Yesterday held Ellwood City’s monthly regular meeting. All of the agendas were passed at this meeting, to view all agenda items click here.
There was an exceptionally large number of visitors at the meeting last night, so large that the council meeting had to be moved into the municipal building’s auditorium in order to accommodate all of the visitors. Among the visitors was Aaron Bernstine, a local who is currently running for state representative.
Tensions were high and over a dozen visitors publicly spoke in front of council in order to express their feelings about ongoing issues and the upcoming proposals, mainly centered around the 12 million dollar bond that council was voting to pass or deny at the meeting.
Many visitors asked council about the 12 million dollar bond, questioning if the community can actually afford the bond to make what many believe are “unnecessary” improvements.
The bond was proposed for the Borough to make overall improvements to the town, mainly for efficiency and cosmetic appeal. The bond will be funding the demolition and rebuild of a the public works and electric facilities, the purchase of a new fire truck, the Borough’s match for a multi-modal grant and the installation and maintenance of streets and infrastructures.
A local real estate agent, among several others, believe that building new facilities is unnecessary when there are “many unused but fully functional” vacant buildings throughout the town.
Several of the visitors didn’t disagree completely with the bond proposal, many of them just asked the council to consider tabling the bond to allow for further discussion and contemplation in order to make sure the bond was in the best interest of those affected by it.
Connie MacDonald, the council president, explained last night that now is the time to accept a bond “because interest rates are favorable”. A few weeks earlier at a September council meeting, MacDonald mentioned that he did not expect taxes to go up significantly for Ellwood City residents, giving the example that on a $50,000 house the property taxes would go up an estimated $50 dollars a year.
Council chose not to table the issue, however, two council members, Judy Dici and Marylin Mancini disagreed with the proposal, saying that they would only vote in favor of the bond for a lesser amount.
Dici wanted to put her views of the bond into perspective, “If I want to make improvements to my house, and take a vacation, and buy a car, I prioritize which one of those I need first. I don’t see the need to do all of this at one time- prioritize, pick what needs done most quickly, and then when you start to recoup and recover, go to the next issue.”
There was a large applaud for Dici’s comment.
MacDonald also gave his opinion about the bond, “I too live in this community, my wife and I have invested in this community by building our home here, and we too are affect by the taxes and utilities. The comments I get about these improvements are that it’s something that should’ve happened years ago; the public works garage is falling down and is a disgrace, we need to take the lead as community leaders and show that we are progressing as a community and not operating out of decrepit buildings. The fire truck we are replacing is 30 years old… We, as council, have to show that we are in favor of moving forward, we have to think about the future and I think the improvements will make this community a better place.”
There was a roll call vote, Mancini and Dici voted no, the other five council members voted yes. The bond was passed and the majority of visitors left shortly after due to feeling as though their questions, concerns, and comments remained unheard.
In the past Connie MacDonald was correct; do this while interest rates are low. With $19.6+ Trillion in debt the country currently cannot afford just the interest, so rates will never rise. I think the borough made the right choice in getting these improvement done now for a different reason. The fiat currency we are wildly digitally printing and using to monetize the debt will collapse. This collapse is a certainty. The USA is now a 70% consumer driven economy which by definition is a dying economy. When this occurs it is unclear what the reset will look like, but it can be argued the physical improvements made now will absolutely have more value than the worthless paper that we are using to fund them today.
Why would anyone need a pretty municipal public works building when we cannot buy food with a failed monetary system? And what rational is there to borrow with low rates versus high rates when the collapse is inevitable? Given your logic, are you hundreds of thousands in debt? If you’re not and you believe yourself, why not?
You are confusing personal debt with government bonds.
Personal debt will be recalculated with the NEW dollars.
This will be done at a rate to keep the “too big to fail”
bankers and 1% happy. So accumulating personal or even having personal debt at this point is a really bad idea. You should pay down/off your debt while exchanging the vast majority of your paper currency to PHYSICAL silver/gold. (Not paper funds for reason too numerous to mention here) And utilize other strategies to take advantage of the reset.
Now to the “pretty municipal public works building”: I believe; it is probable that after the reset all government debt will be revalued “for the good of the nation”. The logic being you cannot rebuild a nation when it’s cities are mired in debt. Therefore, government debt will be revalued at pennies on the NEW dollar. So the improvements now at $12 million OLD dollars could be a huge bargain later in NEW dollars!
FRUI DIEM Brad
Wow Nemo you are completely correct but no one in here is going to understand what your talking about. Most of these people just heard carried interest the other night let alone quantitative easing or understanding the backing of our currency connected to oil and the inevitable collapse from the federal reserve. Maybe War with Russia in Syria will save us. 50 billion tons of crude oil mmmmmmm resources 🙂
Thanks Nightwatchman! Appropriate name as you watch the sleeping masses at this dark hour unable to help. Such a peaceful sleep they enjoy…unfortunately the wake up call will not be gentle.
MacDonald: “I too live in this community, my wife and I have invested in this community by building our home here, and we too are affect by the taxes and utilities. The comments I get about these improvements are that it’s something that should’ve happened years ago; the public works garage is falling down and is a disgrace, we need to take the lead as community leaders and show that we are progressing as a community and not operating out of decrepit buildings. The fire truck we are replacing is 30 years old… We, as council, have to show that we are in favor of moving forward, we have to think about the future and I think the improvements will make this community a better place.”
FINALLY!!!!!!! THANK YOU MR. MacDonald…. It is time Ellwood City starts making improvements to the town and reinvesting in Ellwood City! I am excited to hear this and hope that the Ellwood School Board takes note. You MUST reinvest before everything turns to garbage. Once that happens it is difficult to recover from.
Mr. MacDonald has the vision of a better brighter Ellwood and I applaud him for that. Raise the taxes and invest. That’s what progressive communities do.
I haven’t voted for Mr. MacDonald in the past but I will certainly vote for him next time
Is it $9 or $12 million bond that passes and will there be a line item spending report on all expenditures? If will there be money to attract and get industry into town? The swimming pool was built in the ‘1950’s. Why is there a bond issue on it? Are any of the expenditures on a ” wish list” ? It seems tone a lot of money and no real statements of an actual spending and cost plan. If there is one , let’s publish it so people can comment either pro or con. What is council doing to cut costs & spending? These are questions people want answers to, I believe it would take a lot of criticism about council away. Let’s be transparent on the problems and issues. Ellwood City is basically a ” bedroom ” city. We need industry to keep young people in town and to support our town. We have a vast majority of senior citizens on fixed incomes. They can’t afford major tax increases every year. Government has a duty to spend public money wisely and responsibly
Funzi! Hope you are well! Man do I miss your cooking!
Like Ms. Dici indicated, it would be nice to have a new house, new car and take a nice vacation but you must live within your means! The employees of this town make fantastic wages compared to the norm. We have had tax increases for 3 years in a row and huge utility bills! The people cannot afford any more! Enough council and stop the out of control spending!
Why not wait until CVS goes belly-up and take over that building?