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Letter to the Editor |
FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION |
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State Rep.
Jesse White |
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Letter to the editor, Observer-Reporter
Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010
To the editor:
I am writing in response to the Jan. 6 editorial titled, "Gambling bill: Where it stops, nobody knows," regarding the Washington County Local Share Meadows gaming revenues. Reading the editorial, I was shocked and disappointed that the Observer-Reporter would print something with so many glaring factual mistakes.
Furthermore, I disagree with the description of the local share distribution method, including the notion that lawmakers' ‘pet projects’ would benefit from gaming legislation, and would like to set the record straight.
As state representative for the 46th District, I was an appointee to the Local Share Review Committee from 2007-2009, and was very involved in the process by which local share funds are distributed.
The local share is revenue that municipalities receive from the slots facilities and use to pay for local projects in addition to money homeowners receive from the property tax relief fund. Washington County is eligible for local share dollars because the county hosts a casino. Property tax relief will be distributed to local homeowners from gaming irrespective of the local share. One does not impact the other.
The question becomes: How do we ensure that extra money has the biggest impact? Senate Bill 711 provides each municipality (other than North Strabane, which hosts the casino) with $25,000, plus $10 per resident. This would amount to approximately one-third of the $12 million available in local share money. This was done to ensure the "large, visionary" projects referenced in the editorial could still be funded while avoiding the "apples to oranges" comparisons that have doomed many proposals by our small communities.
It should also be noted that as the host municipality, North Strabane is exempted from receiving any local share money, and all other municipalities are capped from receiving more than half of their annual budget. The cap prevents superfluous funding for micro-municipalities like Green Hills Borough, with a population of less than 20 people.
The bill also would give control of the local share to the elected municipal official, helping to avoid cumbersome and costly application processes, and wasting money on consultants and engineers in a futile attempt to compete with larger projects.
Paving roads and equipping police officers may not be visionary, but it sure is important to most people I talk to. Providing such money would also keep local taxes down, which is a form of indirect property tax relief.
The current local share process is not perfect, but it is a quantum leap ahead of where we were three years ago. We will be able to fund large economic development projects to create jobs, much-needed infrastructure improvements to bring clean water and sanitary sewage systems to our rural areas and direct aid to municipalities to help take care of the aspects of government that aren’t sexy but critically important.
I have spent three years working on this issue, and although I am not thrilled with every aspect of the process, I am proud of the work I have done because I honestly and truly believe it will benefit the people of Washington County. I can certainly appreciate differing opinions, and understand that healthy criticism is to be expected; I would just hope that criticism would be based on facts. If the Observer-Reporter wants to demand more accountability in government, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for government to demand more accountability from the Observer-Reporter.
Sincerely,
Jesse White
State Representative
46th District
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