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TEXAS TOWNSHIP — At Monday night’s bi-weekly township meeting, Supervisor Chairman Jack McDonald reported receiving a return letter from former zoning officer Wayne Earley stating that any Texas Township files he may have once held at borough hall were returned to the township at the completion of the projects they pertained to.
At a meeting where the two public input sections comprised about of half the time — largely filled with two township residents’ criticisms of this newspaper’s coverage of the township — McDonald announced that the supervisors sent a letter to Honesdale borough last week asking if any township files remained at borough hall.
“We got a reply from Wayne Earley,” McDonald said before reading the letter, which reads, “All records of any type relating to all projects that I’ve worked on for Texas Township were delivered to the Texas Township building, given to the secretary or given to the zoning officer at the time when I was finished with them.’
“So apparently,” McDonald continued, “We have no files or nothing up at the borough building, everything is down here.”
Township resident Georgette Pascotto asked when Earley finished his work with the township. She was answered by secretary John Haggarty, who said it would have been at the end of 2006.
“We just thought we ought to again make sure everything was down here,” McDonald said, “Apparently everything we have at Texas Township is down here. All our files is here (sic). So I see they’re... putting things around and just want to make sure all our files is down here. So that’s what Earley says, they’re here... supposed to... they are here.”
McDonald did not offer an explanation of his former claim that “A lot of files have disappeared,” as he was quoted in our Feb. 4-6 weekend edition story entitled “Texas hold ‘em.”
Calls to McDonald’s residence were not returned by press time Tuesday.
In a Tuesday interview, Haggarty confirmed that Earley’s letter says all files pertaining to Texas Township projects he worked on have been returned. He also said the only records that have been returned in recent weeks pertained to Rusty Palmer’s building.
Though Earley continues to work on the new Rusty Palmer building, Haggarty says he now has to go to the township building to access the records.
When asked if that meant the remaining records this newspaper filed a Right to Know request for more than six weeks ago were at the township building all along, Haggarty said he “would have to check.”
Haggarty said he was not a party to the conversation where McDonald admitted records were missing and claimed he thought they may have been stolen.
TEXAS TOWNSHIP — At Monday night’s bi-weekly township meeting, Supervisor Chairman Jack McDonald reported receiving a return letter from former zoning officer Wayne Earley stating that any Texas Township files he may have once held at borough hall were returned to the township at the completion of the projects they pertained to.
At a meeting where the two public input sections comprised about of half the time — largely filled with two township residents’ criticisms of this newspaper’s coverage of the township — McDonald announced that the supervisors sent a letter to Honesdale borough last week asking if any township files remained at borough hall.
“We got a reply from Wayne Earley,” McDonald said before reading the letter, which reads, “All records of any type relating to all projects that I’ve worked on for Texas Township were delivered to the Texas Township building, given to the secretary or given to the zoning officer at the time when I was finished with them.’
“So apparently,” McDonald continued, “We have no files or nothing up at the borough building, everything is down here.”
Township resident Georgette Pascotto asked when Earley finished his work with the township. She was answered by secretary John Haggarty, who said it would have been at the end of 2006.
“We just thought we ought to again make sure everything was down here,” McDonald said, “Apparently everything we have at Texas Township is down here. All our files is here (sic). So I see they’re... putting things around and just want to make sure all our files is down here. So that’s what Earley says, they’re here... supposed to... they are here.”
McDonald did not offer an explanation of his former claim that “A lot of files have disappeared,” as he was quoted in our Feb. 4-6 weekend edition story entitled “Texas hold ‘em.”
Calls to McDonald’s residence were not returned by press time Tuesday.
In a Tuesday interview, Haggarty confirmed that Earley’s letter says all files pertaining to Texas Township projects he worked on have been returned. He also said the only records that have been returned in recent weeks pertained to Rusty Palmer’s building.
Though Earley continues to work on the new Rusty Palmer building, Haggarty says he now has to go to the township building to access the records.
When asked if that meant the remaining records this newspaper filed a Right to Know request for more than six weeks ago were at the township building all along, Haggarty said he “would have to check.”
Haggarty said he was not a party to the conversation where McDonald admitted records were missing and claimed he thought they may have been stolen.
“You’ll have to talk to Jack about that,” He said.
At Monday’s meeting, the supervisors also resolved to amend their fee structure to address what supervisor Don Doney called an unfair fee to those that did not obtain a permit prior to a building project.
Doney said it recently came to the supervisors’ attention that the fine was unfair when a homeowner had a small roof installed over part of their deck and had to pay the same $500 fine as a recent large unpermitted commercial structure built with a cost of over $100,000.
The homeowners in question and another homeowner will each be reimbursed $350 for the fines they paid, which are now calculated by the square foot with a minimum fine of $150 and a maximum of $1,500.
Resident John Bartron took this as an example of the board’s willingness to work with people who bring their issues before the supervisors.
With numerous examples and quotes from various recent stories in this newspaper, Bartron spent a good portion of the meeting making his case that this newspaper — which he now calls the “Wayne Innuendo” — has mislead its readers with what he called spoon-fed information.
“Nobody in here has any doubt who’s been spoonfeeding them this garbage,” Bartron said.
“Right now,” said fellow resident Carol Santos, “I think this newspaper has to back up on their verbiage and if they have facts and they want to put them in good English so everybody understands that they’re not misleading that’s fine. If they want to keep doing all this salacious advertising and innuendoes and everything else then I think they have to be addressed.”
