Dear Editor,
I attended the “Taxpayers First Party” get together Tuesday night and listened to the candidates tell me why I should vote for them. As I listened to what they had to say and many of the questions that were presented to them, everything led back to the budget.
There is just so much money in the budget and everyone wanted to keep the budget down, but keep the same type of coverage. In the last 10 years Owego has gone from 5,000 residents to 3,000 residents (rough numbers), and 30 percent of the residents are the ones paying for the services.
The Taxpayers First candidates are trying to get a breakdown of the budget, but are running into roadblocks due to poor record keeping. Someone needs to be held accountable for this and an audit of our books needs to done (by an outside audit company).
There has been a lot fear tactics being used that the Taxpayers First Party wants to rid the Village of OPD. This is far from the truth. The Taxpayers First party wants to present to the Village residents options as far as OPD. Do you want full coverage, partial coverage or no coverage and go under the Sheriff department. They will put together a budget with X amount of dollars for full, partial or no coverage and you will get to vote on it. They want to hear from you, not just the ones that are the most vocal and making a lot of noise.
Depending on what the majority wants is how they will respond. None of this can be accomplished without hearing from you and knowing how the money is being distributed in the budget.
The way things are run now is basically by the seat of their pants. Decisions are trying to be pushed through before a full review of the proposals (such as a background check) can be completed before hiring a person (the hiring of a police officer comes to mind).
The responsible thing to do is vote against this until all the paper work is complete. There are trustees that do not follow these rules and this only hurts the taxpayers in the long run.
As far as the OFD is concerned, the fire department budget has been cut dramatically because they are volunteers and the board does not have to deal with unions, but from what they have to work with they manage to do a great job (remember they are volunteers and do this for the love of the Village). Any thought of consolidating the Village with the Town would be a disaster to the taxpayers in the long run. They will come in with low numbers to get the consolidation and then increase taxes astronomically (as they did to the Town taxpayers last year). You will have no say in the matter.
The Taxpayers First Party in my opinion are trying to do the responsible thing and give the people of Owego the best bang for their buck and I fully support them. Vote “TAXPAYERS FIRST PARTY” across the board.
Sincerely,
Thomas Donovan Jr.
Owego, N.Y.
