Mt. Gretna between rock and hard place

Mt. Gretna Borough needs to face the facts:
1. EIT IS working for Mt. Gretna. Census data shows that the average Mt. Gretnan earns WAY more than the county citizen and the state resident.($63K v.$42K a year). So, the EIT, as compared with our property taxes and our homeowner association fees, is a really efficient tax for us. Allwein is intentionally painting the wrong picture.

2.In their gripe about the budget shortfall last night, Allwein conveniently urged that roadway related line items were "untouchable" in terms of where they will next seek to cut the 2009 budget. This is also an intentional "misdeed" on his part. First, he states that at least one road is currently in need of attention--and that road happens to be the one on which both he and his son's homes are located. Second, and more revealingly, we are the smallest municipality/borough in the state, at a little over 3 miles of paved road, 87 acres, and 206 registered voters. Yet we have a municipal works crew/office staff of at least 5, all with all the insurances and pensions that you can think of, and we have a fleet of heavy equipment and earthmoving stuff. To add insult to misery, the council got us hooked into a 5 year police services contract that has an automatic annual increase of 6%. For those of you unfamiliar with these types of contracts, a 6% increase is pretty steep--especially when you are spending taxpayers monies. Look, Allwein, you got Mt. Gretna Borough into these excessive commitments. Make some sacrifices and get us out.

3. Both the Borough Council and the homeowners association here seem to be shoving this EIT thing down our throats--and they still aren't supporting their decisions with anything like verifiable data. Instead, they are doing a lot of behind the scenes discussing and decision-making. First, even the solicitor can not provide evidence proving the past distribution of EIT revenue was incorrect. And, even if he could, the evidence would be highly suspect, as he represents municipalities in this issue that are trying to take our money, in addition to representing us. That's a conflict--regardless of whether the issue gets pushed to litigation. Second, the law limits the collection of EIT from us to 1% and requires that they can only collect from residents. Any repayment is essentially collection on a debt--on deliquent taxes. But, Leb. County collected its one percent already for those years, AND some of the people that would be paying on this debt were NOT residents during the years in question. Further, because they already collected their 1%, "repayments" would push the total collected to above and beyond the legally allowed 1%.
Kilgore, our solicitor, sat at the meeting last night and said that it would cost a lot if this was litigated. He said that, "This would end up being a million dollar case, in terms of legal fees and forensic accounting. So, its just better if we settle this thing now." Well, in the moives, they'd call that plot--you know, the one where the guy threatens to bury you in legal fees litigating a case he doesn't have enough evidence to prove, "extortion."

In summary, Mt. Gretna Borough is short because its being run as a business that supports a few of its residents, instead of being run as a municipality that is completely made up of a homeowner's association--The PA Chautauqua. Its gotten itself all ramped up like its a real municipality, with a business district, industrial park, municipal services, and the commitments and expenses to match. Only, we don't have the infrastructure and demographics to support that municipal model.

For example, we may have received 16K from Art Show ticket sales, but we had to pay labor and materials to resod the trampled grass, we had to pay for extra police and parking staff, we had to pay for labor and materials to set up and break down our entire community's set up for this event.
So, for us residents, its a wash, at best, for us and our pocketbooks and our quality of life here.

Instead of telling us that they are going to have to triple our property tax rate, why aren't they discussing charging for parking, or enforcing speeding laws, or raising rates on our own service contracts with other municipalities, or getting out of contracts with automatic 6% annual increases, or reducing our pension obligations, staffing commitments, or fleet size...Remember, we are only a municipality of 3/87/206-3 miles, 87 acres, 206 voters.

SEVENTY FOUR DOLLARS AN HOUR TO REMOVE SNOW!

Where do I sign up, I'll bring my own Hoe.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho its off to get my shovel I go, Hi ho.

=)

"... leaf collection will begin Nov. 2 and continue through mid-November, with brush collection to begin Nov. 16. The second leaf collection will begin Nov. 30, and the final brush collection will begin Dec. 14."

