FLOODING
Are we really 30 million behind in Flooding projects - that is
$1400 per household in Abington while Commissioners have been
bragging about not raising taxes for 18 years..........
And this is coming to light in the worst of economic times .....
12-09 Yes it's true .
According to the Township Engineer, before this summer's
Flooding meeting they had identified abut 15 million in
Flood related projects ( if I understand correctly, about 12
million of that is for the Keswick area ) AFTER the flood
meeting ( which, as you may well imagine, only a small
percentage of residents even knew about ) they added on another
15 million estimated fixes - to total 30 million . That is
$1400 per household in Abington ............while Commissioners
have been bragging about not raising taxes for 18 years.........
To watch this unfold has been
incredible. One resident who said (circa 07) he had been
flooding for 20 years was told that it was because of Tyson Ave
which is a State road and there was nothing the Commissioners
could do . When another resident asked about it - they
were told to come to a meeting. They did and .....were told
again it was a State road and there was nothing the
Commissioners could do . Huh ? So WHY were
they asked to come??
After the meeting I learned that it is NOT the State's
responsibility once the water leaves the road --- it is the
Township's. We had 10 million in the General Fund at that
point with only a little allocated to any specific projects ---
so WHY I asked would these neighbors have to keep flooding for
another 4 or 5 years ???
The township ultimately allocated I believe 125,000 and
did some fixes and in a recent conversation with that particular
neighbor he has had relief since then . Others on his
street still have some problems but the problems have generally
been lessened.
Another neighbor in Rydal
testified that he lost somewhere around $50,000 in a
recent storm - on the heels of many other losses that he
recently suffered. One resident testified that it took 4
years and the threat of a lawyer before something was done .
Some neighbors' houses have been compromised - and while we have
spent millions buying some properties back - we have some
neighbors who still want theirs bought . Water coming from a
street behind has come over a neighbor's property and through
this residents property and wreaked havoc on her house, yard
and driveway.
By not using
taxes to put in proper storm drainage in the streets, these
neighbors are paying their own additional taxes ------ huge
taxes in many cases. After the Flood meeting I went to the next
meeting and asked the Engineer why people flooding were not
getting help. His answer was two-fold . 1) If there is a stream
involved or other complication, DEP & other regulators
makes you jump through lots of hoops ( OK - so lets get the
paperwork started ) and 2) there is only so
much you can do in a year with a staff of 4 ( OK - so lets
see how much the tax collector is really making - and shift some
of that over to engineering . In fact - I could name you 10
places that money was allocated for projects far less
important )
So at the 11/19/09 Budget
meeting, can it be true that with 30 million in storm water
management to consider, we only wrote into the budget
$3500 for Engineering staff and $300,000 for additional
flood projects ?? Please tell me that's not true ....
And now in Dec 09 we have spent a full meeting mulling over
whether we might ( or might not float a bond for just $3 million
------- what about the other 27 million ..... shall we leave
that as a gift for the grandkids - while we let a
select group of residents continue to pay their steep "rain tax"
. Or maybe a better name is the "we didn't raise taxes for
18 years or fix the problems we knew about" tax.
If you have a different
perspective --or have come comments - please -
contact me and help me see your view.
Thanks
Lora
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