Issue Position: County and Local Government

Issue Position

I spent over twenty years as an elected township supervisor and the last seven years as a municipal employee. Local government is the closest government to the people and can be the most efficient and effective avenue for visible local change. Leaders from County, Local and State Government must be in constant dialog; this would be my first priority upon election. I plan to attend county, township, borough and school board meetings and sit with the leadership to stay current on changing needs.

Most Emergency Management Services (fire, ambulance and police) are the responsibility of local government. Again, there must be ongoing dialog with State government concerning these services to ensure the safety of every community.

I am an advocate of public-private partnerships and believe the processes for enabling such partnerships must be made less cumbersome and less scary. Indeed, they need to be encouraged.

Prevailing wage requirements must be repealed. Currently, many municipalities limit hot mix products for road repairs and rely on maintenance type materials. Road rebuilds, bridges and school buildings all require prevailing wages. The cost of these projects would be considerably less without the prevailing wage. There are many local contractors that would be happy to bid on bridges and school buildings and would do as good or better work for less.

It is time to eliminate unfunded mandates. Local governments and school districts are inundated with unfunded mandates, which drastically increases operation costs that are often not in the budget. Many of our state and federal agencies establish mandates that are pushed down--without funding--to be implemented by local government. Many of these agencies, put in place by legislators, have become too powerful. Some have overstepped boundaries need to be reined in. Their focus should be compliance, not mandating and enforcing. Governor Ridge ran on the slogan "A Friendlier Pennsylvania." This was aimed at DEP, and in many ways it worked. It deserves another chance.

The recently-passed transportation bill increases the liquid fuels fund used by municipalities for road and street projects. The amount will increase over the next few years and will allow for more improvements. It also adds monies for bridge repairs and placements and considerable monies for Penn Dot and mass transit.

From a budget and time perspective, it would be wise to consider developing a model bridge so that each bridge does not require custom engineering and architectural design. This concept would allow for many more bridges to be built without allocating more money.

Public sewer systems are required to meet the new TMDL (total maximum daily limits). Standards have been increased to meet the Chesapeake Bay Clean-Up Initiative. Sewage treatment facilities everywhere are required to spend millions to meet the new requirements established by EPA. These project have the potential of bankrupting communities. Sewer system requirements need to be more reasonable, and grants and more low interest loan options need to be made available.

Public water systems are currently required to meet a new standard. To some degree this is important, because we all want a safe drinking water supply. However, drilling new wells and passing inspections for public use has become burdensome. It is taking three to five years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get online. For small municipalities this becomes very costly and unaffordable for residents. DEP (department of environmental protection) and SRBC (Susquehanna River Basin Commission) need to expedite the well approval process in order to cut costs.

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