LEWISBURG — Real estate taxes are being appealed, and people are winning, East Buffalo Township Supervisor Lawson Fetterman said during a candidates’ forum Wednesday night. “It’s going to be tough.”
Fetterman was responding to the question, “Do you have plans to hold down tax hikes?”
Each candidate had an opportunity to answer. Sharing the dais with Fetterman was his opponent, Tom Zorn. Also in attendance were Kelly Township Supervisor David Hassenplug and his challenger, William Sanders, and Tim Hoffman, a write-in candidate for a seat representing the 3rd Ward on the Lewisburg Borough Council. Incumbent Councilman Peter Bergonia Jr. did not attend.
Fetterman and Hassenplug are Republicans, and Zorn and Sanders are Democrats. Hoffman has not listed a party affiliation.
Sixteen Bucknell University students attended to support Hoffman, a Bucknell senior who started his campaign promising to repair strained relations between the town and the university.
About 70 people filled the Union County Government Building meeting room, where the League of Women Voters’ forum was held. League President Sue Travis said it was a slightly larger crowd that usual for a nonpresidential election year.
On the tax question, Zorn said he’d work to encourage commercial growth, so the tax burden would not weigh so heavily on residential property.
Hassenplug said it’s getting more difficult not to raise taxes. Sanders said Kelly Township’s loss of commercial base means there’s no way to promise no tax hikes.
Hoffman said he was pleased the borough manager proposed a budget without a tax increase this year and said the key to holding taxes down is a steadily growing tax base. He said it doesn’t help when Bucknell buys property that then becomes tax-exempt.
In response to a question about dissolving municipal government in favor of Union County control, all the candidates voiced disapproval, saying the more local the better. But all agreed some kind of regional police cooperation is a good idea, even Hassenplug, whose board opted out of the regional plan being worked on between East Buffalo and Lewisburg. He opened the door a bit.
“At this point, we’re waiting to see how it develops,” he said. “The opportunity will be there to join the regional force. If we decide not to, we can remain served by the Pennsylvania State Police.
Fetterman said local policing is possibly the largest line item in the township budget.
People also wanted to know about road maintenance.
Zorn has said East Buffalo has been missing opportunities to widen roads to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians when it resurfaces.
Fetterman said flatly: “We will never catch up with quality roads.” With money tight, he said, the township can’t do as much as it did 5 or 10 years ago.
Then he quipped: “East Buffalo Township residents have the money to have the best roads in Pennsylvania. The trouble is, it’s in their pockets.”
When some wanted to know how hours of recycling centers are determined, all the candidates but Fetterman said they should be set for taxpayers’ convenience. He said the East Buffalo recycling center is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and collects as much product as all the other area municipalities put together.
“And if we were serious about recycling,” he said, “we would still be getting milk in glass jars and potato chips in tin cans.”
At the end of the meeting, Bucknell senior Richard Thornburgh said he was impressed with Hoffman’s polished performance. “He didn’t stand out in any way that you could deem negative — like young and inexperienced,” he said.
“He held his own,” said his friend, Austin Carr-Jones, also a Bucknell senior. “He made himself stand out by his enthusiasm and eagerness.”
Concluding, Hoffman called for some type of cost control on rent.
He said this election could determine whether the borough is going to keep the past in the present or move into the future. “The future doesn’t belong to people content with the ways things are,” he said.
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