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Thank you so much, Chair Wilson, and and
County Council here. I'm Susan Caughman,

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Chair. I served as Chair
of the 1% [clears throat]

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sales tax capital sales tax project this
year, and I would like my committee to

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stand. I know Pam Temple
is here and Ginger Sharp I saw her come

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in. I don't know if any of the others
came in. We also had Eddie Raley from

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the town of Lowrys, Reverend Steve
Bishop was appointed by County Council,

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and Melvin Jackson was Vice Chair and
appointed by County Council.

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It was awfully nice, wasn't it, to have
a positive comment during our

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during our public forum for our work.
So, working on the capital sales tax

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project proved to be fun,
challenging. I didn't know how to count

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in millions.
>> [laughter]

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» Mind-boggling at times, and ultimately,
I think we produced a list of projects

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which will touch every part of our
county and will make our citizens safer,

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provide greater recreational
opportunities, and bring modernization

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and economic growth to benefit all of
our citizens.

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The process itself, I was thinking about
it's really a grassroots effort produced

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by a citizen committee. The six of us
were were citizen committee, and it will

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be ultimately voted on by all the
citizens of Chester County. So, that

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that really means that this work belongs
to the citizens of Chester County. It

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was interesting to me to see how our
six-person committee was formed. I don't

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know if you all know
quite what the process was. I was

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appointed first by the city of Chester
because we were the largest

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municipality, and then I was charged to
go out to two other municipalities and

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choose a person of those two. So, I
chose um

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Lowrys and Richburg, and that's where
Ginger Sharp and Eddie Raley came from.

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Then, you all chose three members. So so
truly we touched every part of the

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county. We represented all represented
all parts of the county. We began

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meeting on August the 25th and within a
month we had an application ready to be

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sent out.
Initially we worked on the referendum

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question and we really struggled with
the question about funding nonprofits in

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this. And so that's why it was so nice
to have a

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comment from one of our nonprofits.
You'll see in the final list there were

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five and all of these nonprofits have
operated in Chester County for a long

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long time. They have done great work
here in the community for many years. So

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I believe that their projects will will
be well done.

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On December 19th, right before
Christmas, we were asked to come to the

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county building to pick up the
applications. I thought it's going to be

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a small little package. It was a box
filled with three large notebooks. I

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think some of y'all may have seen some
of those notebooks. I could barely carry

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it to the car.
But what we did is we spent our

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Christmas and New Year's reading these
projects and then we did a yes no maybe

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from each one of us and then it was
compiled into a complete list and that

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sort of helped us see what was floating
to the top, you know, in our minds. And

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then later we did research on all of
those projects.

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In all we had 67 projects and they were
all really good projects which mostly

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involved public safety through fire and
police, recreation and rehabilitation of

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buildings to be repurposed for better
uses. And we were very conscientious

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about choosing projects from all parts
of the county so that no community was

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left out. And we were also conscientious
about choosing projects which would

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touch and benefit the most citizens.
Some of the projects will be highly

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visible like new fire stations, improved
recreation opportunities. Some you will

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never see, but they will keep us safer
because their equipment for fire and

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police.
In the end we arrived at 29 projects

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which we felt like would improve the
lives of all our citizens. We even took

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colored construction paper, created a
sheet for every section of our county

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and listed the projects under there to
make sure we had not missed any

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communities. And then we reordered our
list so as the voters go to vote, they

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will see with within a few items
something in their community or

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something that touches their lives.
So we are thankful that you have honored

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our work by approving it twice and we
hope that you'll approve it again

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tonight and ultimately that the voters
will see the value in passing the

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capital sales tax projects in November.
Again, I thank you on the behalf of our

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committee that you allowed us to do this
important work for our county.

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Thank you.