PA House Game and Fisheries — 2026-09-02

Before I call the meeting to order, I want to thank everyone from Erie County who made, who are making, made yesterday was fantastic, and who are making this trip for all the members of the State House. So welcome in Erie. You are doing an amazing job here. It is beautiful. Last night on the bay was just stunning. very grateful and in Erie is this gem in Pennsylvania that we just need everybody to know about because it's our it's our one beach spot in Pennsylvania I know it's a lake but it is so stunning so beautiful you offer so much to the tourism industry to the sportsman's industry thank you everyone from Erie thank you fish and boat for being here we greatly appreciate that we have a packed day today so we want to get all of your testimony in we have a lot of things we want to do for the information of the of our folks from Erie we have this is a joint meeting with the game house game and fisheries Committee and the House Tourism Committee also in Erie they are somewhere else this morning but we also have the Transportation Committee here so this is a great day for Erie County we have so many people from the State House here we want to welcome all of you to our meeting and now I would like to call this joint meeting of the House Game and Fisheries Committee in the House Tourism Recreational and Economic Development Committee to order the The purpose of this meeting is for the presentation of information on the economic and recreational impact of boating, fishing, and tourism on Lake Erie and the surrounding communities. To my left is my co-chair on the Game and Fisheries Committee, Representative Maloney. Next to him is Representative Torzic. She is chairing the Republican caucus side of the tourism committee. And for the Democrat caucus side of the tourism committee, we have Representative Regina Young sitting in for the chair, Mary Jo Daly. We have several other members, and I'd like to just go down the table for anybody I've not introduced to introduce yourselves. Just tell us what county you're from or area you're from, so

from Lancaster County House District 96

County good morning representative Heather Boyd from Delaware County the

morning Mike Armin in the 75th district Elk and Clearfield counties Chad Reichard

Thank you for being here and bringing all these good people together. You take it away Tim. Thanks chair And I'll be brief, but thank you for pulling this off Representative Zmirsky, Harkins, and I, and Jake, we've talked a lot about getting members to Erie, and you pulled it off. So thank you to you. Thank you to Representative Maloney. It's a long drive for members like Representative Hohenstein, but to assemble this many state reps in Erie, I've never seen it in my tenure with the agency. So thank you for being here. You know, this is better than most of my committee meetings. It's awesome. I'm just saying, guys, for those of you on our committee who sometimes don't show, this is really good. and I'm very happy you're all here. Yeah, and so we like to say at our agency that we've got something for everybody in Pennsylvania when it comes to fishing and boating, you know, as Representative Hohenstein said, from the Delaware River to Lake Erie and everywhere in between. It's really awesome. We're the Keystone State for a number of reasons, certainly for fishing and boating, and I can't think of a better thing to be highlighting here, the 250th anniversary of the country, than to celebrate fishing and boating in Erie County. So my role really was just working with Paul to identify speakers, and what you're going to hear is, I think, a really great subset of representatives from Erie County who can speak to the power of fishing and boating and tourism and recreation here in Erie County. I'll be available to answer any questions at the end, but I just wanted to thank Paul, thank you, thank Representative Maloney, Griffin, the Tourism Committee for what you did pulling people together, and away with the show. I know we're on a short timeline.

Good morning, good morning Chairman Kulik, Chairman Maloney, all of the state representatives. We're so happy to have you here in Erie. Representative Mirsky's home, of course, Representative Bandon's home, and good to see Representative Wentling, who previously represented us, as he mentioned. I'm Julie Slomsky with the Port of Erie. We're Pennsylvania's only Great Lakes port. We want to make sure we have that clear. Yes, there are other ports, but we are the only Great Lakes port here in Pennsylvania. We're home to 1,200 boat slips that we have with our partners that we have consisting of private marinas. We have charter fishing captains that I'm sure you'll meet plenty of today as well. And with those, we have altogether nine marinas as well that we're working with our partners to manage right here on our waterfront. With that as well, we have three public launch ramps that we use. And folks like to come in from either out of town or those that store their boats in their backyard to be able to launch their boats and be able to enjoy Lake Erie and be able to clean their fish at our world fish cleaning station thanks to our friends from the PA Fish and Boat Commission We so lucky to have that fish cleaning station because a lot of folks had some concerns on what they do obviously with the remains and now that they can be properly recycled we're very proud of that. I'll let obviously our colleagues here from Fish and Boat Commission talk about that as well but that's a partnership too with our friends from the Sons of Lake Erie that you're going to get a chance to meet this afternoon too at their their world-class fish fry. So one thing for us though again is talking about our partnerships and many of our partners are here at the table from Visit Erie to PHMC to, of course, our favorite Fish USA over here and tied to Fish and Boat. But one thing we really pride ourselves on is, yes, as a port, we are operational. We do move freight. We do build ships. We do repair ships. But the heart of what we do as well is tied to the recreation side, you know, with our recreational anglers that are coming in from out of town and, of course, that are here locally and those boaters as well. So with that, I do want to thank you for the opportunity to welcome you here again to the Port of Erie, right outside your window. And we hope you have a chance to enjoy our Bicentennial Tower in its 30th year this year as well. But I want to defer the rest of my time to my colleague Mark Halfley from the Fish and Boat Commission.

