The following is the response I emailed to The Pottstown Mercury on November 12 about their November 9 editorial. Information shown in green within []s was not included in my email. Information shown in brown within {}s was not included in their November 19 published version of my response. Anything I had listed in caps was printed in lower case. And the title was their creation.
Resident: Open-space editorial was misinformed
I found your November 9 editorial (West Vincent voters miss an opportunity to save open space) to be an uninformed, incomplete, and in many cases inaccurate, representation of the facts behind the defeat of this year's Open Space Tax Referendum.
You pointed out that West Vincent Township raised taxes three years ago to repair roads that were devastated by winter storms. What you didn't bother to state was that the result was a MORE THAN 100% INCREASE in real estate tax rates. And that the ENTIRE AMOUNT of that increase was what the supervisors were asking voters to reallocate to open space preservation.
Then you accused me of conducting "a last-minute scare campaign" by mailing a letter to all registered voters the week before the election. All you offered as proof of that assertion was that I said I didn't "believe a real estate tax is the way to pay for preservation." That's a scare tactic? My letter contained four major points:
Those were FACTS, not attempts to scare people. And I did post an almost identical version of the letter I mailed on the Internet. It can be found at www.seedship.com/westvinc/1999/99open1.html by anyone who wishes to read it in detail and come to their own conclusions.
You also listed me as a computer programmer. While I did begin my career in data processing several decades ago in that capacity, my current job title is Advisory Systems Analyst. I also have a B.S. in Mathematics, with a minor in Economics.
{Lastly, you decried the fact that "Only 40 percent of West Vincent's registered voters bothered to show up at the polls last week..." Do you know that was one of the highest percentage turnouts in Chester County [only Elverson Borough and New London Township were higher]? Do you know that the number of votes cast in West Vincent Township this year almost matched the number in last year's general election [778 this year, 854 last year]? Do you know that Chester County has not been allowed by law to purge voters from its rolls for the last 4 or 5 years except under certain specified circumstances? Do you know that at least several hundred people listed as being eligible to vote in West Vincent Township are no longer residents? Did you ask the election officials the last time they saw a turnout this high for a municipal general election? Did you ask any voters why they voted NO on this referendum? Did you notice that in addition to this referendum being turned down, the incumbent candidate for supervisor received less than 60 percent of the vote when her only opposition was a write-in candidate?}
If you had taken the time to look at even some of the above factors, perhaps you could have written a thoughtful and reasoned analysis of why this referendum went down to defeat. Instead, you chose not only to make a personal attack on me, but also on the intelligence of the residents of West Vincent Township, many of whom had to brave strong winds, heavy rain, downed trees and power outages to exercise their right to vote.
{Shame on you!}
BOB ELLIS
Birchrunville