This morning at our breakfast get together we discussed why the citizens of Bensalem continually vote in the same people over and over again, that despite the fact that these same people have severely weakened our emergency services and are actually providing less service to our community than surrounding municipalities. Not to mention every time a member of council is approached about government spending, or the way they handle employees wrong doing, the response is; “they don’t tell us what is going on”. It reminded many of us of the old story of the frog put in a pot with the heat being slowly turned up. The water gradually gets hotter before the frog realizes its being boiled alive. We thought we would list a few interesting items regarding the heat being turned up.
· When we were voting on the casino being allowed in our township, the Mayor promised to split the money with the school district to reduce the school tax burden for home owners. Once the bill was passed, the Mayor FAILED to keep his promise. The homeowners of our township had to carry the burden of the steadily increasing school taxes.
· Money for the fire service in our township to compensate for the casino promised by the Mayor, not only was NOT given to the six volunteer fire companies, money they were already getting was reduced to pay for the paid fire company. This is the OPPOSITE of what was written into the SAFER grant application. In fact, having a separate paid fire company IS A VIOLATION of the grant application. If they had written the truth, they would not have received the funding in the first place.
· The police department budget has more than doubled since the casino money was first received, despite the fact, that the Mayor and Public Safety Director assured our community that the only increase would be in traffic volume. The State Police would handle (and they do) all casino issues.
· The call volume (despite the Director of Public Safety’s running up the incident numbers) has not increased in our township in decades.
· We are the only police department in the County and possibly the State that has LESS THAN 40% of its personnel assigned to the patrol division. We don’t count the six motor cycle cops as part of the patrol division, because they come and go as they please and answer calls when it suits them.
· The rescue squad received twice the funding from the township while providing less coverage than Bristol Township. The rescue squad has more non-transport vehicles operated than the two units that can transport patients.
· The stipend given to homeowners at the very beginning was supposed to be $500.00 per year. Before it even started, it was reduced to $300.00. Now it is $100.00. What home improvements can be accomplished with $100.00?
· The justification for the earned income tax is COMICAL to say the least. At the meeting the Mayor had, he said he submitted his budget in November. Due to holidays the Council did not discover that there was a 9-million-dollar budget gap until December! Are you kidding?? You proposed a budget that was 9 million dollars OVER the funding you knew was available? Who got fired for that goof up? Now, the proposed 2018 budget has another budget gap! What did you do with the 12 million dollars from the E.I.T.? How on earth could you be trusted to raise the taxes again (which will be announced after the election) when you waste what we’ve given you already?
· The unsatisfactory management of the emergency services by the Director of Public Safety has reduced the number of volunteers while allowing the paid fire company to violate many NFPA standards, township standard operating procedures and created hazardous conditions for the citizens of our township.
· At the recent Acme roof fire, members of the rescue squad posted pictures of themselves operating our paid fire truck without wearing personal protective equipment. In fact, they bragged about doing it on another occasion. Where was the operator of the truck? Why were they allowed to operate the vehicle in the first place? The Director of Public Safety held a press conference shutting down one of our fire companies for far less (and with no photographic evidence!)
· Instead of manning one of the volunteer fire trucks dispatched to an emergency in our township, they frequently drive past the fire companies in cars and trucks (with no fire suppression equipment) and race from one end of the township to the other trying to beat the volunteer fire apparatus to the scene. Than they have to wait on scene until an actual fire truck arrives. Read their SAFER grant application, this is not what they wrote in the application.
· They purchased more than $600,000.00 of fire apparatus for the paid fire company instead of utilizing one of the fire trucks from (as they wrote in their SAFER grant proposal) one of the six volunteer fire companies that were supposed to be part of the combination fire company.
· Despite County officials advising the township they were building a Lower Bucks training center in Bristol, the Director of Public Safety insisted on building a 5.3-million-dollar fire training center between Street Road, the PA turnpike and Rt. 1 that you can NEVER have LIVE fire due to its proximately to these roads. Not to mention, that it was not constructed with the understanding that there would be live fire training (it was not built with heat tiles to prevent damage to the structure). In fact, they even forgot to put a fire hydrant on the property! Before a water main (at an additional cost) was run to the center, they had to tanker water into the area. That required a long, circular route by the fire trucks which only hold 500 gallons of water to refill their tanks.
· They CONTINUE TO VIOLATE the Fair Standards Labor Act by allowing employees of the paid fire company to be volunteer firefighters in the township. On one fire scene, the employees responded as volunteer firefighters and at the start time for the paid fire company started getting paid! All FOR DOING THE SAME JOB THEY WERE DOING AS VOLUNTEERS.
Those currently in office have done NOTHING to stop the continued waste of taxpayer funds, by the Mayor and the Director of Public Safety (these two still manage to get new SUV’s every other year!) despite the funding gap. The lone Democrat on the board is ATTACKED whenever he questions any of the reckless spending. Whenever the Mayor is asked about the E.I.T. he cites that he refuses to layoff police officers as it is a public safety issue. He has NOT EVER SAID how adding almost 40% more uniformed officers has reduced crime and increased public safety. Why do we have to lay off police officers? Why not reduce staffing in other areas?
The temperature on the taxpayer pot will continue to increase until we change the people in charge of the heat!!
YOW!!! CAN WE SAY ‘BURN!’ ANYONE?? THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THE TOWNSHIP IS DOING TO US. THEY ARE SLOWLY TURNING UP THE HEAT, WHILE WE POOR UNSUSPECTING FROGS ARE BEING SLOWLY BUT SURELY BOILED TO DEATH. I’VE ALWAYS SAID THAT THIS TOWN IS HEADED FOR A HUGE BANKRUPTCY, AND IF WE CONTINUE ELECTING THOSE WHO TURN UP THE HEAT, AND RUN THIS TOWN INTO THE GROUND, WE’RE IN BIG TROUBLE!!!😱
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