Could you tell them about the telemetry or what we're doing?

Go ahead.

I want to welcome Representative John Ingalls from Allegheny County. He is on the screen with us. We will next hear from Dan Pastore, President, FishUSA, and Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, 1st District.

I know we're rushing through, Chair, just to make sure we're following your schedule, as my colleague Mark Halfley and I wanted to make sure that we did include your abandoned boats. And we want to thank you, Chairman Winkulik, for your leadership on the abandoned boat process. Think of our conversations, Representative Mirsky and Representative Harkins, but how we talked through. It is tied to everything that we're talking about today, especially from the economic development perspective and our recreation, which, of course, we're going to hear from my colleague here, Mark Jennerette. But we have the Liberty Park Rebich Investments Amphitheater, and there we have an issue with a lot of these boats that are derelict and abandoned boats that we're now able to remove and allow folks to park there and enjoy the best recreation spot, right, Jake on the Lake? Here on the waterfront. So that's one thing I want to really thank you for your leadership and be able to do that. It's been great to work with the Fish and Boat Commission, Tim especially, and Ty Savercool to work through all of these specifics. It's been a huge undertaking, and I know we're upsetting some people, but we've had a lot of abandoned boats for a long time. We're close to 50 abandoned boats that we have here in the Port of Erie, and we really thank you for your leadership in helping us move forward and get rid of those abandoned boats. So I want to make sure we recognize you for that.

