We are standing in the 2200 block of Royal Ave here in the Newberry section of Williamsport. Royal Ave is in a residential area and it is a street that has seen no rebuilding or major repairs in decades. Similar streets include Boyd, Lincoln and Depot streets here in Newberry, Wilson St and Meade St in the East End, Locust, Elmira and Walnut streets in the northern part of our city. And the list goes on. Note the deterioration of the streets and the lack of curbing here. These people pay taxes. The mayor has told us our streets are “fine.” neighborhood streets knows better. Anyone riding on or driving our There are several budget lines that focus on city street repairs and resurfacing. The first is the Community Development Block Grant budget line. Neighborhoods that benefit from street repairs using this money need to be “income eligible”. These neighborhoods generally are south of High St, east of US 15 and west of Market St. In the past 4 years we have spent $1.3 million on these streets. First, Second, Third Avenues below High Street are examples. These are Federal dollars. The next major line is from what we call the “General Fund”. These are your property taxes. In the Mayor’s proposed budgets we funded $225,000 in 2012, $0 in 2013, $0 in 2014 and $0 in 2015. Finally we have our “Impact fee” dollars… money that comes from the gas companies. Money that can be used for street repairs if we choose. Mr. Campana’s proposed budgets using impact fee dollars include $600,000 in 2013, all used for Reach Road, $428,000 in 2014 and $0 in 2015. The street reconstruction you will see in 2015 are either Community Development Block Grant dollars (low income neighborhoods), or are impact fee dollars from 2014, money that was supposed to go into streets last year but, for one reason or another the current administration was unable to get done last year. We have a Mayor who tells us he has never signed a budget with a tax increase. And yet he has spent every nickel of any tax hike he has received without ever coming back the following year to propose a tax cut. And, in the last seven years he has managed to spend all of the city’s $3,000,000 savings account leaving us with nothing in the bank. Where did all of this money go? Certainly not into street improvements. As Mayor I will develop and implement a vigorous and aggressive street reconstruction and improvement program. We will do a complete review of the General Fund expenditures and move as much money as possible into street reconstruction and repair. In addition we will focus our Impact Fee dollars into street repairs and reconstruction. We will also focus on searching for and finding any state or federal grants that can be used to rebuild our streets. This will be a top priority. The tax payers of this City should expect to get their money’s worth. They deserve it.