Author Archives: Ann Becker

At their last meeting, the West Chester Trustees were presented with a plan to apply for a grant through the Federal Government for 'walking and biking paths'.  The grant will go through OKI regional government and will pay 80 percent of the costs of the construction of this project, but not the maintenance.  Mrs. Boyko, our Township Administrator,   this project "will provide a multimodal of choice for the household" of 5,000 residence.  

This possible grant was called out by Trustee George Lang as possible Agenda 21 implementation.  "This is not a core competency of our government."  Taking the federal government money will pass the cost of the biking and walking trail onto our children and grandchildren.  West Chester already has the highest number of bike paths in the Cincinnati Area.  We don't need this project.  We cannot afford this project.

Mrs. Stoker… 'the money will be sent to some community'. "I don't see it adding to our national debt".  This flawed logic is why we are close to 16.5 Trillion dollars in debt.  We spend money and don't even think about the unintended consequences of our decisions.  We must not allow our township to go down the same path as our federal government.

Mr. Wong….  "This project is vital for this area."  "Grant is good."  No it isn't! We do not need this project!

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Update:  West Chester Trustee Meeting March 26, 2013

In the meeting last week, our West Chester Trustees voted to apply for the federal grant for a new bike path extension.  This was a 2-1 vote with Trustees Stoker and Wong voting for the grant, Trustee Lang voting against.

Over 20 West Chester residents came to the Trustee meeting to express disagreement over the Townships application for the grant.  The following is the video of residents opposing this issue and defense the by the trustees.

Many of the residents argued that using Federal funds for a local infrastructure project was wrong.  If we can't afford it ourselves, we shouldn't do it.  We shouldn't take federal money to do something locally.  We don't want the federal government involved in West Chester business.

The second argument was that our country is bankrupt.  We are over 16.7 Trillion dollars in debt.  We cannot afford to do projects like this, we are borrowing money that we don't have for a project that we don't need.

These two arguments were lost on Trustees Wong and Stoker.  Mrs. Stoker stated that while the federal government is a mess, West Chester is in fine shape.  While I agree with that statement, I think Mrs. Stoker misses the point that the people of West Chester are also in America, governed by the federal government.  That mess is our mess too…  We must react in all situation with all the facts at hand, not pick and choose what reality works best for us.

The United States is broke.  We don't need bike paths….