Mar 10, 2015 2 min read

Members of North Franklin Township Volunteer Fire Company made a plea Tuesday to local supervisors, asking them to fully restore the municipality’s annual donation to the company.

Fire Capt. Amanda Wolf spoke on behalf of the fire company in asking the supervisors to add $10,000 to this year’s donation to restore it to the $40,000 level it was three years ago.

“We just want what was promised to us,” Wolf said at a Tuesday supervisors’ meeting.

The township was met with unexpected bills and a reduction in nearly $16,000 in real estate taxes paid by Washington Crown Center mall, and supervisors looked for ways to reduce spending, said Silvio Passalaqua, chairman of the township supervisors.

Passalaqua said the township also reduced its annual donation to Citizens Library in Washington from $10,000 to $5,000 this year after needing to make unexpected repairs to the township building on Franklin Farms Road.

“That’s why we tried to even things out a bit,” he said.

More than a dozen people attended the meeting to show support for the fire company. One member delivered to the board a list of current expenditures of more than $313,000, as requested a month ago by the supervisors.

Supervisor Martha Ward asked for time to review that budget, saying the supervisors have always had an excellent relationship with the fire company.

Ward said the board followed a decision by former supervisors to base the company’s annual donation on the amount of money the Washington Wild Things Frontier League baseball team paid the township in lieu of property taxes.

That payment had been set at $38,000, but it was reduced to $30,000 two years ago after the team began to pay real estate taxes, she said.

“I’m willing to restore (the donation) and I am sure these gentlemen will too,” she said, referring to Passalaqua and supervisor Ron Junko.

“I appreciate everything you do,” Junko said to the fire company members.