so i'm here today in my capacity as president and founder of fish usa we are an e-commerce company that focuses exclusively on selling fishing tackle apparel and boating gear for anglers we are located in Fairview close to where Walnut Creek is we employ roughly a hundred people at our facility all of whom you know work in the fishing industry so we also operate a walk-in what we call a pro shop so we have we ship the majority of our product out across the country some of it internationally but we do operate a walk-in facility open seven days a week for customers to come in and buy the tackle that we sell so we carry over 80 thousand different products in our facility and we draw customers from not only the area but really all over the country we also have the ability you can order online and then come to our store and pick it up and we see a lot of people they're coming to Erie to fish they place an order and then when they get here they'll stop at the store to pick pick up product and take it out fishing the you know we support a broad range of types of employment we have everything from IT people to accounting purchasing people marketing and people people fishing experts who work in our pro shop or support our customers through like our call center and then we also have a distribution facility we're excited to be moving to ironwork square which is a redevelopment project on West 12th Street West 12th Street is the old industrial corridor of Erie and like a lot of the Erie that area has been in decline as a lot of that heavy industry moved out and here he's been looking to how do we revitalize that old industrial corridor so the ironworks squares a kind of an anchor project for this redevelopment project in the city of area part of it is built around the old Erie malleable iron facility so it's trying to retain that heritage of the old industrial building but modernize it and make it adapted to businesses that are working today in Erie so we're that facility if you drive down 12th Street you should see it it's on 12th and Cherry it's really a pilot project that the city of Erie is working on our building will be located to the west of the building that's there and it's still being developed but we're looking forward being able to attract people including tourists into that 12th Street corridor as we move back into Erie from where we are out in Fairview we're working with the redevelopment Authority the city of Erie and a number of other entities to make that project happen if I can digress a bit I so I've lived in Erie my whole life. My father grew up clean and blue pike at a fish house. If you don't know Erie has a long history in the fishing world Back in the 1800s and the early 1900s we were a commercial fishing port We were known as the freshwater fishing capital of the world. At one point, we were producing 800,000 pounds of fish out of the port of Lake Erie. So as you look where we are right here down at the dock, this was all commercial fishing, commercial fishing boats, cleaning houses. We built boats down at the water. It was all commercial side of the fishing world. As I'm sure you know, between the pollution over fishing, we really, that commercial industry just over time pretty much evaporated. Today we have, I think, essentially one boat working as a commercial fishing boat out of Erie. I think we have three licenses. Canada is a much bigger commercial fishery on Lake Erie than we have but the commercial fishing in areas is almost non-existent what we have replaced it with though is recreational fishing and that has continued to grow in the in the area so as mr. Halfley said walleye fishing is probably the most widely known species that people fish for it is really as Mark has said in other presentations that he's he's made when you talk about the good old days of walleye fishing those are today it's really never been better people come up here I don't know if it can be too good but when we have charter boats that go out and they're back of the dock in two hours because everybody on the boat got their limit and everybody's happy and they're back at the back of the dock so it anglers are they like to do if people are catching fish they're gonna come and so when the word gets out that that fishing is so good we are drawing people in from everywhere historically our Our fishery has been a local fishery and regional. And predominantly the people who would come here to fish were what we would call the I-79 corridor. Many of them are coming from Allegheny County and West Virginia. Coming up 79, as we say, to Erie. And you can see it if you're driving on I-79 Friday afternoon, you can see a parade of boats coming north to Erie. Sunday afternoon, they're all driving back down I-79, most of them are heading towards Allegheny County. But today, it has really diversified into we're drawing people now from all over the country. Probably the second biggest fishery we have is our steelhead fishery. We are now in part of what is known as Steelhead Alley. it has started out as a pretty localized fishery it is now world renowned I've met people from New Zealand who came to Erie to fish for steelhead if you look in the parking lots today at some of our most popular access areas for steelhead fishing you'll see license plates from all over the country it's just been a phenomenal fishery and it's been just great for the Erie economy If I can just give you a little bit of statistics on On the fishing industry, so the American Sport Fishing Association, I'm on the board of directors and that also, that is the industry trade group that supports the fishing industry in the United States. They do a report, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife does a report every, supposed to do it every five years on the economic impact of hunting, fishing, and oddly bird watching in the United States. the current data suggests there's 230 billion dollars of economic impact from the fishing industry in the united states it supports over 1.1 million jobs here in the united states it contributes at least two billion dollars a year to conservation efforts including funding to the fish and boat commission and other agencies like that throughout the throughout the united states And that money comes from both license fees and federal, there's a special federal excise tax on fishing products that manufacturers pay to the federal government that filters back to agencies like the Fish and Boat Commission. So it really is a user pay, user benefits from that type of, it's the one tax that the industry actually supports because it helps fund fishing if nobody's fishing there's nobody's buying tackle so the industry actually supports the excise tax on on the fishing industry so the data shows in 2026 there are 57 million anglers in the United States over the age of six many people don't realize this but more people fish than hunt or I'm sorry where people fish than golf or play tennis put together it is behind running it is the next most popular outdoor activity in the United States and it's you know sometimes it comes in under the radar because if if you don't fish you're not going to be down at the marina at 6 in the morning and see all the boats packed in there going out fishing it can be very off the grid in Pennsylvania we have over a million resident and non-resident anglers spending 4.2 billion dollars a year on fishing related activities here it supports over 32,000 jobs so for Erie County we had a study done back in 2016 on the economic impact of fishing in the Erie area so it's really it um it concluded that the fishing in the Erie area had a 40 million dollar economic impact and supported 539 jobs and and $20 million in related income. I am confident. So they're doing a new study right now, the same group out of Penn State. The Sea Grant is doing a new economic study for the Erie area. I'm confident that number is going to be significantly larger. From 2016 to today, the number of people who walleye fish, the number of people who are here, steelhead fishing is really considerably more. And I can attest to that just from fishing, from seeing the number of people who are coming into the stores You know what industries do those does the fishing industry support here in Erie we have a lot of people coming if you gonna leave on your boat at 6 a.m. out of Erie and you don't live in here in the area you're staying over here in Erie art we have campgrounds along the lakeshore most of them are anglers who are there many of them are here all summer they're either staying here all summer to fish or they're going back home working during the week they come up Friday afternoon their boats sitting here they launch they fish all weekend and they go back home so you may not see that but they're up here they're eating in our restaurants they're shopping in our in our convenience stores they're launching out of our marinas we have an extensive charter fleet that does mostly walleye fishing during the summer. If you look right down State Street, you'll see what we call Charter Row. You'll see a whole bunch of charter boats there taking people out while they're fishing. They're scattered in different parts around the marinas and where the Sons of Lake Erie Fish Fry is, that's another marina with a bunch of charter captains operating out of there and then in the fall through the winter we have steelhead guides so people come from all over to steelhead fish they they hire a guide who takes them out and you know the fishing in the areas supporting all that business. So I think we are, we're now finally, for many years, at least my opinion is the leadership in Erie didn't appreciate the significance of the recreational fishing and boating impact to our economy. we were always focused on bringing back heavy industry. I think it's not a zero-sum game. We can have industry and we can have tourism and recreation in the fishing world, and we're, I think, finally now realizing the economic impact of tourism, of the sport fishing industry to the Erie economy. The one thing I'll mention from a challenge standpoint, We have, you know, most of the waterfront is developed. What we don't have is a really large public marina, and that impairs our ability to hold, like, a big fishing tournament that draws in people from all over the country. We just, unfortunately, we don't have that facility. There is one property, the Erie Cove property. You might be familiar with it down. It's right on the waterfront. It's one of our last large pieces of property. Unfortunately, it was a heavy industry making coke for the seal industry. It's very polluted. The DEP is working on a cleanup project, and there's a lot of organizations in the region working on what the future plan is for that, including the Port Authority, the Redevelopment Authority, the City of Erie. so there is an opportunity to increase the fishing opportunities among other uses of that property so we are all looking forward to how that property gets developed because there is just so little lakefront property left in Erie that could be available to the public So with that I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and I be happy to answer any questions when we finished Tim?

