Rex D. Read, of Lawrence Township, announces his candidacy for Clearfield County Commissioner on the Democratic ticket.
Read served as Commissioner from 2004-2007. He was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Lawrence Township Board of Supervisors in 2009 and currently serves on the township Zoning Hearing Board.
“I believe in a common sense approach to the fiscal management of your tax dollars and the county’s assets.” Read said. “If our friends in Washington have taught us anything over the past several decades, it is that government can not sustain itself by spending more than it brings in. Put simply that means expenditures must equal revenues if we are to have a balanced budget. This lesson was apparently missed when the commissioners passed the 2011 budget with expenses totaling over three million dollars more than revenues. I am sure we will also hear tales about them cutting taxes by a million or so dollars but, they failed to cut spending by the same amount if at all.”
Continued fiscal mismanagement will place the County in a position that is very difficult to overcome. Spending over $2,000,000 to put a new suit on an old building that was and is inadequate for the current, let alone the future, needs of the County is not sound fiscal management. When the costs for this project are totaled, a) acquisition and renovation of the Gray building, b) acquisition and demolition of the WCPA building, c) constructing a parking lot (too small for the buildings needs), d) renting an additional parking lot, e) renting additional space for the offices unable to be squeezed into the Gray building, any alleged savings are simply imaginary.
Read is a graduate of Clearfield Area High School and Penn State University, DuBois. He is a life long resident of Lawrence Township, Clearfield County and an active member of the Pine Grove Bethel Presbyterian Church, where he has served as both an elder and a deacon. As a gun owner and hunter he enjoys any opportunity to be outdoors. Read and his wife Claudia have been married 33 years and have two daughters and a grandson.
“I believe we are in very challenging times. Harrisburg and Washington are striving to make much needed cuts in spending. Local government will receive overwhelming pressure for their tax dollars. Sound common sense fiscal management is needed for Clearfield County to move forward.”
“I look forward to meeting these challenges as your commissioner for the next four years and ask for your vote and support during this upcoming election.”