Cherry Creek is a very self help community.  I greatly enjoy working with its leaders.  I am impressed by community events such as the Fourth of July celebration and the Firemen’s Recognition Banquet. 

 The Depot, The Trillium Lodge, Cockaigne, as well as the bed & breakfast locations and various trails and waterways make this area ripe for tourism.  The natural beauty of the landscape along with the Amish community compliment the hospitality.   

The work of the Conewango Watershed Commission is amazing as well.  Their first responsibility is the maintenance of 20 dams in Chautauqua & Cattaraugus Counties but then they took on the added burden of cleaning the Dredge that had been ignored for 100 years. The enormity if that task didn’t seem to faze them as they worked their way through the endless paperwork of DEC and other agencies. The Dredge (otherwise known as the State Drainage Ditch) is completely cleaned and they have a plan in hand for continued maintenance going forward.  What I like most about this project is the grass roots effort.  Rather than some state agency trying to tell a local municipality that a major project needed to be done the local people came together with a plan and applied and received some state member item grants to do this work.  They used the money frugally and wisely so they got more and completed a project that would have been massive if the state government would have tried to do it.  These commissioners have every right to be proud of their accomplishment and I am proud to have been involved. (Click here for a summary of the report on the Dredge prepared in 2002) 

The Cherry Creek Fire Department is another example of people putting community service at a high level.  Without volunteer firemen in our rural communities we would not have the level of safety and peace of mind that makes us feel secure.

I feel Cherry Creek is well on its way to a bright future of tourism by making some of its natural resources available to the public through access to the dredge and a really good hospitality attitude.  I hope to be able to work to further develop this resource.