Resident sees addition, study at county building as waste of money

Editor:

One of the things I have learned in life is there are things I want and things that I need. Wants and needs are two completely different things. That is why I am prompted to write when I see a County Legislature that could not give us a tax cut looking to spend 30,000 dollars on a feasibility study to put an addition on the DMV building.

Need: Board of Elections needs to be relocated. I can not believe that there is nowhere in this county complex that the agency could be moved to. According to Chairman Callard there isn’t. I do not believe you sir.

Wants: A fancy conference room, and a fancy new legislative chambers. Somewhere, sometime one or more of our legislators must have been in another county with a much richer tax base than ours, saw better legislative chambers and I’m guessing now wants it for themselves. I say you don’t need it.

Much of our tax money has been put into the Clerks Building and the grounds. It is looking quite nice, actually beautiful. A resident put it right when he said that there is too much history in that chamber to abandon it. Many agree.

Lastly, none of you are that important that you need to spend the 30,000 to study it. This is why when budget time comes around and Mr. Nesbitt puts on his somber show and blames unfunded mandates for all the woes of the county, it is hard to swallow. The problem is you spend too much on unnecessary things.

You care only about doing things for government, to advance and grow government and for the good of government. The feasibility of a new county jail was also brought up from years ago. I remember because myself and a group of others opposed that and instead of spending 42 million on a new complex, the barely 40-year-old building built by a former Legislature Chairman’s relative was actually looked at and repaired for around a million dollars.

I believe Legislator Johnson did that looking. If not for protest from the public, more taxpayer money would have been wasted. So my two cents is make due with what you have. Stop wasting money unless it’s to cut our taxes. The 30,000 is a year’s salary for the average Joe in this county and you all toss it away for selfish reasons. My opinion.

Paul Lauricella Jr.
Lyndonville