Taylor offers bitter reflections at last meeting
UPPER POTTSGROVE >> December is the month when municipal boards, councils and commissions hold their final meetings of the year.
Budgets get adopted, next year’s schedule of meetings get set and departing members, whether by their choice or the voters’ choice, offer final thoughts and often leave with a plaque or some other token of appreciation for their service.
All of those things happened at the final Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners meeting of 2019 on Monday night — but not entirely in the usual way.
First, for the record, the $3.2 million 2020 budget did pass and will not raise taxes, although it does make use of $360,000 in surplus fund balance to balance the budget.
Commissioner Martin Schreiber cast the only vote against both the budget and the 4-mill tax rate.
And although Commissioners’ Vice Chairman France Krazalkovich, who did not seek reelection, received a plaque from Chairman Trace Slinkerd for his years of service, the other commissioner leaving the board did not.
Unlike Krazalkovich, longtime Commissioner Elwood Taylor did seek reelection, but was unsuccessful in his bid.
His campaign was hampered by a controversy of the board majority’s making — a resolution barring commissioners from serving on other boards or commissions. As a member of the township planning commission for more than 20 years, Taylor was in violation of the resolution, but refused to step down.
Although the commissioners voted 3-2 to remove him, state law required a hearing, after which, the board took no further action. With his defeat at the polls, Taylor was no longer in violation of the resolution and no final vote was ever taken to remove him from the planning commission.
His term to that appointed position ends on Dec. 31, 2020.
But that conflict, and his long tenure on the board of commissioners, was the subject of an intense campaign, waged largely on Facebook, during which Taylor said at his final meeting that his record of accomplishments had been twisted by his opponents.
Taylor, a retired Pottsgrove Middle School social studies teacher, told the board “I’m a history teacher and I know history is written by the winners and I am a loser.”
“I’ve been here a long time. I never sought power. People came to me and said ‘Elwood would you do this? starting 25, 30 years ago and here I am, absolutely disappointed about the history that is going to be written about this time,” he said.
He thanked those with whom he has served over the years, saying “nothing that was done here was done by one person. I always thought my power, was the power to persuade.”
Taylor said he had decided to skip over most of his “long list” of concerns, and focused on just one: “I am very concerned about the status of public dialog here, especially at our meetings. There is no public dialog. People are limited to just asking a question or making a statement, not participating in any dialog.”
There was no plaque for Taylor, despite more than 20 years on the board, but that was evidently at his own request.
“I did not want them to feel obligated to honor someone whose service they had conspired to so thoroughly trash in such personal ways. I could not have accepted any of their accolades, knowing that in their mind, they were only lies,” Taylor wrote in an email to MediaNews Group.
“As I said, as a history teacher, I know that history is written by the winners — and the winners have been very busy effectively turning my legacy on its head. Ironically, the best things that I did for my community during over half of my adult life were used as weapons to discredit me,” Taylor wrote.
“While I am personally hurt and disappointed, I am more concerned about the affect on the public at large. It feeds into that commonly-held belief that government and its officials cannot be trusted,” Wrote Taylor.
“I believe that effective government institutions represent the epitome of humankind’s unique ability to enhance their existence and living conditions through mutual agreement,” Taylor observed. “Spouting ‘alternative facts’ only serves to undermine the trust that is required to live successfully in community.”
In his comments, Krazalkovich, by contrast, spoke only of the board’s accomplishments during his time and thanked the commissioners, past and present, including Taylor.
Speaking to Taylor, Krazalkovich noted that “when we first met, it was like “oil and water.”
“But once we became colleagues, it certainly matured me enough to understand that at the end of the day, we are colleagues and we’re both working to use our own principles to serve our neighbors,” Krazalkovich said.
Krazalkovich had hoped to serve even more neighbors when he sought, unsuccessfully, a seat at the Montgomery County Commissioners table in the Republican primary.
It remains unclear whether he will seek another elected office, although he was heard discussing the decision by state Rep. Marcy Toepel to forgo running for reelection in 2020.
“I’m a history teacher and I know history is written by the winners and I am a loser.”
— Elwood Taylor, Upper Pottsgrove Commissioner
“Once we became colleagues, it certainly matured me enough to understand that at the end of the day, we are colleagues and we’re both working to use our own principles to serve our neighbors.”
— France Krazalkovich, Upper Pottsgrove Commissioner
“Ironically, the best things that I did for my community during over half of my adult life were used as weapons to discredit me.”
— Elwood Taylor, Upper Pottsgrove Commissioner