Borough needs creative thinking

All of this year’s candidates for mayor of State College would probably work hard on behalf of the borough. However, only one of them has presented any genuinely new ideas for solving one of the borough’s ongoing problems, which is to diversify its sources of revenue. It’s well-known that an increasing percentage of residents of the borough is the student population, which is wonderful in many ways but makes it unrealistic to continue relying on property taxes as a main source of revenue. Ron Madrid has built alliances with other municipalities across Pennsylvania to try to change state law in a way that would allow the borough (and other municipalities) to at least consider additional revenue sources. For instance, at present, the hotel tax paid by the hundreds of thousands of visitors each year does not contribute anything at all to the borough, even though the borough supports these visitors through increased expenses. Ron Madrid would try to change Pennsylvania law so that the borough might have a share of this hotel tax that all visitors who stay in the borough pay. We need creative thinking and persistent action to expand and diversity our revenue sources, and Ron Madrid is the candidate who will do the most in that regard (and also be a strong leader in other ways).

This story was originally published November 1, 2017 at 11:01 PM with the headline "Borough needs creative thinking."