Our Response to a posting their chairman put on their website (a must see):

October 29th - "WOSRTF-PAC has temper-tantrum"

Well, it wasn't long after we posted our hopes that our opponents would take a break from the personal and negative attacks, that they did it again.  In fact this time, it appears they have gone off the deep-end.  Maybe after we set the record straight (again), we can get back to a good healthy debate that helps the voters form their own opinions.  We'll tackle a couple of these claims tonight.  In red below are their statements and in blue are our responses:

"The WVPAC [Wallace Voters PAC] implies that the open space tax will hurt those on an earned income.  Why do they only imply this and not say it. Well they know that the open space earned income tax will have little or no impact on Wallace Township's retired residents.  It is an earned income tax.  Most retired township residents have little or no earned income.  1/4% of $0.00 = $0.00.  How stupid do they think you are?"

==> Wow, did they really write that?  First, they must mean "fixed income" in the first sentence, otherwise we're not sure what they are trying to say.  Secondly, we don't think you're "stupid", as they say.  We're pretty sure you were able to figure out in our letter that we think there is an "overall" tax issue,  not just a property or earned income issue.  Did they really use the word "stupid"?  Wow.

"The Wallace Township Open Space Referendum Task Force registered as a Political Action Committee on October 10 and voter services made a mistake when we contacted them (twice) to find out who the officers of the WVPAC [Wallace Voters PAC] were.  We formed as a citizens group originally about three weeks before the general election of 2004. You might have seen us at the polls surveying the residents to see if there was support for an open space tax.  Since then we have been working towards the goal of bring the tax referendum to you for a vote. "
==> Why they are fixated on these PAC registrations is strange for several reasons.  First, they were caught not even being registered by the 7th of October, the day they faulted us for not being registered.  We, of course, WERE registered before the 7th on September 29th.  This is a case in point of why you don't want to go negative.  If you're wrong it looks real silly.

Secondly, this group has had a rocky road.  Scroll down to our news for September 13th and 22nd.  Basically, there was a Wallace Township "Task Force" created to push a "YES" vote using township resources and money (to be offset they say by donations to the township general fund).  When asked to present a balanced view of the "open space tax", since they were using tax payers resources and money, they refused.  Well to make a long story short, when the daily local came out and chastised them for their abuse of township resources, they folded up shop and started their PAC.  Checks were returned and the group stopped using the township building and resources.

If you thought these were over the top, you haven't seen anything, there are still 2 left.  We'll respond to those Monday, then it is back to work.  Just a teaser for Monday - They claim we are "political operatives for one of the candidates".  Yeah, you read it right, "operatives".  I didn't even know we had those in Wallace Township.  Things really have changed...

October 31st - "WOSRTF-PAC has temper-tantrum" (CONTINUED)

Ok, still can't believe they wrote this stuff.  They really should get some more eyes on these statements they are making.  Oh well, here is our response to the last two of their negative attacks:

In red below are their statements and in blue are our responses:

"They claim to have no ties with big developers, but they have already spent more money than open space would cost them in a year.   They may not be developers, but they are spending a lot of time and effort to sell the big development message.   They also fail to mention that they are political operatives for one of the candidates in this year's race for Supervisor.  Why would they hide this?"

==> First, can they please come up with something new.  We have heard this "Big Developers" scare tactic used against anyone who questions the township hierarchy for I don't know how long.  Anyone who dares to speak up, gets repeatedly maligned with this term.  That is plain wrong.

Now, since we are asking questions.  We have some questions for them.

1) What in the world are they talking about when they say "political operatives"?  Why are they trying to paint some strange picture of "political operatives" doing who knows what?  Why are they hiding from you that they know exactly our chairman's position and in who's campaign it is?  It's no secret.  Just like when they hid from you that they knew we were NOT big developers, so they could pretend we MIGHT be.  And, here again they hid something that is a matter of public record and something that Bryan and our Chairman openly discuss with residents.  Our Chairman is the Treasurer for Bryan McDonaugh's campaign.  We don't endorse candidates and Bryan does not endorse us.  Two different campaigns/issues, two different committees.  Pretty simple.  And no "political operatives", sorry.

2) They are unable to see why we would spend our money to help our neighbors keep their hard earned money, because they don't understand where the payoff is.  That begs the question.  Does anyone in WOSRTF-PAC stand to gain anything if this tax hike passes?  Do any of them live adjacent to one of the properties that is on the top of the township wish list?  Has the Task Force when it was a part of the township or even now as a PAC ever received money from one of these land owners who may stand to gain 2.9 million dollars?  Has the Task Force when it was a part of the township or even as a PAC received money from one of the people running for supervisor?  Have they received any large donations from groups outside the township?  We know the answers to these questions.  They are free to answer them if they want to.  We would rather stick to the issues.

"We thought WVPAC might be developers or be supported by developers because we could not imagine that anyone else would think that $2.50 a week (based on the average earned income) would be too much to pay to preserve 200-300 acres of open space, prevent 100-150 homes from being built in the township and reduce the number of trips made on our roads each week by 1500. "

==> First, notice here they are admitting that we are NOT "Big Developers", so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.  This is intellectually dishonest since they never believed we MIGHT be "Big Developers", because they already knew we were not.  This and the fact that they keep changing these numbers making the acreage greater and greater as their campaign goes on bring real doubt on the credibility of those numbers.  If you use their original loan number of 2.9 million dollars (now it seems they have raised this too in their latest mailing to 3.5 million) they are claiming here to be able to by an acre of land for $10,000-$15,000.  This is not Kansas.  Our heads are spinning trying to keep up with these ever changing numbers.  Lastly, see our October 24th update, this is not a small tax raise, only if you believe THEIR numbers.

Now let's try this one more time.  With what little time there is left, let's keep it clean and stick to the issues.  WOSRTF-PAC give us a break, no more personal attacks.