Palmyra missed chance for grant
To the Editor:
This is in response to an article in The News Eagle article entitled "Palmyra (W) Awards Cinder Shed Bids". I firmly believe that the taxpayers of Palmyra Township work long and hard to earn their money. Over the last two years, we have seen our police expense go up dramatically in township tax funding and an increase in road repair costs to our township that were neglected to be funded through available grants. On October 5th, the regular Supervisor meeting convened, in my opinion, our main topic for the night should have been whether to apply for a grant to build a cinder shed as mentioned by our solicitor a few months ago or continue as we have for the past 20 years and simply cover our cinders with a reusable tarp. Unfortunately, Chairperson Peter Steffen and his mentor Road Master Joseph Kmetz had other ideas.
Instead of applying for an available cinder shed grant that would have perhaps saved the township a minimum of $12,000, this duo instead chose the easy road to pay for it out of our limited township funds; citing that they did not want to go through the process of this grant. I know from both writing and gaining grants in the past for Palmyra, that this is a tremendous way to save the taxpayer money and be able to afford much needed additional projects for the township without increasing the tax burden. I realize that writing grants is work, but work well worth doing for me betterment of our community.
I wonder if this duo would turn down $12,000 in grant money for themselves or a family member, if all they had to do was fill out an application?
Sincerely,
Jim Mason (Palmyra Wayne Supervisor)