It's true. West Chester Borough spends more on its library than on its roads.

At least, in 2010 it might.

Robert White, a dentist, West Goshen Supervisor, and frequent utterer of controversial statements, told me last month that his township has no intention of giving an annual contribution to the West Chester Public Library. Then, he delivered this zinger:

"West Goshen decided to spend its money on active recreation and fixing roads. The borough must just spend its money on the library, because its roads are atrocious."

Afterwards, he said something like, "And you can quote me on that."

Well, Dr. White was right about the borough's spending priorities. In its 2010 proposed budget, the borough has set aside $105,000 for the library. However, citing Great Recession-related financial difficulties, borough officials tentatively canceled $99,000 worth of road milling and resurfacing projects. This brings the total money the borough will spend on milling and resurfacing to $0.

I'm not saying the borough is wrong to support the library or to cancel the road repairs. West Chester's roads don't bother me. And, if I had to enumerate the things that give my life meaning, books would make my list. Smooth roads wouldn't. (Rough roads might ... but I'm not sure I can succinctly explain why.)

The borough's 2010 budget contains $156,000 to purchase two dump trucks. These will be used to replace the worn out ones that now collect garbage, plow roads, and, if I'm not mistaken, spread road salt. So it's not as if the borough is spending nothing to make its roads easier to drive on. And if Borough Council President Sue Bayne gets her way, the borough might forgo purchase of one of the trucks and use the money to instead complete a few paving projects.

Re: the library funding, Dr. White said that West Goshen provides to the greater West Chester Area ample parkland and $300,000 a year worth of recreation programs. And, he said, residents already pay to support the county library system. Therefore, he said, no contribution to the West Chester Library is necessary.

The West Chester Public Library asks the municipalities in its service area to contribute a dollar annually for each of their residents. West Chester Borough, which has 18,000 permanent residents, contributes more than $100,000. West Goshen Township, which has 20,000 permanent residents, contributes nothing. The county also assesses a library tax, but revenues from this tax go primarily to the big library in Exton, not to the smaller libraries throughout the county.

In the last week, the West Chester Area School Board race, already contentious, has heated up. The rest of the races in my beat (West Chester and environs) are quiet. There are, however, murmurs in the borough's fifth ward. Independent Dave LaLeike is running a vigorous write-in campaign for borough council against endorsed Democrat Tom Paxson. And in Westtown, political unknown John Haws, a Democrat, is trying to unseat Republican Board of Supervisors Chair Carol DeWolf.

All week, my inbox filled with political e-mails. Most were from WCASD Democrats. A whole bunch included a link to a YouTube video that features Republican Candidate Sean Carpenter participating in Chester County Victory Movement rallies. Some included links to this column and this column, by Henry Briggs, a former Malvern Borough Council President and Republican Committeeman. The Democrats are also making a huge deal out of the fact that the Dem WCASD candidates brought ad time on cable television.

The Republicans have been really quiet. Few e-mails. No recent rumors of attack ads. No time on second-tier cable TV stations. This is about the only stir they've caused.

Back to the YouTube video. First, it's cheezy. Second, Democrats (and a few Republicans) asked me, "Isn't it shocking? Aren't you shocked by it?"

No, I'm not. I've covered plenty of Victory Movement rallies. The video appears to have been compiled from footage taken by Chester County Peace Movement regular John Beitzel. It is intended to place Carpenter among the more raucous Victory Movement demonstrators. All it does, however, is weave together images of Carpenter participating in Victory Movement rallies and images of other VM demonstrators yelling, screaming, and holding questionable signs. (OK - Carpenter is holding questionable signs too.)

The video tries to make it seem like Carpenter was demonstrating with the Victory Movement on the day when something like 200 motorcyclists came one of its rallies. I covered the rally, and though I looked for Carpenter, I didn't see him. (He rides a motorcycle with A Hero's Welcome and Warrior's Watch.)

(I regret now that my coverage of motorcycle day was so tame. I didn't mention the guy with the jacket that read "Sons of the Confederacy, Mechanized Cavalry Division." Nor did I mention the Confederate flags, perhaps because I found them so disgusting. One biker tried to fight me. I would've lost.)

Anyway, I hear that school district residents are at this moment being bombarded with campaign mailers. Some of them, apparently, feature quotations from my articles. Please, scan and send me whatever nonsense you get in the mail. You can reach me at dailylocaldan@gmail.com. I'll put them on the blog.