goes on in philly but you know um are we ready is visit erie ready you think so okay now we're We're going to go with Mark Jenneret, President and CEO of Visit Erie.

last night and sort of brings me around to why people come to Erie. And you got a taste of that last night that visitors consistently tell us they come for experiences they can't find elsewhere. A Great Lakes shoreline, family-friendly attractions, outdoor recreation, and a welcoming community. These experiences create memories that turn first-time visitors into repeat customers. Okay. Yeah. Okay. yeah we might have to go back to

Thanks, Tim, for the bailout there. So what makes Erie attractive? Let's start with the star of the show, Presque Isle State Park, Erie's top attraction, welcoming an average of 4 million people annually. The park offers seven miles of sandy beaches, the biggest draw, and why sand replenishment is vitally important, as well as some of the nation's best fishing, birding, trails, water sports, and historic lighthouses. In 2025, the park saw visitors from all 50 states as well as 30 countries. There's no other destination quite like it on the Great Lakes. Waldemere Park and Waterworld is one of the country's oldest amusement parks, welcoming generations of visitors since 1896. The park features more than 100 rides, slides, and attractions, including the Ravine Flyer 2, the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in Pennsylvania. Waldemere consistently adds new rides, including water experiences this year and the Eagles Pursuit Coaster in 2027. Year-round fun can be found at Splash Lagoon Indoor Water Park and Resort, annually ranked among the top indoor water parks in the country by USA Today, 10 Best Reader's Choice. Events and festivals are also a major part of Erie's tourism product. Just a couple weeks ago, the Girard Sunflower Festival welcomed visitors to witness more than a million sunflowers blooming across two acres at the Hagen History Center's Battles Farm Campus in Girard. Lake Erie Wine Country is the largest grape-growing area in the Great Lakes region. Featuring 30,000 acres of vineyards and more than 20 distinct estate and commercial wineries, Lake Erie wine country spans 50 miles of shoreline from Harbor Creek PA all the way to Silver Creek, New York. And grapes aren't only about wine. Tons of Concord grapes are processed each year to supply grape juice concentrate. As Dan mentioned, fishing and boating are more than recreation here in Erie County. As many of you already know, Lake Erie is a world-class walleye, perch, steelhead, and bass fishery that attracts anglers from across the country, generating, as Dan mentioned, an estimated $40 million in economic activity from a study in 2016. In 2024, Erie hosted the first ever Major League Fishing event held in Pennsylvania, bringing 24 of the world's top professional anglers to compete on Presque Isle Bay. The event featured 36 hours of live streaming, which was a first for Major League Fishing, showcasing Erie to fishing enthusiasts across the country and solidifying Erie as a premier destination for competitive angling. And boating is among Erie's signature outdoor activities. Sailing, power boating, kayaking, and sightseeing cruises are plentiful in the summer months, providing another layer of attractiveness to out-of-town visitors. Erie tourism is not just a hospitality issue. Tourism is an economic development strategy that creates jobs, grows the tax base, attracts outside spending, and improves the quality of life of our residents. Tourism is Erie County's third largest industry. It supports 15,000 jobs each year and generates $112 million in state and local taxes. Direct visitor spending averages $1.2 billion annually. And if it weren't for tourism, Erie County residents would be paying an additional $1,000 in taxes each year. And visitors don't just pass through, they help power Erie's economy. In the first half of 2026, 14% of spending in Erie County was from visitors. That's up 1% compared to the same time frame in 2025. Tourism isn't a nicety. It's one of Erie County's everyday power sources, keeping paychecks, tax revenues, and local businesses alive and kicking. Tourism supports multiple facets of Erie County. It touches our jobs, our businesses, and our community pride. For example, Port Farms is a family-owned agritourism destination in Waterford. Over four generations, it has evolved from a traditional farm into a premier regional attraction that combines agricultural experiences, entertainment, and its on-site brewery, Poverty Knob Farmhouse Ales. Eerie Apparel has grown from a small t-shirt business into a must-stop visitor destination by celebrating numerous Erie experiences through a variety of apparel and merchandise items. And tourism has expanded the reach of Federal Hill Smokehouse beyond Erie, attracting visitors from near and far and turning an award-winning local favorite into a regional destination. Economic and community benefits fueled by tourism don't happen by chance. They are in part the result of strategic efforts to attract visitors. In May 2025, Visit Erie worked with our agency of record Red House Communications in Pittsburgh and launched a new brand with the tagline, Good Life, Great Lake. This marked the first research-based brand in Visit Erie's history, giving us a clear roadmap of how to show and talk about Erie based on visitor motivations and Erie's authentic tourism product. It also gave Visit Erie a logo that could move beyond its former summer-centric identity. The foundation of our marketing efforts is the Four Season Campaign, aimed at maintaining seasonal awareness in key markets such as Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, throughout the course of the year. Since the rebrand, we have been able to expand our reach and increase our overall visibility, thanks in part to a strong partnership and funding from the Pennsylvania Tourism Office and the expertise of Red House, who helped sharpen our message and connect more clearly with travelers. In 2025, funding from the State Tourism Office allowed us to try new marketing tactics that expanded our reach and visibility. Those efforts included guerrilla campaigns and mobile digital activation deployments in Pittsburgh and Buffalo, digital placements during Pittsburgh Penguins hockey games on Sportsnet Pittsburgh, pause ads on Peacock, and placements with Atlas Obscura, an award-winning media and travel company, with an atlas featuring more than 20,000 wondrous places around the world. All the work of our new brand and co-op funding from the State Tourism Office in 2025 is delivering one of Erie's best summers in terms of visitation with hotel occupancy in June coming in at nearly 70%, which was the highest since the pandemic. Despite the lack of state funding beginning in 2026 we continued to move forward with our four messaging Our summer campaign wrapped up recently and it performed extremely well And on the screen are some examples of our summer creative all of which showed strong engagement proving that the new brand continues to resonate with our target audiences. Our fall campaign launched on Monday with a $200,000 media buy across a variety of tactics It's in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Youngstown, Ohio, and Rochester, New York. Fall represents our greatest opportunity for visitor growth, which is why we invested 33% more in marketing this year than we did in 2025. We look at tourism as an investment, not an expense. Combined with funds generated through Erie County's hotel tax, state tourism dollars allow Visit Erie to market our destination to potential visitors who may not otherwise consider Erie. That marketing creates awareness. Awareness leads to trips and overnight stays, and those visitors spend money at our hotels, restaurants, attractions, and local businesses. The result is more jobs, more economic activity, and more tax revenue for our community and the Commonwealth. Simply put, if visitors don't know about Erie, they can't choose Erie. It all starts with us having a story to tell and things to talk about. We already have plenty of options in place to attract visitors but we can't get complacent. We appreciate the continued investment by the state in tourism-driving projects, either already under construction or shovel-ready, including the $100-plus million Central Bayfront Parkway project. Additional development is also underway, made possible by funding from the Redevelopment Assisting Capital Program and City Revitalization Improvement Zone Program. Bayfront projects totaling $25 million include the Erie Market House, AC Marriott Hotel and Bayfront parking ramp expansion, while city projects include the Trust Hotel and flagship City Commons that were supported by $14.5 million in state funding. And as the former Executive Director of the Erie Sports Commission, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the state's investment in Erie through the Sports Marketing and Tourism Program. Sports Commission, which is a division of Visit Erie, successfully secured SMAT grants twice, including once to help us host Major League Fishing, and they also recently applied for a third round. These funds help Erie attract and host sporting events and generate hotel room nights, visitor spending, and national exposure. Together, these investments represent significant steps forward for our region's economic development and tourism future, and we're grateful for your continued support. Through research-driven, rebrand, and highly targeted campaigns, Visit Erie is demonstrating measurable results. Additional future marketing investments from the state would allow Erie to reach new emerging markets, grow overnight stay traffic, support Pennsylvania businesses and workers, and attract high-value meetings and conventions. The last point will be on full display in 2027, as Erie welcomes the County Commissioner's Association of Pennsylvania Annual Conference and the Leadership Summit of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers. And although not meeting-related, as we look ahead to 2028, we're excited to see Victory Cruise Lines make a stop in Erie for the very first time during one of their Great Lakes cruises. Continued state investment in tourism will allow us to expand on our successes, attract more visitors, and generate even more greater returns for our community and the Commonwealth. Thank you.

