Letter to the Editor: No Rush in Polling Lower Mac Residents

To the Editor:

Lower Macungie Township has failed over the past three years to make significant progress on studying whether we need a change in local police services. So now that something is finally being done, why should the township’s first real step in the evaluation process be criticized?

As explained last week in the Lower Macungie Patch, the township’s Public Safety Committee intends to send residents a questionnaire regarding the future of our police protection. This comes three years after the township Board of Commissioners first assigned the committee the task of studying our options for local police services, and budgeted $25,000 in each of those three years to fund such a study.

But such a survey of township residents, prior to any fact-gathering, would be premature and misleading.

The survey posed by the township warns residents that Pennsylvania is considering taxing local governments, such as Lower Macungie, that rely on state police coverage.

The survey asks: “Considering the state is considering charging local townships for State Police services, should the township consider other options for its police protection?”

Far from being considered, the idea of charging townships for state police protection has never been able to gain any traction and has never been seriously debated or voted upon by state lawmakers.

The truth is that Democrat-sponsored legislation proposing such a fee for state police coverage has languished in Harrisburg since the 1990s, when Republican Tom Ridge was governor. Similar legislation resurfaced and again disappeared while Democrat Ed Rendell was governor. The current proposal, now with Republican Tom Corbett as governor, will likely have the same fate.

Even if the House Bill ever gained popularity, the idea would face severe opposition. The Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors says the proposal would affect half of the state’s municipalities, and cost them $450 million a year.

Even if this legislation sees daylight, there is a phase-in period of three years. In year one, the fee would be $52 per resident, or about $1.6 million for Lower Macungie, which has a $7 million budget surplus. Not until year three does the fee rise to $156 per resident, the number trumpeted by supporters of a local police department.

So there is no reason to panic. And there is no rush to begin polling residents on what options they prefer.

How would residents answer the survey without any facts on which to base their decisions?  Again, Lower Macungie has not performed any research to provide residents, much less our elected officials, an opportunity to make well-informed decisions.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Roger Reiss has wisely suggested holding a Town Hall meeting for residents to voice opinions.  Such a Town Hall would be more productive if it also served as an information session.

Significantly, the survey’s five questions do not mention that Lower Macungie pays nothing for state police coverage or that other options offered by the survey will result in higher or new taxes. The current Board of Commissioners has publicly acknowledged Lower Macungie does not have a property tax because we do not pay for police coverage. That the words “tax increase” do not appear in the survey is one indication that residents will be asked to voice an opinion without first knowing all facts or consequences.

Let’s not ask residents to make uninformed choices, and let’s not mail residents a “survey” that misstates or omits facts. Let’s not risk allowing the five-question survey to be used to fit a pre-conceived agenda.

Lower Macungie must first do its homework so residents have an opportunity to voice their opinion when it counts: when all the relevant information is publicly available.

Robert L. Sharpe Jr. Esq.

Editor's Note: Robert L. Sharpe is a candidate for Lower Macungie Township Commissioner.