(BTW - The most ridiculous Chester County attack ad I've seen so far is this one. It goes after Democratic Tredyffrin Supervisors Candidate Eamon Brazunas for having been married less than two years. He's in his mid-20s.)

Sigh. It's 12:22 a.m. on Saturday morning. I'm still at work. I've filed 2,734 words today. I should be out at Halloween parties.

For your entertainment, here's my 2007 Halloween costume. Only the tattoo is fake.



Here's what I normally look like (late at night on a cell phone camera):



Going home!

This is kind of crazy: towards the end of a seemingly endless Wednesday night meeting, members of West Chester Borough Council voted unanimously to subject themselves to an hour of Powerpoint presentations. These presentations will take place next month and will supposedly help council members decide which architect to hire to design the $3.3 million police station expansion (hasn't anyone heard of, you know, quietly studying site concept plans?)

Who votes to watch Powerpoint presentations? They're awful. They induce sleep, or worse, the desire to see how far you can stick your finger up your nostril before you do yourself permanent damage. But Powerpoint presentations happen on computers, and people think that everything that happens on computers is good.

Remember overhead projector transparencies? They were pretty hard to make. Powerpoint slides are way too easy to make. They sponsor excessive slidemaking, just as keyboards sponsor excessive writing.

Back to my point: Borough council members, knowingly, willingly, and unanimously voted to subject themselves to an hour of Powerpoint presentations.

To be fair, this wasn't plan A.

Borough council had just voted to build a $3.3 million police station expansion, and they were now trying to select an architet to design said expansion. It was past 10 p.m. In the audience were three architects, a police chief, and a local reporter (Joe Norely, I think, had left). The architects were from two firms: Kimmel Bogrette and the Spiezel Group. The architects wanted to know which firm would get the job. So did the local reporter, who had to write about it, and the police chief, who would have to live with the results.

Now, borough council's public safety committee met earlier this month to watch powerpoint presentations given by four architectural firms (I was there, contemplating the nostril experiment). Of these four firms' presentations, the committee liked the Kimmel and Spiezel presentations the best. At a later meeting, the public safety committee voted 2 to 1 to recommend that borough council hire Spiezel (Note, when I say "borough council's public safety committee" I am referring to the three borough council members - Carolyn Comitta, Holly Brown and Chuck Christy - who make up this committee. West Chester's committees are subgroups of borough council - they are not independent of borough council).

The public safety committee's meeting, though, didn't seem to carry much weight. At the lengthy meeting borough council inflicted last Wednesday night on architects, the press, and law enforcement, council members just could not decide which firm to hire.

Seeing where things were going, they made a motion to table architect selection until next month. This motion failed. Then they made a motion to hire Kimmel Bogrette. This motion also failed. Then they made a motion to hire Spiezel. Again, this motion failed. Their fourth motion was to to table the discussion - and to make all council members watch the Powerpoint presentations that thus far only half of them had seen. This motion passed unanimously.

So, next month, late in the month, borough council members will again watch the Spiezel and Bogrette presentations. As will Police Chief Scott Bohn, Daily Local News Reporter Dan Kristie, and dutiful member of the public Joe Norely (I'm sure he'll be there). A half hour has been allotted to each presentation.

Why should the public care about all this?

Because some borough council members and borough administrators recognize that construction costs are currently very low. If the police station expansion goes out to bid while the economy is still in a slump, the borough is likely to get a pretty good deal. By waiting a month to select an architect, borough council is delaying construction by at least a month and running the risk of getting a less favorable deal. If this happens, taxes could go up.

(The fiscal conservative: They shouldn't be spending all that money anyway! The realist: Face it - they're building that police expansion, one way or another. Let's see how.)

Here's Council President Sue Bayne on what the borough should do (Note, Bayne said this at 10:45 at night. Hence the spirited tone):

"We have a construction economy now that allows us to do what we want to do the way we want to do it. We can get these projects ready now and really hope like hell the bids start coming lower than expected ... we fell on our tushes when the the Mosteller bids came in, and I think we need to do that again. If the bids come in too expensive, we can always say no."

(Note: the Mosteller Replacement Garage was expected to cost $17 million. The bids have put the price around $12 million. The bad economy is responsible for this $5 million discount.)