WEST CHESTER TWP. — After 1 1/2 hours of face-to-face verbal jousting Wednesday, Butler County Commissioner Mike Fox and West Chester Township Trustee Catherine Stoker found the chasm separating them on a proposed county sales tax hike to be as wide as ever.

        “It's like we're talking in two different languages, isn't it?” said Ms. Stoker, one of the leaders of the referendum drive that caused commissioners to rescind the tax increase and place the issue on the November general election ballot.

        Mr. Fox, chief architect of the 10-year sales tax proposal, accused Ms. Stoker of opposing the sales tax increase because the projects it would fund would lure businesses to communities in Butler County other than West Chester.

        “You represent the worst of Yuppie selfishness,” he told her. “"We got ours and the hell with everybody else.' The county has given more money to West Chester than to any other community.”

        The two public officials were invited to a staff luncheon at the Enquirer's news bureau in West Chester to debate the sales tax increase. It was the first time the Republican commissioner and the Democratic township trustee have debated the issue at length, one-on-one.

        Ms. Stoker acknowledged that money came from the county, the city of Hamilton and Fairfield Township for the development of the Union Centre Boulevard commercial area. But she said West Chester taxpayers also made many financial sacrifices to build Union Centre. Tax increment financing, benefit assessment districts and developer land donations enabled the project to be completed, she said.

        “We have really poured our resources into making West Chester attractive to commercial development,” Ms. Stoker said.

        She criticized Liberty and Fairfield townships for contributing nothing to the construction of the Michael A. Fox Highway, which opened two years ago.

        She said the lack of much commercial development along the Fox Highway, especially in Hamilton, proves that building roads doesn't ensure economic development.

        Mr. Fox said the Fox Highwayillustrates the dangers of delaying major road projects. That project was delayed so long, he said, that residential development beat commercial development into the corridor.

        Mr. Fox said he fears that Butler County will lose a lot of potential commercial development if 11 proposed road projects the sales tax increase would fund are delayed or shelved.

        “We're going to be inundated with residential development,” he said. “The responsibility for bearing the tax burden will fall on the home owners.”

        Despite repeatedly asking, Mr. Fox could not get Ms. Stoker to say which of the proposed road projects the sales tax would fund she supports. Ms. Stoker responded by saying she hadn't seen a list of the projects or heard an explanation of them.

        “You're the leader of the opposition,” Mr. Fox said. “Should we have a sales tax increase to fund the development of what we believe is another 44,000 jobs?”

        “Now, I don't know how I can say this any more clearly. I want what the voters in Butler County want,” Ms. Stoker said.

        “You are a voter,” he noted. “How are you going to vote?”

        “I don't know what your project list is. What the voters want is fine with me,” she said.

        “And in order to get voter approval, you are going to have to go to the rank and file citizen in this county and convince them that whatever list you come up at that time is good for them.”

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