Good morning. Thanks, everyone, for being here. I know you've met some of our staff and some of our volunteers, and I'm sure they have welcomed you, but I would like to formally welcome you to the Pennsylvania Historical Museum's Commission's Erie Maritime Museum, where we have the Brig Niagara. I'd also like to thank Tim Schaefer for choosing to host this meeting here and to give us an opportunity to partner in talking about all that history brings to Erie and the economic impact that we have here. So today I'm going to give a brief overview of the agency and talk a little bit about the economic impact of history across the state. And then I'm going to turn it over to our Bureau Director for Historic Sites and Museums, Melissa Mann, to talk more about the Erie Maritime Museum and the Brick Niagara. So I just wanted to, I know everyone loves and knows Pennsylvania history. Pennsylvania is such a remarkable place for history. We have such great national stories here with the 250. I mean, we just saw a huge celebration on July 4th. I think, you know, we have obviously the Rev War story, but we've had such a great impact in so many ways, whether you're talking about the Industrial Revolution or being the gateway for so many Americans. So many Americans tie their history back to Pennsylvania. It's a huge opportunity in terms of bringing people from outside Pennsylvania into the state. We also see history as important, obviously, to communities. As you all know, Pennsylvania is so highly regional, and people are so devoted to their state and their regions. we really do serve them by preserving and sharing the state's cultural and natural history. And we obviously are deeply involved in lifelong learning. We see a number of students, as you all know, fourth grade is the year that is Pennsylvania history. But Pennsylvania history is important in so many ways beyond, you know, what people think of in terms of casual engagement with history through museums. The richness of our communities, whether it is preserving the heritage that's there through cultural institutions and the support of them, or the historic fabric and the walkable downtowns, each with their own character, really drive tourism and help retain Pennsylvanians in their locations. So I'm just going to quick talk about the roundness of the programs that you all support, And I want to thank you all for your support of Pennsylvania history through the PHMC. As many of you know, we have the state archives. We built a new building in 2023 downtown in Harrisburg. So we have a variety of records there. We have, obviously, records that protect the operations of the Commonwealth in terms of holding records that ensure that we can prove ownership to the lands that we have, as you you mentioned and also records of agencies You know when the pandemic hit Department of Health came to us and said what do we know about the Spanish flu and the way the state responded to that So we are certainly a treasure trove for protecting government's rights and the rights of the state. We also approve military service for veterans so that they can gain benefits and their families can gain benefits. But looking in terms of how the archives serves tourism, we see 4 to 6 million people online every year. And most of that is because we hold so many records related to their ancestors. People are so interested in their history and so much of it ties back to Pennsylvania. And just in terms of the kinds of records we hold, on the left here you see a copy of the charter from Charles II granting William Penn the land. To, I put this up knowing that the anniversary of 9-11, the 25th anniversary, is going to be here shortly. These are Police Commissioner Ivanko's notes from responding to Flight 93, which we hold. And they are incredibly powerful. And just a testament to the fact that history doesn't have to be far removed from us for us to know that it's significant. And so these are the kinds of records that we hold in trust for Pennsylvanians. The State Museum, also downtown, is where we interpret Pennsylvania's natural and cultural history and tell the story of all Pennsylvanians. We see about 100,000 visitors a year there and 40,000 school kids. And one of our signature projects that we have coming up is the renovation of the State Museum. We just closed the State Museum. The State Museum was constructed 1962 to 1964 and has not seen a significant upgrade since then. We really need to deliver on 21st century visitor expectations so that we can share Pennsylvania history more effectively. collectively. This is going to be focused on repurposing the old Archives Tower for the better stewardship of Pennsylvania's collections, museum collections. We are also going to introduce a couple of sort of signature spaces within Harrisburg. We're going to be transforming half of the fifth floor of the museum into an event space for Harrisburg with a roof terrace it looks the Susquehanna that we'll be able to host a seated dinner for 200, conferences, lectures, things like that. We're also creating within the Archives Tower, which is on the left bottom photo there, you can see we're going to be creating an observation level at the 16th floor of the Archives Tower so that we can bring students in and talk about the importance of Pennsylvania topography and landscape in terms of the development of Pennsylvania, the importance of the waterways, looking out to the Susquehanna, the barrier that the mountains presented, urban development, look back to the Capitol and talk about the frame of government, the initial frame of government, and how we influenced the national government, and where Pennsylvania stands today. We also have within our agency the State Historic Preservation Office. That's a federally mandated office, so we carry out a lot of Park Service activities. And they are really devoted to understanding what Pennsylvanians find to be important within their communities and marking those places through the National Register of Historic Places. And then making sure they're taken into account when publicly funded projects are planned. We also have within SHPO, they manage state and federal tax credit programs, what we sort of call history on a stick, right? The blue and gold historical markers you see around the state everywhere. 2,500 plus of them jumping off points so that people can understand a little more about Pennsylvania history. And of course we give out grants, Keystone Grants, and have our certified local government program. And then we have our Bureau of Historic Sites and Museums, which Melissa will talk more about. We have 28 historic sites across the agency, across PHMC's holdings, with 2,600 acres and 365 buildings. You can see that we have 160,000 visitors a year across the 13 sites where we have PHMC staff, and a total of 450,000 a year across all of our sites. So all of this wrapped together really helps drive tourism. We have, as I mentioned, 28 historic sites that the Commonwealth manages across the state, but we also provide support through our programs in terms of cultural and historical support grants. Those are operating support grants that go to typically 175 to 180 museums and county historical societies across the state every year. We also provide Keystone grants, which are for nonprofits and municipal governments, opportunities for investment in historic resources in terms of construction and planning, and then state tax credits. So these are just a few projects that sort of illustrate some of the impacts across Pennsylvania. For those of you who eat out in Harrisburg, Millworks, the top left, that was both a state and federal tax credit project and would not have gone without that investment. And then you can see we've got museums ranging from the Carnegie with the dinosaurs to experience down on the bottom right that benefit from cultural and historical support grants. And then the Lansdowne Theater is an example of one of our Keystone grants. In terms of economic impact, we've recently undertaken a study in conjunction with PA Humanities and taken a look across all our programs and a number of the entities that have been funded through the legislative support to understand what the return on investment is. And so you can see here, from $26.5 million invested in the Commonwealth, there's been a return of $54.6 million, resulting in 441 jobs, $8.1 million in tax revenue, and 21.8 million in household income. So in short, that's a return of more than $2 for every dollar invested in Pennsylvania Heritage. And some of the interesting findings were the impact that this has particularly in rural areas and with small organizations. So this is really having an incredible effect outside just the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh region in terms of the support that's given across Pennsylvania. And then just some, if you translate that out, those 254 institutions that we examined, you know they got a total of million of their organizational spending translating to 897 plus million and sorry I seem to have flipped to a different slide there we go sorry let me just scroll down to where I was okay my apologies so these are just some of the takeaways again you know a really strong support for our rural and small and local institutions and again that return of investment of of more than two times the $26.5 million invested. And just the incredibly strong network that the investment has across Pennsylvania. And so that kind of wraps up a quick overview. I'm going to turn it over to Melissa to talk more specifically about Erie Maritime Museum and the Brick Niagara. Thank you.

