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Dear Editor:
Our St. Clair Township trustees recently had to make a difficult and quite expensive decision to purchase two new trucks and associated equipment for the welfare of our residents and to provide safe and quality roads for everyone in particular during the winter season.
It is/was not feasible to continue throwing money into repairing old equipment.
I applaud this decision and the financing option that was selected with paying approximately $60,000 a year over a five-year term which comes to around $300,000.
We are fortunate to have forward-thinking, progressive and fiscally-responsible township leaders that realize maintaining the infrastructure of any community is paramount not only to the well-being of all our residents, but in maintaining and even increasing our property values in addition to helping our businesses remain competitive.
My wife and I chose to move here due to several factors. We wanted to downsize from a larger three-story home to one level and this area was ideal with the closeness of shopping, public safety, restaurants, state parks, her place of employment, our doctors and well-kept roads.
After being here over two years, I am somewhat disappointed that some of our residents have chosen not to back the road levy. This levy is critical to all of us, beginning with the school students who travel to-and-from our new modern school complex. Then comes public safety for those of us going back-and-forth to our jobs, not to mention the people that support our businesses by coming here to shop from Ohioville, Chester and Wellsville. If our roads are not maintained during the winter season, do you really think they would venture here? Last, but certainly not least, let's now think about the dedicated volunteer firefighters, ambulance personnel and police officers that answer every call when need be. Focus for a moment on the elderly that need medical assistance and an ambulance is delayed due to poor road conditions only because our township didn't have the proper equipment or it was old and broken down.
Dedicated leadership prevailed and prudently-used money that may have been earmarked for other projects or needs in our community, however, without the money that would have been dedicated strictly to the roads via the recently failed levy, these projects may now be delayed or canceled.
Our trustees did the right thing by purchasing the new road equipment and I ask that we all do the right thing and vote for the road levy the next time it appears on the ballot.
Paul Anthony
Calcutta