Washington Twp. official a no-show since June
Northampton County DA considering rarely used action to remove Stacy Diehl from office
When supervisors in Washington Township, Northampton County, approved a budget in December that raised the property tax by 14 percent, Supervisor Stacy Diehl was absent from the meeting.
In August, when they discussed plans to provide curbside yard waste collection to residents, Diehl was also nowhere to be found.
Same in September, when supervisors set the township’s trick-or-treat date for the Sun
day before Halloween.
In 2017, voters chose Diehl to be their voice on such matters large and small. But months into her six-year term, Diehl stopped attending township meetings, and she has been absent from them for nearly a year, even as she draws her salary and rejects calls that she resign.
Diehl is part of a board that has just three members, meaning that every time she is missing, there’s a danger the township won’t have the quorum it needs to conduct business.
But Pennsylvania law offers few options to remove elected officials who aren’t fulfilling their obligations, a reality that critics say rewards no one but the officials who aren’t doing their duties.
That’s led to the township solicitor, David Ceraul, turning to what could be a long-shot bid: He’s asked Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli to consider a littleused lawsuit to force Diehl out, under what’s known as a quo warranto petition, which questions whether someone is legally holding office.
In Pennsylvania, such suits are the sole way to challenge a public official’s right to hold office, and only the attorney general or the local district attorney are generally empowered to file them.
They are a rarity, helping to protect what the state Supreme Court in 1962 called the “Gibraltar of stability in government tenure.”
Usually the petitions are filed only in clear-cut cases, for instance when someone convicted of a felony seeks to hold public office, which Pennsylvania prohibits. Morganelli said he is still researching if a situation like Diehl’s could apply and he labeled it a novel legal issue.
“The question I’m looking into is [whether] neglect is enough,” Morganelli said. “That you’re just not showing up.”
Morganelli said he has not made that determination, but he cast Diehl’s absences as concerning.
“Her term doesn’t expire until 2024 and they have only three supervisors,” Morganelli said.
Diehl did not respond to multiple phone calls for comment, and she refused a certified letter sent from The Morning Call.
Ceraul and Supervisor Chairman Robert Smith both declined to comment on the impasse.
Diehl hasn’t attended a meeting since June 27, when her two colleagues voted to terminate thenWashington Township Zoning Officer Robert Scott, who is Diehl’s husband. It was a raucous meeting that devolved into a screaming match in which Diehl at one point yelled an expletive.
Diehl was later cited for criminal mischief and paid a fine for breaking into a township lock box to get a key for Scott, who had locked himself out of his office during the meeting.
“I think a lot of this is just bad blood up there,” Morganelli said.
Scott alleged he was fired in retaliation for alerting the state’s Department of Labor and Industry that a scoreboard and pavilion on the municipal recreation fields were never issued permits.
Smith insisted there wasn’t enough construction in the township to justify a full-time zoning officer.
Since that vote, in which Diehl abstained, she has missed every one of the township’s biweekly meetings, minutes show. But she continues to collect a stipend of $208.34 per month – $2,500 a year – that comes with the elected office, township officials said.
Peter Jirak, a relative of Diehl’s, defended her in a recent interview with The Morning Call. Jirak, who attended the June 27 meeting, said Smith and Supervisor David Hess did not treat Diehl well and excluded her from certain committee meetings and other township business.
“I think everyone needs to play nicely together, and I think she was treated unfairly from the get-go,” Jirak said. “It seems the previous supervisors were so comfortable together, and then this new person comes in and tries to shake things up and they shut her out.”
Diehl, a Republican like the board’s two other members, was elected in November 2017. She beat long-time Supervisor David Renaldo, a Democrat, by just 12 votes.
Renaldo called Diehl’s absences disappointing.
“I believe that when you win the vote of the people that means you should be there for the people, and when you take that oath prior to your first meeting, I think that really seals it,” said Renaldo, who served as supervisor for 21 years.
