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Tomassetti has lost touch with taxpayers

Terry Tomassetti is the worst commissioner in the history of Blair County and a far cry from the self-proclaimed conservative who, when he hosted a local television talk show, had nothing but wretched things to say about anyone who so much as thought about raising taxes.

Since his election to the commissioners’ office, he seems to be exactly what he once raged against. All he’s done is raise taxes and spend our money.

When first elected, all he and his former partner in crime, Diane Meling, did was spend our tax dollars to hire consultants to do the job that they sought and were elected to do.

I find it interesting that Tomassetti, a lawyer who specializes in “elder care law,” could be so uncaring when it comes to the senior citizens he supposedly represents.

How much more of a tax burden does he think those of us on fixed incomes can bear? Perhaps it is his goal to drive all of us out of the homes we’ve spent nearly our whole lives paying for and maintaining.

It should be noted that past commissioners, including John H. Eichelberger, who were either too short-sighted or obtuse to understand that incremental, smaller tax increases might have been prudent, share the blame for this landslide of taxation we are now suffocating under.

We are a county with a large number of senior citizens, and when it came time for reassessment, that should have been taken into account by not reassessing anyone who was 65 years of age or older, and who had lived in their home for 20 years or more.

That group of folks — most on fixed incomes — should have been given a pass when it came to reassessment. Why?

Because as we downsize and/or pass away and our homes are sold, at that point the county would have been able to reassess a given property and gain its precious tax dollars.

On behalf of all Blair County seniors who still own their homes, I appeal to Tomassetti by paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, “Commissioner Tomassetti, if you care about the senior citizens of Blair County, if you seek to help us in our hour of need, if you have any heart at all, come to your senses. Mr. Tomassetti, do the right thing! Mr. Tomassetti, stop raising our taxes!”

Lucinda A. Dodson

Hollidaysburg

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