TimesLeader.com

Bear Creek Twp. OKs 12-mill tax

It is the first time the municipality has had a property tax since 2004.

By Rory Sweeney rsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

BEAR CREEK TWP. – Perhaps it could have been because the municipal building was so packed for Monday evening’s Board of Supervisors meeting that extra rows of chairs had to be set up.

Or that the supervisors opened the meeting by outlining public comment rules and covered everything else before broaching the looming tax-increase issue, the topic of choice for all but one person who had signed up to speak.

But what foretold the vote on reinstituting municipal taxes was that, out of about 60 residents, six people made public comments criticizing the tax hike. Immediately after public comment ended, the board quickly voted 4-0 to approve the approximately $767,000 2009 budget and its 12-mill tax. It is the first time Bear Creek Township has had a municipal property tax since 2004. Supervisor Gary Slusser, who other board members noted was the only supervisor who lived on a municipal road and therefore would personally benefit from the tax increase, was absent from the meeting.

A mill is a $1 tax on every $1,000 of property value. While board Chairman Gary Zingaretti attempted to assure that the tax would be about $50 per household, residents said that wasn’t weighted to reflect homeowners’ share of the burden versus landowners’.

Willard Kresge questioned why the board hadn’t attempted to slash fat from the township’s road and infrastructure budget by considering contracting out or regionalizing the work. “When you have an item in your whole budget that’s 51 percent of your budget, that is the item that should be attacked,” he said. “When everybody keeps trying to go it on their own, everybody pays the upfront cost.”

Elsewhere in the meeting, Zingaretti noted that the township’s diligence had kept the county’s budget basically balanced for the year and forced Sprint Nextel to cough up about $8,500 for a year’s worth of rent that hadn’t been paid for a cell tower. Solicitor Bill Vinsko said a settlement in a lawsuit against the township was being negotiated that would be a “very, very minimal outlay from the township, if at all.”

But, if public reaction is any measure, what aroused residents most was that the board wanted to raise taxes while it was spending money to fight a funds-generating wind-park project. Ed Schoener, who represented hopeful park developers Energy Unlimited, argued that the park would provide directly to the township more than $100,000 annually, the vast majority of the predicted budget shortfall. “The township and Energy Unlimited are not very far away on many … issues,” said Schoener, who received a round of applause when he finished. “You don’t have to do everything through the lawyers.”

Zingaretti defended the decision by saying the increase was to guard the township’s surplus and pay for infrastructure upgrades.

In other business, the board approved consolidation of an 11-parcel subdivision into two parcels, one 20 acres and the other 6 acres and voted to grant an extension on Aqua Pennsylvania’s project design to expand water service to the Forest Park area.