Majority moves to oust commissioners from other boards
“We live by a system of checks and balances. If you are in charge of all these agencies, we’re not getting fresh viewpoints.” — Dennis Elliott, Upper Pottsgrove Open Space and Recreation Board chairman
UPPER POTTSGROVE >> The majority of the board of commissioners moved ahead Monday with the contentious process of enforcing a resolution that its members cannot serve on other boards or commissions.
With a series of split votes, the board voted to remove Commissioner Martin Schreiber from the township’s civil service commission and to begin the longer process of removing Commissioner Elwood Taylor from the township’s planning commission.
The voting capped a night of similarly split votes over everything from the potential sale of the sewer system, to a new fire services agreement and even to such mundane things as approving the bills.
The resolution at the heart of the dispute goes by the unpretentious designation of “Resolution 703.”
What its unremarkable title belies is the sea change in power
dynamics in the township that it represents. It requires all township commissioners to step down as a board member from any township organization, or community that receives funding from the township.
In a legal opinion provided to the board last week in apparent anticipation of the conflict to come, Township Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. wrote that the resolution itself does not have the legal authority to remove members who refuse to resign — as is the case with both Taylor and Schreiber.
However, in both cases, the resolution does provide the basis for their removal by the board of commissioners.
In Schreiber’s case, this was accomplished by simple vote because, according to Garner, “the power to appoint is also the power to remove.”
In Taylor’s case, the law gets under foot in this exercise of power.
The same law which specifically permits township commissioners to serve on planning commissions, also provides the methodology for the removal of a planning commission member.
Some might see irony in the fact that the same night the Upper Pottsgrove board voted to remove Taylor from the planning commission to “avoid the appearance of undue influence,” the Douglass (Mont.) Board of Supervisors appointed its planning agency chairman to fill a vacancy on the their three-member board, and took steps to ensure he would continue to run the planning agency.
But the majority on the five member Upper Pottsgrove board sees things differently.
It’s Too Much
For 12 years, Commissioners President Trace Slinkerd said, Taylor was not only the president of the board of commissioners, but the chairman of the planning commission as well.
“It’s too much,” said Slinkerd.
“You are the one who is making it personal,” Slinkerd said. “The planning commission will not fall on its face without you. Your ego is getting out of control here Elwood.”
Taylor, who is up for reelection, has said the resolution is aimed at him because he switched his party designation from Republican to Democrat. Slinkerd denies this.
Commissioners Vice President France Krazalkovich tried to play the role of peacemaker Tuesday night, pointing out to Schreiber that he had previously expressed reservations about commissioners wearing too many hats.
He told Taylor that he did not question his ethics and reminded him they always treated each other with respect.
Krazalkovich urged both to choose what they had done in other venues in the wake of the resolution’s passage last month; Schreiber resigning from the fire company and Taylor from the board of Green Allies, which runs the Althouse Arboretum and receives annual funding from the township.
Both refused, with Schreiber pointing out that his term on the civil service commission ends in three months “and if you don’t want me to serve there, don’t re-appoint me.”
Taylor said he resigned from the Green Allies board so as not to embroil the organization in this political fight.
Taylor said he was particularly worried about the precedent being set with the civil service commission, which oversees police hiring and whose members serve for six-year terms, meaning they see at least two elections during which new township commissioners may be elected.
“It brings to mind the appearance of undue influence, the very thing you say you are trying to prevent,” said Taylor. “If people can be vacated at will from a 6-year term when a new board is elected, there will be no more independence from the board of commissioners.”
Setting a legal precedent “that any member of any board can be terminated at any point in time for any reason is very dangerous. The danger is when commissioners have too much power, not members of other boards,” said Taylor.
Already, noted Taylor, there has been a break from precedent in the hiring that night of the new police chief.
“It was a much more limited search than we’ve done in the past and the president insisted on interviewing all the candidates alone, prior to other board members. It certainly has the appearance of undue influence,” said Taylor. “What was said? What was promised?”
Slinkerd pointed out Taylor had been given the opportunity to interview the chief candidates and chose not to. “This is about reducing commissioner influence,” said Slinkerd.
With Schreiber abstaining the board voted 3-1-1 to remove him from the civil service commission.
Several Steps Needed to Remove Taylor
As Garner outlined in his letter, removing Taylor, or anybody, from the planning commission can occur by a majority of the board of commissioners, due to “malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance in office, or for other just cause,” according to the statute.
In this case, Taylor’s refusal to comply with Resolution 703 provides the “just cause” for his removal, Garner wrote.
The law requires that he be given 15 days advance notice “of the intent to take such a vote,” which is what happened at the Sept. 17 meeting.
The same law also allows for a hearing and, at Taylor’s request, it can be held in public. However, the law does not outline before whom that hearing will be held so, as it turns out, Garner said Taylor’s hearing will be held in front of the very same board that just voted to remove him.
Further, because the matter concerns him, Taylor will not be sitting as member of the board for the purposes of the hearing, said Garner.
And, if Taylor does not like the result of the hearing, a likely result, the next step is to take it to the Court of Common Pleas, said Garner, an occurrence of which he could find no prior example.
“We’re on new ground here,” Garner told the board.
Who is Exercising Undue Influence?
In more ways than one, said Taylor.
He carefully questioned Garner about the legalities and Garner assured him that until the final vote, Taylor is still a member of the planning commission and its chairman.
So Slinkerd’s decision to cancel an upcoming planning commission meeting last week, without consulting Taylor or seeking his consent, certainly smacks of Slinkerd exercising “undue influence” outside his authority, Taylor argued.
It was similar, Taylor said, to Slinkerd’s declaration after last month’s vote on Resolution 703 that its passage had “created vacancies” on the planning commission and civil service commission, an assertion Garner confirmed as incorrect.
“We didn’t want to put the planning commission in the middle of this,” Slinkerd said by way of explaining his move to cancel that planning meeting.
He added that should Taylor exercise his prerogative as its chairman to call a planning commission meeting, “the president and the vice president control the administrative staff.”
Taylor defended his record of holding both posts by responding to Slinkerd that “I do not think consolidation of power in two or three individuals is a good idea.”
Open Space Committee Chairman Dennis Elliott said when Taylor held both the president’s position and the planning commission chairmanship, “it was the appearance of total control. We live by system of checks and balances. If you are in charge of all these agencies, we’re not getting fresh viewpoints.”
Taylor said he never bullied, coerced or “threatened to throw people off the board” during his tenure, nor did he withhold information “as been done with me for the last several months. I get the feeling I am just supposed to show up and nod my head.”
He told Elliott he led by consensus, not fiat. “I never had power to dictate or command, but power to bring consensus. I did not have power to coerce, but the power to convince.”
Taylor’s rhetoric changed little, with the board voting by the same 3-2 split to begin the process of his removal from the planning commission.
“We’re just not getting things done in the township,” resident Dave Waldt said at the end of the meeting. “We come here every month and deal with the same thing.”
“Setting a legal precedent that any member of any board can be terminated at any point in time for any reason is very dangerous. The danger is when commissioners have too much power, not members of other boards.”
_Elwood Taylor, Upper Pottsgrove Commissioner