\n
Witherspoon said during his time on city council, although they didn’t always see eye to eye, he and the mayor always remained friends.<\/p>\n
As Witherspoon described, “His staff was always there to give me the information I needed. Now, even receiving that information, I may have voted no on some issues he may have really wanted but I feel it may not have been the best for the city at the time.”<\/p>\n
Following the distribution of keys, Schember received a gift from his staff, thanking him for his eight years of service.<\/p>\n
Renee Lamis, his Chief of Staff said, “He’s been very accessible and transparent through his eight years and it’s really just been an honor to implement all these projects and initiatives and to try to improve the quality of life in the city.”<\/p>\n
Lamis said no matter the event, the mayor would try to be there.<\/p>\n
“He would hardly ever say no when people would ask him to come their events, can you be here with us, can you come to a ribbon cutting, or a groundbreaking, whatever the event was. He always wanted to be there for people, to provide that support and to show them that the mayor truly cares\u201d, said Lamis.<\/p>\n
Schember said getting out in the community was one of his favorite parts of the job.<\/p>\n
“Right across the street in Perry Square, events where Perry Square is full of people. Those were events were really really incredible ands I also enjoyed going into small groups as well.”<\/p>\n
Schember said he’s grateful he got to serve the Erie community over the last eight years and has advice to Daria Devlin as she takes on the new role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing, be open, be honest, be transparent, and be accessible to people\u201d, said Schember.<\/p>\n
Other notable recipients included Carl Anderson, former Police Chief Randy Bowers, Archbishop Dwane Brock, Representative Pat Harkins, Sgt. Tom Lenox, and Dr. Tony Snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie mayor, Joe Schember addressed the city one final time in a news conference on Tuesday morning. Schember…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[524,38322,136,138,137,12644,3177,38321,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-74031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-community","9":"tag-community-members","10":"tag-erie","11":"tag-erie-headlines","12":"tag-erie-news","13":"tag-erie-pa","14":"tag-joe-schember","15":"tag-key-to-the-city","16":"tag-mayor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}