Neighbor,
Yesterday, Ryan Mackenzie dropped a negative mail piece distorting my record as a Lower Macungie Commissioner. It was boilerplate negative junk mail complete with scary imagery of burning money and a black and white photo of me. You know the deal. The kind of nonsense career politicians spend shocking amounts of money on to stuff your mailbox with during elections. (each mailer costs many 1000’s of dollars)
I wanted to write a response in the form of a letter to give you factual information to consider when voting next Tuesday.
In 2014 I came into office as a local Commissioner after winning by record margins on a platform of farmland preservation, transparency, and fiscal restraint. The question we asked was how do we preserve farms while giving homeowners a tax break? The result was instituting an innovative use of the homestead exclusion. And this is where Ryan’s distortion comes into play.
Essentially this allowed us to adjust the baseline millage, while giving homeowners an exclusion on 50% of their assessed value. In plain English, this meant we ensured impactful land uses like shopping centers and warehouses paid for preservation efforts instead of homeowners. In doing so 90% of homeowners got a break on their property tax bills shifting the burden away from residents and onto warehouses. A sensible thing to do since for better or worse we now have many warehouses in the township.
So, over the last 4 years:
- 80% of homeowners got an ongoing break on their municipal property tax bills
- 10% of homeowners now get a bill for 0.00. (Mostly our mobile home communities)
- Yes, warehouses pay a little bit more
- We used the money to preserve 6 farms including most recently 185 acres on Sauerkraut Ln. A property that could have otherwise been built out with nearly 300 new units.
In biggest land preservation move yet, Lower Macungie will vote to preserve nearly 200 acres.
The fact warehouses and other impactful land uses now pay slightly more is where Mackenzie attempts to distort the record for political gain. The mailer attempts to categorize this as a broad-based tax increase. That’s both factually incorrect and misleading. What he doesn’t mention is even with the slight increase warehouses now pay, Lower Mac has the lowest millage rate of any suburban community. We offer an extremely competitive playing field. This is why companies are choosing to relocate to Lower Mac.
Linked below are numerous sources you can read in full. Another trick career politicians use is to only post headlines instead of full copies of articles and background information.
Vote ‘Yes’ on Homestead property tax referendum – An op-ed I wrote in the Morning Call last November.
Lower Macungie to give homeowners a tax break
Lower Macungie to give homeowners a tax break
I’ve focused this campaign on my record of results and refused to go negative. So, needless to say, this last-minute tactic was very disappointing. Career politicians often drop things like this very late in the game – days before the election. They do it so there isn’t time to respond. And that’s why I’m hand delivering this to you today. I hope it helps.
End of the day Tuesday, whether you vote for the incumbent or myself, I want to help give you the facts before making your choice.
-Ron
Here is a chart of savings from 2015-2016 and the total reduction since 2014.
Once again I casn’t disagree with your success in LMT. You deserve to be elected as State Representative. However, you and the board must get a handle on increasing crime in the township. Your blind support for PSP and their job inside the township is coming under scrutiny by the citizens. Yes, a local constabulary would cost extra, but PSP cannot afford to increase patrol and other activities while the township is still growing. This is becoming more of a concern and we do not think the leaders are looking ahead on this issue!