County Watch
By G. L. Penney

 The following are remarks that I made to the Tioga County Legislature at a regular public meeting on April 13. Regarding the property which I mention below, the resolution to turn this Route 434 property over to the Local Development Corporation was subsequently withdrawn.

 "First I wish to commend this body on coming to grips with the problem of ever increasing county taxes. You have a long way to go but as a finance committee of the whole, meeting with Mr. McEwen, you have begun to tackle the problem. However, I should also like to suggest two general approaches which you may not have considered and upon which Mr. McEwen placed little or no emphasis.

 "First, your current budget shows a figure of $17,400,000 in current surplus. Presumably this has been set aside for your several ambitious building projects, currently in progress. Please consider: before this present building was acquired, most of the county's functions were housed in three buildings on Court Street, the courthouse, the clerk's office, and the two small buildings known collectively as the county farm. And yet the population of the county is not significantly greater now than then, and it is actually declining. While it is true that the demand for health and welfare services is growing rapidly, much of the space in the present county buildings is unused and the buildings are beginning to decay badly. There is a lot of room for saving here.

 "Second, the county is now in possession of several properties for which it no longer has a use. I understand that one of these properties is being disposed of by resolution today. These properties ought to be sold at public auction and thereby returned to the public tax rolls.

 "If I understand correctly, the county intends to demolish one of its buildings at an estimated cost of $900,000. This is a complete waste!
 "I hope these suggestions may be of service to you. I thank you for your attention."