"MGB, where incestuousness is the political standard?

At the risk of annoying those few persons in my community that I find have enough of that thing called integrity to show me that they deserve my respect, this post is going to be very frank. Mind you: you must read this post thoroughly, and repeat it accurately, for none of these people have said that they want to run for Borough Council in this Nov 3 election. I just think they--or people like them should be the ones at the helm right now, for we certainly seem to be in that political conundrum where the people who really have a sense of "representational" government and integrity in government also recognize the enormity of the burden and the commitment it takes to meet the task. So, they decline to run for things like boro council--and we are left with second best--if we are lucky.

So, I wrote to Santa yesterday and I asked him to make Nov 4, 2009 the day when I wake up to find that persons like Karl Gettle, Roberta Warshaw, and Bill Barlow have been elected to boro council. So, to my knowledge, based on all my review of public material, discussions with officials, and review of the laws, I think that:

1. The incumbents have proven completely unresponsive to citizen concerns. In fact, I have been trying to "make an appointment" to speak with one incumbent since before the Art Show. Apparently, spending time learning of your constituents' concerns is an option in Mt. Gretna. But I can't really say that that particular incumbent isn't just following her council president's lead-I also know him to never have responded to a constituent's concerns. By the way, he is also an incumbent this year.

2.Let's pull up our sleeves and stick our hands right in the dishwater. Our incumbent council president is the person responsible for the financial and administrative operations of our borough. And, here's what he has allowed to happen:

A. He has allowed our tax collector to apparently fail her duties--and is trying to pass resolving that financial disaster on to us. By law, our Earned Income Tax collector is required each year to reconcile the EIT monies and to repay any overpayment. However, Mt. Gretna Borough is being accused of being overpaid EIT for many years--to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It seems to me that the only way for us to accumulate overpayments is for our tax collector NOT to have performed the required annual reconciliation. And, its a red herring to throw up, as a defense, that calls were made to the then EIT director and he said everything is fine. PA employers, also by law, are required to withhold their employees EIT AND to report those witholdings to the PA Dept of Revenue quarterly. The tax collectors certainly have access to that data, at least, which only means that they may have to wait three months or so for it.

B. He has allowed public equipment and personnel to be used for private gain. It is my understanding that staff like Bill Care and "his guys"--and our machinery, vehicles, and other equipment, are used to do things like re-grade roads in the Campmeeting or Heights. However, when I asked to see all the Boro's contracts, I was only shown three snow-plowing contracts and one police services contract. So, for example, I am only left to conclude that no contracts exist with Care for his personal use of our equipment or staff, or for accommodating his work as an independent contractor for any other entity. Nor can I conclude that there is any contract for MGB resources to be supplied to any other homeowners association or municipality.

C. He has allowed a slew of conflicting relationships to exist--none of which provide any benefit--either out of convenience or cost savings. He has allowed our city solicitor to represent us as well as the "enemy" on this alleged EIT overpayment issue. He has allowed the city solicitor to represent him and the boro in his personal real estate agreements with MGB--the very entity in which he is council president. He has allowed the tax collector and "bookkeeper" and our treasurer to be a married couple--under the law, spouses enjoy what we call "spousal immunity" when it comes to things like testifying against your "better half." This means that even if the treasurer, and the audit which he is responsible for generating each year, find something amiss, there are some serious questions as to whether he could publish that finding-especially if it leads to legal action.

D. He routinely violates our right to participate in municipal proceedings and discussions. He allows items of public interest to be tabled, while instructing/allowing staff to carry out the tabled item anyway, and he makes decisions without providing the public access to them. For example, the boro apparently reduced its staff size by one, yet I know of no public discussion of that issue. Reducing staff size is NOT a confidential matter--how you tell that person that his/her position is gone is confidential, however. So there is no excuse for us finding out through the grapevine that the Water Authority has "picked up" one of our staff.

Second example: at the Sept. Council meeting, the issue of taking a portion of Peter and Walter's land, cutting down more trees and paving a sidewalk from Campmeeting entrance to---nowhere in the Chautauqua, was tabled--for years. To paraphrase Allwein, he said that the budget right now couldn't afford it, and that Peter and Walter wouldn't own that property forever. Care's interjection was something like "Yeh, they'll be dead at some point." And, the issue was tabled until there were different owners to attempt to get them to contract away their land to the Boro. [Additionally, at the Sept Chautauqua meeting, the Board adopted a resolution placing a moratorium on cutting down trees in the Chaut.] Yet, just last Monday, Care and his crew started this project anyway, which will including cutting down at least 4 more trees in addition to the one that they cut down Monday. Again--the sidewalk leads to no where in the Chautauqua--travel lanes and parking areas for automobiles do not count, there simply is no place at the end of the proposed sidewalk to properly and safely receive pedestrians. If the intersection is an issue--perhaps dealing with it properly is in order...

I found what I consider to be a host of these examples, and Allwein himself admitted at the Sept Boro Council meeting that he has had, and intends to continue having, private discussions about public matters.

D. He has failed to present himself with transparency and the kind of integrity that we should expect from our representatives. In his campaign ethics disclosure, he fails to admit that he has an indirect real estate interest (his Jiggershop lease), that his lease has clauses in it that result in a interest in other leases and matters of both the Chautauqua and the Boro, that he has real estate agreements with the Boro, etc. The Boro budget also has a "Jiggershop" account, out of which it pays a relatively small portion of the temporary parking staff that is hired throughout the summer. Where is the contract for this, when was/is it negotiated, and why didn't I get to see that? More importantly, why is the Jiggershop's apparent burden so small compared to the other leaseholders in the Boro? Does Allwein recuse himself when it comes to parking issues? And, how many of these other types of "sweet deals" are there for him with the Boro?

It is time to pry open all these nasty little redundancies, overlaps, and deficiencies: just exactly how many ways are we going to allow staff to make money off our resources and our fees and tax money. Is Bill Care really our municipal works guy and a "private consultant" to the water authority or to any other municipality? Does he clock off the boro clock when he changes hats? If the EIT system was so poorly checked on that EIT collectors across the state are able to hold on to revenues without impunity--to the tune of $811,000 alone by the Leb Co EIT collector., and nobody's been checking on our EIT collector, who has any real idea what's been happening in MGB regarding EIT--or with any other monies going through our borough.

I think this confluence of events makes it imperative that we change the leadership in our community. Which is why I will not be casting one single vote for any of the three incumbents, but will be writing in three names of those I think would do a better job. I think of it as kind of a "vote of no confidence."