A Bucks County Common Pleas Court judge ruled Thursday in favor of two residents seeking greater government transparency, ordering officials to release emails that had been withheld in separate right-to-know disputes.
Chalfont resident Jamie Walker had filed a public records request for emails sent by County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia from a government account that was not her publicly listed county email address. Her request was tied to events during the COVID-19 pandemic, when county officials silenced Health Director Dr. David Damsker after his public health recommendations diverged from the state’s stricter policies.
Walker initially prevailed in her appeal to the state Office of Open Records (OOR), but Bucks County sued to block the release. Judge Stephen A. Corr ruled the county must turn over the records, giving officials 90 days to review and redact the documents.
“I am happy that the courts in Bucks County upheld the law and ruled in my favor,” said Walker, who was represented by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal advocacy group. “Commissioners Harvie and Marseglia have been operating in a cloud of secrecy since they took office in 2019.”
Bucks County GOP Chair Pat Poprik said the ruling reinforces concerns about transparency under the county’s Democratic leadership.
“Once again, our Democratic Commissioners Diane Marseglia and Bob Harvie lost their court case to keep their decision-making emails secret,” Poprik said. “They preach transparency, but consistently they have been anything but, and the courts have found against them repeatedly. When will they start acting and behaving in the best interest of the county? Who’s paying for all these frivolous lawsuits? We are the taxpayers!”
The case marks the second open records defeat for Bucks County in recent months. In June, the Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of another resident, Megan Brock, also tied to pandemic-era communications, and found the county acted in “bad faith,” ordering it to pay $3,000 in legal fees.
Separately on Thursday, Judge Corr ruled in favor of Lower Makefield resident Tim Daly, ordering the Pennsbury School District to release emails involving former school board member Debra Wachpress.
Daly sought the emails as part of his investigation into Wachpress, who had worked for The Peace Center, a nonprofit that also provided services to the school district. Wachpress, a Democrat, had run for Congress against Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in 2020, but dropped out after allegations regarding her use of offensive language came to light, Levittown Now reported.
“I sought these emails to better understand what she did to trigger the EEOC lawsuits and other alleged misconduct,” Daly said.
Daly’s attorney, Chadwick Schnee, called the decision a victory for government accountability.
“We are hopeful that this decision will remind Pennsbury and other agencies that transparency should be at the forefront of governmental operations,” Schnee said. However, he expressed disappointment that the court declined to require the district to pay Daly’s legal fees, warning it could discourage future public records requests.
As with the Walker case, the court gave Pennsbury 90 days to redact and release the emails.
County spokesman James O’Malley and Pennsbury communications officer Jennifer O’Neill did not respond to requests for comment.
Walker put the ruling into context.
“As (Commissioner) Marseglia has said before, ‘We all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws any time they want. So for me, if I violate a law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention.’
“She got her wish.”