Here we go again! Fred Harran makes an appearance at the Bensalem Business persons meeting. He claims that crime is down. We have a wonderful group of men and women that make up our police department; however, the fact is they respond to reports of crime over 90% of the time. They stop crime a very small percentage of the time OUTSIDE of narcotics work. Fred Harran claimed that police and fire budgets are $22,000,000.00. The fire department portion of the budget is approximately $1,000,000.00. Did he mention to anyone what percentage of crimes reported to the police department are solved? Did he mention that the township has recently been bombarded with lawsuits due to actions of the Department of Public Safety? Now for the real reason Fred Harran was there. He wants money from the businesses for his PAL program. It is a wonderful program. However, the township has a Parks and Recreation department. It would be cheaper for the community to run the recreation program through Parks and Recreation. If some of the police officers want to volunteer their time they could do that.
We are in a financial crisis as a Country. Our township continues to ignore the fact. Our township is facing yet another multi-million dollar budget deficit this year. No action by our local government to address the issue. In fact, they refuse to discuss it! Fred Harran and the Mayor state to the press that there is no more money coming from the state to support the PAL program. Now they want corporations to give them money to renovate a 12,000 square foot building for the PAL program. Fred Harran stated we had to turn people from outside the community away. We should, we cannot afford to fund programs for people outside of Bensalem. Multi-jurisdictional programs should be coordinated through the County. Our government is local! Financially, we can't have it both ways!
Like a business or a family, our township has got to learn to live within its means. That means we have got to cut back. Stop scaring the public and provide alternatives to spending funds we don't have! Who is going to pay to maintain the building, staff the building and pay the utilities? All we have to do is look at the $5,000,000.00 training center disaster up the street to see what happens when the project is not well thought out. Oops, the township does not want to talk about that either.
The only time the township talk to local business owners is when they are trying to put their hands in our pockets. We are following in the footsteps of Philadelphia, Camden and the Federal government. Soon they will have depleted the remaining $54,000,000.00 in the fund from the sale of the water and sewer department. The Federal government reports that they expect the economy to remain in a weakened condition until the middle of 2013. Why would the township take on another project we can't afford?
We gave $4,000,000.00 to the school district for the new gym at the high school. Shortly afterward, the school district raises the amount the catholic schools have to pay to utilize the facilities! I thought one of the benefits for us giving the school district $4,000,000.00 was for the public to be able to use the facility? The parents of the catholic school children already pay taxes to support the public school. They do receive a bus ride to the catholic school of their choice for the high school taxes.
The idea of PAL is great. However, there are alternatives that the officers can volunteer their time at through the Parks and Recreation department that would cost less and continue to benefit the community.
Its very apparent even to people such as this person, that Fred Harran and the mayor have A LOT to hide, and and they too want the truth!!
ITS TIME FOR THE TRUTH YOUR MAJESTY!!
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