Last time I looked, Mt. Gretna was in the middle of the mountains. Why do you need to remove leaves? Seems like a waste of time and money. You want help to balance the budget: stop collecting leaves.

Huh wrote:

"... leaf collection will begin Nov. 2 and continue through mid-November, with brush collection to begin Nov. 16. The second leaf collection will begin Nov. 30, and the final brush collection will begin Dec. 14."
Last time I looked, Mt. Gretna was in the middle of the mountains. Why do you need to remove leaves? Seems like a waste of time and money. You want help to balance the budget: stop collecting leaves.

Great observation you get a B+....when will they start the Gypsy Moth Collection there is a job worth your tax dollars

get rid of Chucky and things will get better

Mt.Gretna should levy a 1% sales tax and spares its residents anymore pain. That seems fairer than squeezing property owners and residents more. If they want to act like a municipality, then tax like a municipality and include making the businesses carry their fair share.

Here's a thought.......deal with it....everyone else is.....

Ummmm wrote:

Here's a thought.......deal with it....everyone else is.....

That is just the point. Not everyone here in Mt Gretna is just going to "deal with it". There are some of us that have a bit more intelligence and nerve and not just roll over and accept what is being served up as gospel.
Take the time to learn all of the facts and you may change your attitude of compliance.

To Ummmm,
"Deal with it" like everyone else is is exactly what we are trying to get Chucky to do. Seems that in his little fiefdom, he is the only one spared from dealing with it. His little junk food shop lives high on the hog off the residents' taxes and fees: they pay for his business's parking lot, parking/policing staff, and all the rest of the infrastructure that turns his crappy food shop into a "dining experience in a wooded retreat."

Yet he manages to rule the roost, as president of the boro council, so as to avoid be assigned any responsibility for his business. He negotiated himself a lease for his shop's land that his hugely one-sided--in his favor, with things like comically low rent, a never-ending renewal clause, and a restriction on rent increases that keeps any increase phenomonally low. And, guess what attorney/law firm negotiated that contract, as well as several of Chuck's other Jiggershop contracts with the Boro:again, our city solicitor, Keith Kilgore's.

The Mt. Gretna BOrough is only a homeowners' association, from corner to corner. The common grounds are for the residents and to support the mission of the homeowners' association---a mission which is NOT to provide retail or food service opportunities. Thus, the owner of the Jiggershop should absolutely be paying a boatload of parking fees, service fees, rent, AND a sales tax.

And, all his customers should be asking him what's in his foods--actual food or "food like" ingredients. Because, if you have ever eaten there, its hard to find anything not made of corn syrup or of "food products", which, like Velveeta, the grocer will tell you is not a cheese, but a cheese product, and, therefore, does not even have to be refrigerated. Imagine, a whole menu full of things like cheese which doesn't have one lick of dairy product in it. Its highly possible and likely that a diet of food like the food sold at the Jiggershop will actually harm you rather than maintain your health. And, this is something that even Chucky understands, because he's a biology teacher, and even a cursory understanding of biology will inform you that our biological systems don't classify and process corn syrup and food products as nutrition. So it is no wonder he used his position as Boro Council President to ask us to support legislation that restricted our right to sue fast food restaurants on class-action obesity lawsuits.

Seems he really does know how bad his food his.

Chuck Allwein, the current Borough Council President of Mt. Gretna, is up for re-election on Nov 3rd. So, to register as a candidate, he has to file an ethics disclosure. In that disclosure, he has to report all real estate interests--direct and indirect, in the municipality.
First, a lease is a real estate interest--it's called a "possessory interest". Second, he has several real estate based agreements with the Borough regarding his Jiggershop.
Yet, Chuck Allwein never disclosed these real estate agreements/interests on his current campaign ethics report.
Why not disclose these?--especially if his argument is that they are not important. Isn't that for the public and goverment ethics institutions to decide? Did he decide not to report them on his own, or did Kilgore help him with this too?
You know, the FBI invented profiling by looking at what criminals did to cover the trails of their crimes--seems like what you do to make it look like you didn't do anything actually provides more evidence proving that you actually did do something...Is there a little of this going on here?