And we were able to determine that we didn't have any issues with any of the repairs that we needed to make. We conducted sea trials. mostly for the propulsion systems we had the shipyard experts our crew the technicians from the engine company all out all on board they went out did sailing ran everything and when they came back to the dock you know essentially this was you know sea trials are to create a punch list when they came back to the dock their overall determination was do not touch a thing everything's perfect and so we were then able to kind of wrap up wrap up project very quickly crew arrived on site prep to leave and the Niagara departed Maine on June 6th And then we were very happy, and Niagara was extremely, I don't know if everybody knows, I know the Erie delegation knows this, the people of Erie love the Niagara. Rightly so, they do. They're passionate about the Niagara. It is part of their identity. And they came out to welcome her home. And so we had a really great homecoming July 4th weekend from the 2nd through the 5th. She did a circuit of the bay on July 2nd when she came in as the lead in the welcome home boat parade. Shot off her guns as a salute to the city and to the state. And then over the course of the rest of the weekend, we had free admission to the museum and to the ship. We saw 6,000 people over the course of the holiday weekend. Again, people love this ship, very passionate about her. Ramping up to sailing, that's what Niagara does best. She sails. The return to Erie marks a significant transition from the end of the capital project into kind of the next phase of the Niagara program. We're extremely excited right now to be working through the final tasks to commission her and to get her sailing with trainees in 2027. We are working on hiring. We will be launching the search for our ship's permanent leadership. so this month the chief mate and the captain position will post we're also right now hiring seasonal winter maintenance positions to help us get everything prepared for the spring in the spring we will fully rig we will undergo both Coast Guard inclining test for stability and our certificate of inspection once those inspections are complete Niagara and Niagara is recertified as a sailing school vessel our sailing programs will begin immediately we're really working on creating a balanced and predictable sailing schedule here in Erie because there are some visitors and tourists who come and don't necessarily have the time to spend a whole afternoon sailing on niagara but they want to see her and they want to tour um and so but then we have folks who want to come and they want to be sailing for a week on a sail training program and so we're trying to find that delicate balance um in serving all of those audiences uh and figuring out the very best way to do that um and so we should we're working right now on what the 27 calendar will be but it's looking like we'll definitely have at least three weeks of sailing school voyages and then the rest of the time will be dedicated to day sails and dockside tours here in Erie and I'll just wrap up with you know so the capital project we've been you know this has been kind of you know for me a in my staff a three four year labor of love to get Niagara through the capital project to envision kind of the next steps of her program we invested you know the time the Commonwealth has invested six point nine million dollars in refitting her to sale and annually you can see here our budget is it is just over 1.3 million to operate Niagara and that the Commonwealth is committed to that investment annually for this site and not just because Niagara is an excellent experience for Pennsylvania's maritime history and traditional sailing but because we're investing this because Niagara drives tourism to Pennsylvania and specifically to Erie thank you very much

