Dear Editor,
Independence Township trustee’s Charles Dunn and Daniel Kelly have it all wrong.
The claim that the township’s senior center program and its dilapidated building is something that was thrust upon them and the township is utterly ridiculous.
It was not the voters of Independence
Township who decided to start or finance a senior center program. That decision was made by township officials without voter approval.
It was not voters who decided to put seniors in an old dilapidated farmhouse. That too was a decision made by township officials without voter approval.
However, the voters did decide three times that they did not want their tax dollars used to build or run a new senior center.
Which brings us to the miraculous discovery of an extra $250,000 that Mr. Dunn now proposes be used to build a new senior center and remodel a carriage house.
Has he forgotten that Independence Township passed a deficit budget last year? Are we to believe that a township that passed a deficit budget last year suddenly has $250,000 to waste on a project voters have said numerous times they do not want?
Contrary to Mr. Dunn’s claims, it is the voters, not the township, who continue to have the senior center thrust upon them.
Mr. Dunn’s proposal to raze the current senior center and replace it with a temporary structure foolishly ignores voters wishes and should be tabled quickly by the board.
It’s time for the board to consider the option of life without a senior center. Simply put, the public has never supported the use of our tax dollars for a senior center because it is a luxury that we do not want to fund with our tax dollars.
To blame the public for conditions it did not create is another absurd claim coming from an Independence Township official.
Mike & Lori Powell
Independence Twp.