Communities get out of this what they put in. I'm hoping if we can get the right people at the table who are willing to participate and be active, there are going to be results. If people sit back, not much is going to come of it.

If you compare the two sets of communities, you have some problems of luxury in Bucks, with the property values and the heavy development pressure.

Small towns have a hard time competing and very often they are in competition for a lot of programs and development. By finding the right combination of small communities that can work together, a larger, more clearer voice can be created.

This will be more of a regional approach rather than the individual approach we had up north.

We're looking for ways to continue their uniqueness -- to conserve the landscape, to preserve the buildings, interpret the history -- and let that become the cornerstone to the future. If you respect where you came from, you use that as a tool.

There were no animal shelters there and people sometimes treated animals very poorly. It was a bad situation. We had at one time 13 cats in our one-bedroom apartment.