Christine Metacic’s Tax Increase for a Commisioner’s Seat: The Liberty Township Police Levy of 2014
Having police around can be a good thing for the occasional Lakota East student who wants to kill their parents by burning down their home, the drug busts from marijuana growers, or the stupid kids who wrap themselves around telephone polls with their cars traveling at excessive speed. Police are also needed to arrest parents who drop off their adopted children like a sweater they don’t like at Wal-Mart, expecting to be done with the contract because the job is too hard. Police during the times indicated above all of which happened in the otherwise quiet community of Liberty Township over the last year, requires police to step away from the United Dairy Farmers milk shake counter and do some work—and a few times a year, we’re glad they are there. There is a certain monetary value of having someone take care of that kind of nasty business—but how much is it worth? To me, not much, if I run into security trouble at my home, I will only call the police to take a report. I’ll handle dealing with the threat myself. That’s what the second amendment is for after all, and in Liberty Township, a lot of people feel the way I do about such things. So having police around is more of a pain in the ass for those who behave responsibly, because more often than not—when there aren’t the four or five tragedies per year that happen in Liberty Township, which requires police, the cops sit on the side of the road and threaten drivers with speeding tickets.
For a woman who wants to be a Butler County Commissioner, Liberty Township Trustee Christine Matacic is starting her campaign off poorly already advocating a tax increase in 2014 against the people she is supposed to represent. Liberty Township staff members are beginning to look at equipment and law enforcement staffing needs for the next few years, before making a recommendation on what to put on the ballot in 2014 which could include a new levy, a replacement levy, or renewal of the 3-mill levy.
“I’d rather look at it now to give us the option of do we go in May or in November,’’ said Trustee Christine Matacic. “With (the levy) expiring and being at the point we are with economic development, I don’t want to see us jeopardize the safety of our residents.” Oh, isn’t that nice of Christine to use the safety buzz word as a way to justify continued, or increases in taxes. Rather than look at the amount of use the police have contributed, and assess the value based on those facts, Christine is already showing what kind of Commissioner she wants to be—a tax and spend type with eyes bigger than her belly.
The new levy would supposedly pay for equipment, the township’s contract with the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to provide police service, but here is the new justification which proves that the whole ordeal is a scam–one of the reasons proposed for entertaining a tax increase is the township’s share of the cost of a school resource officer at Lakota East High School. During the Lakota levy of 2013 when even Sheriff Jones, a leader in the Butler County Republican Party, a labor union supporter, and Liberty Township resident—advocated his support of the Lakota levy on the premise that some of that tax increase money was going to go to security at the school. Now, it appears that Christine made some kind of deal that was not reported by the Pulse Journal, the Enquirer or any of the news stations covering the Lakota levy organized by Randy Oppenheimer—the tax payer public relations guy at Lakota working for Superintendent Mantia. The little detail that yet another tax would be needed from Liberty Township and presumably West Chester to cover a portion of the cost of putting police in the schools as a direct reaction to the Sandy Hook Massacre was not discussed. Lakota schools used this marketing ploy as a justification for their higher tax, and now Christine is using the same mantra of “safety” to cover her taxation desires. The police fund is projected to begin 2014 with a $2.6 million carryover from 2013. Spending is estimated at $2.4 million and the ending balance at the end of 2014 is estimated at $2.6 million.
As I’ve said before Christine Matacic lives in the house my grandmother grew up in. It looks a bit different today than it did when she lived there nearly a hundred years ago. Today it has a nice luxurious in ground pool, an extravagant garage and other modern comforts, but it is essentially the same home. But that doesn’t give her a pass to pretend to be a conservative Republican, then turn around and advocate tax increases and double taxation hiding behind safety to accomplish the crime. It is a crime because in advocating of a tax she is endorsing essentially the legalized theft of money taken by force from the residents of Liberty Township, and if Matacic becomes a commissioner, for all of Butler County.
It is easy to say that Liberty Township will have more economic growth and will thus need more police. It is easy to say that more police equals safety. It is easy to hide certain facts about deals made with the Lakota school system which the media in bed with all the characters involved assisted with to get a tax increase passed, then tried to use the same argument to support a police levy when a tax for the same issues under the same argument has already been approved by the tax payers. What is hard is in deciding how useful the police really are per hour, per day, per week. Instead Christine Matacic does what every other politician does—she looks at the few incidents per year where something really bad happens, then decides that more government workers in the form of police officers should be thrown at the situation to minimize her liability as a public official. Her approach is lazy.
It doesn’t take much to bow at the feet of Steiner—the developer of the Liberty Center development—which I support. It does not take much to lick the toes of the Terrys, my childhood friends and developers of Carriage Hill, the Homarama of 2013 and upcoming 2014. It doesn’t take much to pander to Lakota schools and the emotional arguments that always come on the backs of children from adults too busy to really pay attention to what is going on. Matacic is just another Republican looter—which is better than a scum bag socialist Democrat, but not by much. She rides on the backs of other people’s success, and then tries to sell herself as a fiscal hawk. But she is just another politician who writes checks paid for by other people’s money and she wants to come out favorably in the upcoming commissioner race by sucking up to Sheriff Jones so that she will get the police endorsement in that election.
The cost of all this activity, and deal making is that residents of Liberty Township will get a continued tax rate that is unneeded—because of lazy and exploitive politics. The police need that Matacic is talking about is a blanket cost that is largely unmanaged. The real intent for her statement, and support at this point in time is to gain approval of the police union to support her run for Butler County Commissioner—so she is using tax money as a mechanism to achieve access to an elected office—in a round about way.
For those with buyer’s remorse over the Lakota levy—who barely approved that levy thinking they were buying police protection for the kids who attend there—they should vote down Matacic’s levy so that they can recover the money they are losing to Lakota. They could gain a portion of that money in savings when this police levy expires. Let Matacic and the other Liberty Township Trustees figure out how to pay for police protection out of other money—but don’t give Metacic a free pass into a commissioner seat on the back of another tax increase using security at Lakota schools for a second straight year as the excuse when the first year’s money was supposed to cover the entire issue. Supporting this upcoming police levy means that tax payers are approving yet another tax that really isn’t needed for reasons that are purely emotional and exploited by Christine Matacic for her political goals of an office beyond Liberty Township Trustee.
Rich Hoffman
