Welcome to the SBAA!

Thank you for joining the Scenic Byway Administrators Association. My name is Bill Even. I am the Vice President of the Western New York Southtowns Scenic Byway (WNYSSB.org). We cover the area of Orchard Park (home of the Buffalo Bills) east to East Aurora, south down to Springville, and further south down to Ellicottville, along with a number of towns and villages in between. The WNYSSB has been operating on our own since our inception nearly ten years ago. We have an enthusiastic volunteer board of eight, lead by our founder and president, Bob Lennartz. We meet 5 or 6 times a year (weather permitting), but we have day jobs, families, and limited resources in terms of time and more importantly, funding for projects. We have strong support from the municipalities along the Byway (we have two village mayors and a town supervisor on our board) and the support of the county legislators from our districts. We also have excellent relationships with our state representatives. Our people are second to none.

In 2013, Bob was able to get grants for some outstanding, high-end interpretive signs that are dotted across our beautiful Byway. This was a $60,000+ investment that required a 20% match. The matching funds were raised from the various municipalities and a few other grants. This has been our biggest tangible contribution to the Byway communities. Unfortunately, the lack of availability of Federal grant money is a real blow to future projects.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Christine Colley of the NYS DOT for sending her email to the various Byways across New York. That got me thinking (somewhat selfishly) that there are other Byways out there that are facing the same obstacles that we face and how I’d like to pick their brains. I guess I’m surprised that no one has attempted to create a “user group” of sorts for the NYS Byways. I know the NSBF exists to bring Byways together. I see our group differently. I envision this as more of an idea sharing organization and a conduit for anyone in the group to post a question, write a blog post, or call a colleague. The purpose of the groups is different but complementary.

There is no charge to join this group, but I would certainly accept small donations to cover the cost of some of the software that I purchased for the site. The cost to “do this site right” was about $100, which will recur annually. I am happy to handle the hosting of the site. When the group gets more established and crosses state boundaries, we can discuss (as a group) the idea of charging annual dues for membership. That’s probably a few years off.

Access to this group is not limited to one representative per Byway. On the contrary, please ask your board members and staff to register on the home page. I may contact you to confirm their relationship to your organization before giving them access. I am not trying to be snobby or power-hungry. I just want to make sure users of this group and site are here for the right reasons.

So, my goal with this group is to share ideas. I’ve done a few things that I hope will foster communication among the Byways.

1. I created The Scenic Byway Administrators Association as a way to connect our counterparts across the state (and perhaps at some point, beyond).
2. I developed this web site for the group (my day job is web design). I purchased the domain BywayAdmin.com and set up this site using WordPress. I have invested in some software tools — MemberPress (to restrict access to pages) and Connections-Pro (to create the directories) — that will hopefully make this site useful and secure. Only members can access the blog, the directory of people (but not of the Byways–that’s open to the public), the Q&A forum, and more content as it is added.
3. Within the site is a “Quora” type question and answer forum where members can post questions and get feedback. PLEASE contribute questions AND answers. Lord knows I have a lot more of the former than the latter. Your input will help make this group work.
4. This site also has a blog function that is open to all members to make contributions. The menu at the top of the site should give you access to everything you need.
5. Lastly, I established a mailing list of members. If you give me permission to add you to the list, you can use it to send occasional messages to the group. I will post instructions so you can see who is a member of the group at any given time. The address to send group messages is members@BywayAdmin.com. Again, you need to be manually added to the list (by me) in order to be able to send messages through this address. Please refrain from excessive emails to the group. My intention is not to spam our group with commercials or trivialities. If at any point you want off the list, just email me.

I hope to add more pages to this site soon. If you are a WordPress aficionado, I’m happy to give you author access to add content. I plan to add pages where we can post our ideas as well as information about successful projects. If you have ANY suggestions for content or functionality, please send them along to me — Bill@BywayAdmin.com or call me at 716.245.1634.

Lastly, I would like to hold periodic conference calls to discuss issues facing us. I envision them 2 – 4 times a year, lasting an hour or so. Your thoughts on this and anything else Byway-related would be very much appreciated.

I look forward to working with each of you to help us all succeed!

Regards,

Bill Even