Tuesday, April 24, is primary day in Pennsylvania. Getting Obama out of office is job 1, but there are other jobs as well.
Two people have stepped up to run against Santarsiero. I don’t know much about Helen Bosley. I’ve been told that she has been someone important in the Planned Parenthood hierarchy. I’ve also been told that she has the “official” Bucks County republican party endorsement. In my opinion, a kiss from Pat Poprik is toxic.
Anne Chapman is the other person running. Her website is here. She’s on the right side of some issues, but the “Property Tax Independence Act” is quite simply FUBAR. And I don’t think Ms. Chapmen at all understands what the bill is about or the possible ramifications, she just wants to promise lower taxes.
Everyone wants lower property taxes, but will this proposal do anything to really reign in costs? Public education is a government monopoly, and the teacher’s unions have a death grip on education (for the kids!) to ensure that the quality will never be as good as it should be. If all school funding is moved from local taxes to Harrisburg, parents will lose the little influence they have today. It won’t happen overnight. You can put together any number of charts and graphs and Power Point presentations to demonstrate how “equitable” the distribution of funds will be. Doesn’t matter. Schools districts will notice that the piper has moved to Harrisburg, and that’s where they’ll dance. It is inevitable.
One of the principles of conservatism is that smaller government is better, and closer government is better. The idea of consolidating municipalities to save money is not popular, primarily because people are afraid that if their towns are consolidated they will become much smaller fish in a bigger pond. They would be right. Ditto for the school districts.
Someone tell Anne Chapman. Or maybe better yet, tell Rob Ciervo.
There are also Republican committeeperson contests in all of the UM districts. Committee people get to hear from all of the candidates who want to run for an elected position, and then they vote on who will get the party endorsement. You vote for them, but they are not obliged to tell you how they vote.
It’s kind of a noxious, insider-ish thing, made worse by Pat Poprik’s presence. Consider challenging the people who want to run for the committee positions. It may not be possible to get rid of Poprik, but the fact that Harry Fawkes continues to hold the chairman position just gives proof to the accusation that Republican is the party of stupid. Bucks County went for Obama in 2008, so it’s hardly as if the Bucks GOP is serving the county well. Poprik no doubt prefers that Fawkes retain the chairman seat so she can do as she pleases, but it’s long past time to push back against her Pelosi-like “leadership”. It’s not about what’s good for Poprik, it’s time to focus on what’s good for the citizens. If a candidate committee person cannot commit to cleaning up the GOP in Bucks County and replacing Harry Fawkes (and Poprik, with luck), vote for the candidate who can.
Upper Makefield Doings 