Sent out another edition of Herndon Highlights. This summarizes our last council meeting where we discussed SCI Rockview, Thompson Woods, ICE, Chiles v. Salazar's local impact and more. Please join the group if you'd like to get all the details.
groups.google.com/g/herndon-hi...
It sounds like @thefarmerjones.bsky.social is talking about the Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre tragedy in State College. That happened on a 35 MPH road (Park Ave) with a turning lane that is far longer needed. The issue is that this road is a PennDOT road, so the Borough can't modify it directly.
Just sent out the latest edition of Herndon Highlights. This summarizes our last council meeting where we discussed zoning, the solar PPA, East End Social and more. Please join the group if you'd like to get all the details.
groups.google.com/g/herndon-hi...
Congrats. It'd be wonderful to have an easy way to find all the local gov accounts here (and even better if it was broken down by state). I know there are a few manually created lists, but I don't think there's anything official. Is there and I've just missed it?
Colleen Kennedy, Paul Takac, Ray Bilger, Scott Conklin, and Jason Moser standing in front of an American flag.
Great to see Ray Bilger kick off his race for Congress with support from so many local pols. We need men of integrity like Ray in Congress to defend our Constitutional rights and create a more affordable country for us all. I've donated to his campaign using:
secure.actblue.com/donate/raybi...
I can't say for sure. But I can say that these attacks are unconstitutional, and immoral. They must end. I know it seems like so many support this violence, but we must take strength in the fact that there are even more who don't, and that our number is growing daily. Join us and demand its end.
We're over a month past the legal deadline to release the Epstein files. Instead, we've had attacks on both foreign countries and cities right here in the US. Were these attacks at home and abroad always planned to distract from that missed deadline or is that a coincidence? What are they hiding?
We have seen over and over that whenever truth becomes detached from reality, and instead becomes whatever "dear leader" says, that safety becomes an illusion and prosperity declines. As the Trump government lies again about a person they just killed we must wonder what else they're lying about.
It isn't just people opposed to Trump who are in danger. It's those who support his goals as well. Google the deaths of Röhm, and Thälmann, of Maganov, and Starovoyt. Search what happened to "regular" Germans like Niemöller who initially fell for Nazi lies and supported them. It does not go well.
Many regular people are waking up to this fact, especially in areas like Minneapolis, where the lack of safety is being literally shoved in their faces by ICE every day. I don't think it has sunk in for many Republicans yet, especially followers of MAGA. They aren't safe from this either.
I went to a vigil for MN at a church Friday night. Was asked why I came, what my self interest was. I've been thinking about that a lot. My answer is that history has shown where this leads. No one is safe. Yesterday we saw you can work to heal our veterans, to honor them but it won't keep you safe.
The real “domestic terrorists” are in the White House.
The victim, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was reportedly a law abiding US citizen & an ICU nurse at the VA. He was licensed to carry a firearm.
Trump & Miller are responsible for his killing & are now lying to the American people.
I know as a local elected I have almost no power over this. I ran to make it safer to walk/bike our streets and more affordable/sustainable to live here. I'll still focus on getting that done, but I can't look at this stuff and pretend it isn't happening. What ICE is doing in MN is unconstitutional.
We're lucky that this isn't happening in State College yet, but if it isn't stopped it will come here eventually. Our U.S. Constitution explicitly bars cruel and unusual punishment, and this sure looks cruel and unusual to me. This vile, unacceptable, and unlawful behavior must end!
My office hour today has been moved to 4 pm. I plan on testing this change through May at least to see if this works better for people. I've also created an email group to send out summaries of council meetings. You can sign up with this link if you're interested.
groups.google.com/g/herndon-hi...
I know it's last minute and I know the weather isn't going to be great, but I'm going to be there. I hope some of you can make it too. We can't just accept this. We must act for our Constitution, our freedom, and our very lives.
Here's a link to sign up: mobilize.us/s/qv1G3d
I don't have a secret answer to fixing this, but I think the root of any solution will come from a mass movement of the American people. Indivisible is working on this and threw together a vigil tomorrow in State College from noon to 1 at the Allen St gates.
That's true of many people recently. Melissa and John Hortman, Charlie Kirk, Sarah Beckstrom, the list goes on. Each of those killings saddened me, but this one is on another level because our own government did it directly.
I'm sure you've all heard about ICE shooting and killing Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. It's a complicated situation, that's compounded by an active disinformation campaign, but what seems uncomplicated to me is that this woman should not be dead today.
I've heard from many of you that you don't want either of these outcomes. I hope you'll join me in 2026 in pushing to finish our new zoning so we have a chance at avoiding a large tax raise/service cut. Together we can make State College a more affordable, sustainable, and inclusive place to live!
We can't be sure if updating our zoning will actually cause another $100M+ worth of building here, or if new building will even keep up with inflation, but we do know that without new building we're either going to have to seriously cut services or seriously increase taxes.
If no high rises had been built our budget deficits would have been much larger. We would have needed a 15% higher millage to have the same deficit in 2024 (fast forward to 12:30 in our 10/8 meting to see this explained). To have had 0 deficit with 0 high rises we'd have to raise millage nearly 50%!
Bureau of labor statistics CPI calculator showing $500 in 2013 has the same buying power as $705.23 in 2025.
For example, from 2013 to 2025 the total assessed value of property in State College rose from ~500M to ~600M. That $100M of new assessed value seems like a lot, but really its only a 20% increase. At the same time inflation has raised the CPI over 40% in the last 12 years. 40% is well above 20%.
Total Inflation per decade in the USA over time since 1913. From www.inflationdata.com.
In the meeting council member Kassab expressed uncertainty as to why we had to raise taxes again now after so much has already been built here. Many in the community have this same question. The simple answer is that inflation has outpaced new building here.
We cannot expect such huge real estate transactions every year though. Instead next year we'll be back where we were last week looking for something like $4 million to balance our budget. Updating our zoning to allow more housing would encourage more 1 time transfer tax and more annual property tax.
Localities can put fees on event tickets, but Beaver Stadium and BJC are both in College Township, so they get that revenue, not us. Real Estate transfer tax is what bailed us out this year. The Standard and The Metropolitan were bought for over $100M and we got a windfall of $2.8M in transfer tax.
Bar chart showing 2024 Borough Tax Revenue by source. The total is just over 20M with Real Estate Tax over 10M, Earned income is next then real estate transfer tax and LST.
It's important to understand that State Law severely restricts the ways we can college revenue. We can't get sales tax, hotel tax, alcohol tax, etc. without a change. Instead we fund our services mostly through real estate tax, local services tax (aka LST), earned income tax (EIT), and transfer tax.
We have many homes that cost more, but even a $500k home with the exemption will only see an annual tax increase of $120/year, just $10/month. The challenge is that we have a few homes here assessed under $25k that pay $0 while small businesses pay full price. State law limits our options though.
$25k of exclusion might not sound like much, but we have to remember homes here were last assessed in the 1990s. A home here that costs $300k today has an assessed value near $50k. The homestead exclusion cuts its tax in half! Some asked for policy to discourage vacation homes here, this is it.
A 2 mill increase means that if you live in the home you own here your taxes will go up roughly $52/year for a $300k home, $86/year for $400k, and $120/year for $500k. This accounts for filing the homestead tax exemption, which excludes the first $25,000 of a home's assessed value from taxation.