“I’m not a sore loser, but I feel sorry for her and I feel sorry for the other 5,000 residents of the township,” he said.
No easy route
It’s time for Pennsylvania’s law to make it easier to remove elected officials, said Matthew Battersby, an Adams County attorney who has practiced municipal law for three decades.
“We are not exactly considered a cutting-edge jurisdiction when it comes to the law. We have a lot of antiquated rules on the books, and this is one of them,” Battersby said. “It doesn’t benefit the public or the public interest. The only people it benefits are the people who aren’t showing up for office.”
Under the state constitution, an elected official can be removed through impeachment, but that requires action from the state Senate and the signature of the governor.
An official can also be stripped of office if convicted of a crime like forgery, perjury, bribery or the embezzlement of public money.
But unlike some other states, Pennsylvania doesn’t allow local governing bodies to vote out elected officials if they violate their duties.
State law also does not allow for a recall question to be put on the ballot for voters to decide.
That leaves quo warranto, the remedy that Morganelli is considering. Locally, it has been used before, though in very different circumstances.
In Bethlehem in the 1980s, quo warranto was the vehicle through which Mayor Robert Marcinin was ousted from office after he was elected to a third term, despite the city’s two-term limit.
In 2009, Morganelli successfully forced then-Northampton County Councilman Ron Angle off the Bangor Area School Board, after a judge concluded the dual office-holding conflicted with the county’s home rule charter.
At the same time, Morganelli also sued Tony Verenna for dual office-holding, after the Wilson councilman was elected to the Wilson Area School Board. Verenna ultimately resigned from borough council.
Morganelli said he recently sent a county detective to speak with Diehl to see if there was a legitimate reason she was missing meetings. Diehl and Scott were “very belligerent” toward the investigator, he said.
“Let’s put it this way, she was uncooperative,” Morganelli said.
They said there is “no way” she is resigning, Morganelli added. “They had their own complaints about the township.”
Battersby, the municipal lawyer, said he’s encountered other municipalities where elected officials aren’t performing the duties of office and refuse to step down. He said Diehl’s is the first he’s aware of in which a quo warranto lawsuit was floated, and he believes Pennsylvania’s Constitution would likely trump the legal maneuver.
In some instances, municipalities have gotten creative in other ways. They’ve adopted policies that tie pay to the number of meetings attended, or impose fines for unexcused absences.
In Monessen, a city just outside Pittsburgh, Mayor Matt Shorraw stopped attending meetings last spring, according to news reports. Shorraw even granted someone else authorization to pick up his office mail last month, according to WPXI.com.
The situation prompted city council there to adopt an ordinance that makes being absent a fineable offense if the elected official doesn’t have a good enough reason.
Last month, state Rep. Justin Walsh, R-Westmoreland, said he plans to introduce legislation to establish an attendance policy for members of elected municipal office.
“Across the state there have been many cases of elected officials refusing to attend regularly scheduled public meetings and perform the duties that they were elected to carry out,” he wrote.
Under Walsh’s proposal, if an official fails to attend more than 50 percent of the scheduled meetings in a calendar year, the remaining members of the board can request that the municipal solicitor begin proceedings to vacate the office.
At one time, the second-class township code, which governs Washington Township, allowed for the removal of elected officials.
But in 2003 that section of the code was thrown out by the state Supreme Court, said David Sanko, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.
The court determined the statute conflicted with the state constitution, which says elected officials can be removed through a two-thirds vote of the Senate or upon conviction of certain crimes.
Any change to the law now would require a constitutional amendment, a cumbersome and lengthy process that rarely succeeds.
Sanko agrees there should be a way to remove elected officials who aren’t performing their duties, though he said his organization has no plans to make that push.
In the cases he’s encountered, Battersby said fellow politicians had to wait for their errant colleagues to step down or their terms to expire.
“I wish [Morganelli] luck, I really do,” Battersby said. “If he wins, let me know.”
“I think a lot of this is just bad blood up there.” — John Morganelli, Northampton County district attorney