When I attended the Independence Township meeting on November 17, 2009, I was five minutes late, but missed only the opening formalities. I admit, I have been a lazy citizen when it comes to the township meetings. The last meeting I attended was about two years ago on the possibility of a police force. With that said, I have been keeping an eye on the building of a new Township Building and the police force, at least I thought I was. I was under the impression the building was to be paid for by grants. We were either lied to or, they felt it was not important to tell the citizenry plans had changed.
The meeting held on November 11, 2009, dedicated more time to the subject of reforming a police force in the township. According to the PA Focus, Mr. Wright said, it would be expensive. However, from what I have been told, it will be more expensive to continue on with the agreement with the Pennsylvania State Police and the Washington County Sheriff’s department. I have just found out that Independence Township still has a police department, at least on paper. It was never disbanded. I will explain that in another entry.
Now we are being told that the new Independence Township Building is a done deal, and that it has been public knowledge for two years now. This is not entirely true. As I said above, we were told the building would be paid for buy grants that the Supervisors had gotten. The fact is, the Half Million dollar (plus) building will be paid for with loans. How will those loans be paid? You guessed it, your taxes. (An important thing to remember is, if the Supervisors use any of the Stimulus money to pay for the build they will be breaking Federal laws.) You can find a copy of the Drawing for the new building at, PA Focus
Now to be fair, the Supervisors have said that the tax will not be raised for this project. However, we have heard this line of B.S. many times on all levels of government. You have to ask yourself, “If taxes won’t be raised how will they handle going from $600.00 a month to over $3000.00 a month. Will they cut the road repair budget, when we are being told that, (the money isn’t there now) to fix the roads right. To maintain the building after it is built without increasing taxes will be impossible, especially with the tax base dwindling every year. Also, when one of the main incomes to the town is rental properties.
I will placing a petition local businesses, and going door to door. Trying to gather enough signatures to show a judge and hope to get an injunction to stop any further movement on the building. So please sign a petition when you see them in a business, or someone comes to your door. It is time, we the tax paying residents of Independence Township, and The Avella Area school district, show the people we put in the office that we don’t see the need to spend the money on an unnecessary building when there is so much that our township desperately needs.
ABA
