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Feb. 21, 2024 Editor, the News Gazette: Hardly a week goes by without The News-Gazette reporting about some of our localities embarking on a new project.
All the projects are pedestrian, rather than flashy: making a courthouse more secure (Feb. 7), adding an elevator to the municipal building (Feb. 7), new restrooms in a park (Jan. 24), improvements for the town square, (Jan. 24), and helping homeowners replace or repair well and septic systems (Jan. 31).
Nothing spectacular. All of the projects are of the “would be nice to have” kind, not of the “house on fire emergency” kind. But all of the projects will make life nicer for the members of the community. And all of them have been put off, for years, because of lack of money.
Several of these projects will be taking place in Buena Vista, which has been in a financial hole for years and is striving to dig itself out of it. It now looks like it will be able to, with some help from the federal government. All that new money is coming from President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
It is bitter irony, then, that the much needed help is coming not thanks to, but despite, the congressional representative for whom the citizens of Buena Vista have been voting, loyally, again, and again, and again. Ben Cline (R), who has never seen a — grossly revenue reducing — tax break that he didn’t like, voted no on the act, saying it was too expensive. From Rep. Cline’s point of view, there’s always enough money to be found in the federal purse to benefit the richest individuals and the largest corporations but never to benefit his own — devoted but less exalted — constituents.
TAMARA DUVALL Lexington
