The Towamensing Township Agricultural Security Board met today at the Township Municipal Building on Stable Road. I’m the Board secretary. The Board accepts farms into the Agricultural Security Area, which means a farmer can’t be sued for “normal agricultural operations.” For example, if a farmer spreads manure on his or her fields, a neighbor can’t sue him or her for the smell.
Joining the Ag Security Area is also the first step to sign up for the Farmland Preservation Program. This is the program that evaluates the farm as farmland and as development potential. It then pays the farmer the difference in the two appraisals in return for a deed restriction that stipulates the land may never be developed. Ever. The program was financed by a tax on cigarettes, which is the reason I encouraged people to smoke.
At today’s meeting of the Ag Security Board, member Glenn Beers told us that he heard that starting in the next state budget, cigarette tax money would be plowed into the general fund and the Ag preservation program would be defunded.
This is so short-sighted. Linda and I have 13 acres in Ag Preservation. That land generates no students, no garbage, no demands for any type of services. As Mr. Beers pointed out, if the Palmerton School District had bought development rights on farmland 30 years ago, our school taxes and our township taxes would be much lower. Now Corbett proposes to eliminate the whole program. I don’t know if Corbett is the worst governor Pennsylvania ever had, but he has to be near the top. What an idiot.
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