BCT Editorial – 9/18/07

This page was last updated on October 6, 2007.

Too small; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 18, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Big Beaver is too small for a big problem it faces.”

[RWC] Yet another example showing Times calls for “local control” are nothing but words.

“The borough has closed a stretch of Norwood Drive that has collapsed in several places. That’s caused headaches for 15 families that live along the closed portion of the road, which parallels Route 18. (In fact, it was the main road between Beaver Falls and New Castle until Route 18 was built.)

“Engineers estimate that it would cost $800,000 to fix the road. The problem council faces is that this year’s budget is only about $550,000. With a population of around 2,200 and a stable but small tax base, the borough doesn’t have the resources to fix Norwood Drive.

“Because of that, borough officials are considering getting outside help to pay for the repair work. That could turn out to be a slow and uncertain process. The state is having trouble funding its infrastructure needs and help from the federal government is iffy.

“Big Beaver isn’t alone. Pennsylvania has too many small municipalities, many of which provide few, if any services because they do not have large enough tax bases.

“At some point, the Legislature must address this problem. Responsible local officials, which are what Big Beaver has, can’t do much if they don’t have the money to carry out their governmental duties.”

[RWC] Why does the General Assembly need to get involved? Would it be right to force municipalities to merge? Would it be right for the GA to force commonwealth taxpayers to subsidize “too small” communities? If we subsidize small communities, they have no incentive to solve their problems. The right approach is to let locals solve their own problems.