Newly released emails confirm Bucks County Democratic elected officials overrode the COVID guidelines from the county’s top health official during the pandemic—emails that Democrats fought to keep from the public. Now one of the Democrats behind the strict masking rules says the issue is dead.
“The public is over it,” Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said during Wednesday’s county commissioners meeting. She also appeared to insult one of the parents who filed the right-to-know request for the emails in question, criticizing her for being a stay-at-home mom.
The story began on Aug. 15, 2021, when Dr. David Damsker, the county’s health department director, issued guidance about mask-wearing policies for students. The Bucks County Health Department (BCHD) emphasized that a “one size fits all” approach was not the right one. Rather than a countywide mask mandate for schoolchildren, Damsker recommended a “mask-optional” policy and the use of Targeted Temporary Mitigation (TTM) when conditions in specific schools or districts warranted it.
Without warning, the county dropped Damsker’s policies on Aug. 23 and issued more restrictive mask-mandate rules for the school districts. Damsker declined to answer questions about why his recommendations—which have since been proven correct based on the science—were overturned.
Parents who opposed the more restrictive approach, including Megan Brock, Jamie Walker, and Josh Hogan, wanted to find out what happened. They filed right-to-know requests and the state Office of Open Records found in their favor. But Bucks County responded by filing lawsuits against each woman in Common Pleas Court in an attempt to avoid turning over the materials.
Years of litigation followed as the county tried to keep the documents from the public.
In Brock’s case, a judge found the county had acted in “bad faith,” and an appeals court ordered Bucks County to pay $3,000. County officials also spent nearly $23,000 in legal fees for outside counsel in their failed attempt to block the emails’ release.
Having lost its fight against transparency, the county finally released hundreds of emails to Brock in July. They show Communications Director Eric Nagy, a longtime Democratic operative, and the county commissioners overruled Damsker. And when the new mask mandate inspired a public backlash, Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia wanted to craft a statement to release under Damsker’s name, the emails show.
In an Aug. 29, 2021 email Ellis-Marseglia sent to Commissioners Harvie, Gene DiGirolamo (R), Nagy, and County Administrator Margaret McKevitt, Ellis-Marseglia said she removed Damsker as a recipient and added Nagy. It appears to show the commissioners cutting Damsker out of the loop for COVID guidance.
In it, Ellis-Marseglia wrote: “THEY (people who’ve been contacting her about the issue) fully believe a statement from Damsker will change everything. IF Eric (Nagy) scripted a statement and put it on the website, would it help? Shall we?”
Some of the talking points Ellis-Marseglia wanted to include were that too many residents lacked vaccinations, so there was no “herd immunity”; cases were increasing and hospitals were worried about capacity; and, “I have always been an independent voice, even when the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) did not agree with me. But the letter from (then DOH) Secretary Beam just happened to coincide with science and math that said we need to start school with a mask mandate. For now, I would ask the community to remember that a mask is only a mask, kids are amazingly adaptable and resilient as long as their parents are, and this will not last forever.”
As DVJournal previously reported, computer “metadata” showed Nagy, not Damsker, wrote some COVID guidance. However, the county commissioners continue to deny that they or Nagy were involved in Damsker’s change of heart.
Walker raised the issue at last Wednesday’s commissioners meeting.
“The commissioners don’t believe in following the law and think their constituents are stupid people,” Walker said. “On Aug. 23, 2021, Diane Marseglia sent 13 superintendents in Bucks County fraudulent health guidance her political advisor wrote for her. This fraudulent document was the way schools were allowed to keep healthy children home.”
“The commissioners sued Megan (Brock) and me to hide their emails,” said Walker. “It took over three years with the help of Judicial Watch, because average people cannot fight their government. It’s financially impossible. But Megan and I were finally awarded the emails from a judge, and the commissioners were fined $3,000 for acting in bad faith. The commissioners spent at a minimum $26,000 of taxpayer money hiding their own words.”
Walker’s remarks apparently struck a nerve with Ellis-Marseglia. She lashed out at Walker for bringing up the controversy.
“I can’t believe we’re still sitting here and we are parsing the minutiae of the COVID pandemic,” Ellis-Marseglia said. “Let’s be clear. The email I wrote was on Aug. 29 (2021). The (updated) recommendation from Dr. Damsker was Aug. 23. So, I don’t know if you have an education problem here, but 23 comes before 29.
“But you take that email that came out Aug. 29 and make it sound like it came out before Aug. 23 and cause all this distress,” Ellis-Marseglia added. “And (you) say all these awful things… Did you think we went into a time warp or something?”
“The decisions about COVID were never made in a vacuum,” she said. “They were made with our health department, the state health department, with the CDC in mind… All of it was rendered moot after Aug. 23. The state came in and told us what to do. Go Google it. Try a fact.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever worked,” she said to Walker, a former teacher who is now a stay-at-home mother. “But if you work, you know there are departments. And they come up with draft ideas and letters and they send them to their legal departments and their communications department to review to make sure there are no spelling errors, grammatical errors. So, clearly it would make sense that Dr. Damsker would send his communication to our legal department and our communications department. So that is why it would go to Eric Nagy.”
Walker and Brock don’t believe the county’s explanations.
“Bucks County acted in bad faith and wasted thousands of tax dollars to bully me, a private citizen, for wanting government transparency,” Brock told DVJournal. “This is an egregious abuse of power and a waste that is unacceptable.”
“It took three years, tens of thousands of dollars, and constant gaslighting from our own government for the truth to come out,” Walker added. “We were finally given some of the emails we were awarded in May 2022. The Bucks County Commissioners illegally changed the school health guidance on Aug. 23, 2021, to allow schools to keep healthy kids home from school (through quarantine) solely to benefit their political careers. They did not factor what was best for children into their decision, just themselves.
“The commissioners thought the constituents in Bucks County were stupid and would not realize the truth,” Walker said. “My goal is to make sure the 80,000 children who were hurt by Bob Harvie, Diane Marseglia, and Gene DiGirolamo know who did it to them and why. They are horrible leaders, and voters foolishly elected them into these positions. They should all resign in shame today.”