thank you everybody for your testimony fascinating information uh as a member of the chesapeake bay commission i am i was intrigued by this trip to get to learn more about erie and from what i understand to quote people from the Chesapeake Bay we need to fish the hell out of the blue catfish and there are restaurants everywhere for it does that mean mark that we're gonna find through your telemetry that we're gonna find the sea lamprey on lots of menus around here is that how that equates no hopefully not so we don't eat the sea lamprey okay and my second question is what is it that is as a member of the CBC we're always trying to identify the biggest threats to the clean waters of the Chesapeake what is the biggest threat around here that you're always having your eye on what what keeps you up at night about Lake Erie currently it's plastic garbage garbage coming in from the cities garbage floating around everything's made of plastic nowadays we're removing things like straws and bags but our society just can't function without plastic so finding a way to remediate that and keep it out of the waterways is going to be huge. Microplastics and everything and all of our fish and the gut content is going to be an issue. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And this is my first time visiting Erie, so I'm excited to be here. I love the beach. I love the opportunities for all the activities that you all mentioned. So I'll try to be brief, so please bear with me. Okay, so for the destination marketing organization Visit Erie, I'm curious if all the tax dollars support your entity or is it business members driven? We are predominantly supported by the hotel tax. We do have a partnership model. We have about 400 partners, mostly hospitality based. And I should make note that the hotel tax is split between Visit Erie and Erie Events, which is our convention center authority. And also, I hear cruises are coming. Are there any other transportation means that are going to be worked on, like the airport, being able to travel from within the state to not have to take a six-hour drive? I feel you. Yeah, our airport currently services Charlotte and Chicago direct with daily flights. We have twice-weekly flights going to Florida to Orlando. We did have three Chicago flights that were scheduled until the FAA put a halt on new flights going in and out of Chicago. So they've been delayed until 2027, but it's an ongoing process here. The chamber has championed a fly Erie fund, which has been very successful in helping us restore our airline travel that was decimated through COVID. And lastly, so you know what, I'm part of the tourism committee so we get to travel often and I, everywhere we go I realize that a lot of marketing dollars are spent to attract people outside of Pennsylvania. What are you doing to attract Pennsylvanians and is there an incentive or a discount for people who are visiting from within the state? A lot of our marketing goes Center State, Harrisburg State College. We really rely on data to try to determine where the people are coming from and where the interest is. To be frank with you, that interest in Center State has waned over the past year or so, and we are really looking a lot towards, as I mentioned, Rochester, New York, Columbus, Ohio. The data has shown that people in Columbus are reacting to our marketing and showing interest. And I think simply because they don't have a lake and they could run up to Cleveland, but we're different than Cleveland. So we do work on that. As far as having any kind of discount program for state residents, that would be up to basically the hospitality operators to determine to do that. at this point as far as I'm aware we don't have a massive group of those partners that are saying yeah let put a program together but I make note of that Thank you so much Thank you Anyone else down here

Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate all the information. It was very informative. My first trip to Erie won't be my last. But it's very encouraging to see the success and the hard work and cooperation. In the state, tourism is the second largest draw right behind agriculture, and I heard that you're number three, but you're well on your way to becoming number two. So great job. Thank you.

Thank you so much again for the opportunity to present and hear all of the great things that's going on in Aerie. I am a first-timer here at Aerie, and it's welcoming. I appreciate everything about it thus far and as a champion of tourism I would like to echo my colleagues voice and trying to figure out a better way to make sure that the people in Pennsylvania understand the benefit that is happening right up here it is a six-hour drive but it was a beautiful drive but I mean let's just try to figure out a way to make sure the Pennsylvanians know all that the Commonwealth has to offer and I am speaking as a resident of Philadelphia And of course, I think we're absolutely amazing, but we're not the only amazing space in the Commonwealth. So thank you. And thank you again for all your hospitality.

I just want to thank all of the members, all of the testifiers for being here, for your contributions. And it's so interesting, you know, when you're, as legislators, you're in the thick of things day in and day out. And to take a step back and hear all of the good things that are going on in our community, both recreationally, on the angling side, and the economic development side of things, it's really, we have something very special here, and sometimes we don't appreciate it until you hear it, and you hear it with a fresh set of ears and see it with a fresh set of eyes. And so I just want to thank you. As one of only three ports in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie, and the only Great Lakes port, Erie is something special. And I just want to thank you, Julie, in particular, for your work. You have a yeoman's task. You're balancing manufacturing. We have the largest crane on the Great Lakes, so a lot of industrial activity and recreational activity, and this huge cleanup of the Erie Coke site, which is going to be a massive task, but a massive opportunity well with all of those dozens and dozens of acres. Fish and boat, the work that you do up here in cooperation, and that's what I really like to hear, cooperation with the Sons of Lake Erie. It's not an antagonistic relationship. It's a cooperative relationship. And the work that you've been able to do together, along with the rest of the organizations like Fish USA, has been really remarkable. And Dan's right. We've transformed from when I was a kid and, you know, the lake was dying. It was essentially dying. And to see its comeback and what we've been able to do with fishing, both recreationally and commercially and as sport. It's really been phenomenal. And PHMC, I'll end with you. Boy, we took some bullets. Or cannons, depending on, you know, figuratively. When we repaired the ship, because people love this ship so much in Erie, and the work that you've done, and I'm so excited to showcase that shortly here. Thank you for everything you've done, and the best is yet to come.