DV Journal

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

The nonprofit trying to persuade local governments to sue “Big Oil” producers for damages allegedly caused by climate change has been making steady advances to Chester and Delaware counties, according to an email provided to Broad + Liberty.

The revelation comes just two months after the Bucks County Board of Commissioners announced it would sue major oil producers like BP, Chevron, Exxon, and others, arguing that the companies knew for decades that their products would cause climate change yet took no action. Several days after the announcement, the only Republican on the three-person board, Gene DiGirolamo, withdrew his support for the suit.

Indeed, it appears as if the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) was eager to use its success with Bucks County as a springboard.

Bucks County became the first local government in the commonwealth to take up the kind of suit that first began to sprout up about a decade ago. For example, in 2016, San Francisco and some other California municipalities sued longtime oil producers. Bucks County is being represented by the law firm DiCello Levitt on a contingency basis, meaning the county does not pay the lawyers unless the lawyers win the case.

In an email sent March 18, 2024, a senior political associate for CCI emailed Delaware County Councilmember Christine Reuther, and cc’d Bucks Commissioner Bob Harvie, both Democrats.

“My name is David Zeballos and I’m with the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a nonprofit that helps elected officials and their communities hold oil and gas corporations accountable for the massive costs of climate change. I’ve met with a number of folks who have told me about the southeast PA regional call that you are now leading! That includes Council Member Elaine Schaefer, Commissioner Bob Harvie, Commissioner Josh Maxwell, and Commissioner Marian Moskowitz, who all expressed support about the work CCI does,” Zeballos wrote.

“Do you have any availability for a 30 min Zoom meeting to talk about our work in Pennsylvania and areas for collaboration?” Zeballos wrote later in the email.

The Center for Climate Integrity is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that says its mission is to “educate communities and elected officials about the role of polluters in causing climate change and the need to hold polluters accountable for their actions.”

A spokesperson for Chester County said no action is imminent, but noted that could change.

“Chester County is not considering a similar lawsuit at this time,” spokesperson Michelle Bjork said. “However, we will continue to monitor any developments in Bucks County’s case and will reevaluate as needed.”

“Chester County’s commitment to protecting the environment and our residents is demonstrated by our efforts to preserve more than 30 percent of the County as permanently protected open space and we will continue to explore all avenues to safeguard our community,” Bjork said.

Requests for comment to Delaware and Bucks counties were not returned. A request for comment to CCI was also not returned.

Delaware County already has something of an established relationship with CCI. County Council Chair Monica Taylor (D) is listed as a member of CCI’s “leaders network” and recently participated in the press roll out of a major CCI study.

In November, Taylor rattled her rhetorical sword about the need to punish oil producers in a Politico article.

“I agree that it’s not fair for this burden of addressing climate change to fall only on our residents,” Taylor said. “Polluters should and must pay.”

Yet the politics of oil are very different between Bucks and Delaware counties. In Delaware, thousands of people are employed in the industry at places like the Marcus Hook LNG terminal.

Counties do receive annual payouts from Pennsylvania’s “Act 13” of 2012, commonly known as the “impact fee” imposed on “unconventional” gas wells and distributed to counties and municipalities to help them maintain the environment, or to offset the wear on infrastructure from oil and gas drilling.

For example, for the five years from 2019 to 2023, Bucks County received $2.76 million from the impact fee, even though there are no active wells in the county. Delaware County took in $2.45 million over the same period, according to a state website devoted to Act 13 revenues and disbursements.

The impact fee delivered $179 million across all governments in the commonwealth in 2023.

In Western Pennsylvania, CCI gave a presentation in April on “climate accountability” to an environmental subcommittee of the Allegheny County Council. At the time, a council member said it would be premature to assume the county would sue oil producers.

Some of the initial lawsuits against Big Oil have already failed. In 2019, a New York judge ruled in Exxon’s favor, but as is often the case, the message of the ruling was nuanced, with Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court writing, “this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.”

Other cases remain in progress, and, “[t]he number of climate-related cases against Exxon continues to grow,” the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

“In February, the city of Chicago sued Exxon and other major oil companies alleging they deceived Chicagoans about climate change. In March, Bucks County, Penn., filed a similar suit. The Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental group the Rockefeller charities helped create, swayed officials in both places to bring the suits.”

IRS filings show CCI is predominantly funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund, the philanthropic endeavor established by the legendary New York family whose business pursuits in the earliest parts of the 20th century produced Standard Oil, the petroleum monopoly whose most prominent corporate successor is Exxon.

The Journal also reported that the Rockefeller Family Fund “influenced President Biden’s decision in January to pause approval of new liquefied natural gas exports,” — a decision that touched off bipartisan condemnations in Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest LNG exporter.

“While the immediate impacts on Pennsylvania remain to be seen, we have concerns about the long-term impacts that this pause will have on the thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry,” Democratic U.S. Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman said in a joint statement. “If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision.”

Numerous other politicians, including many Republicans, and associations also heavily criticized the Biden LNG “pause” — something that could easily become an issue in the presidential election this year if circumstances continue to make Pennsylvania a crucial battleground state.

The email cited in this story was obtained via the Pennsylvania Right to Know Law by the nonprofit organization Government Accountability and Oversight. A database search of nonprofit tax filings did not reveal any significant grant donations to GAO in order to be able to characterize its funding.

Yesterday at work, when I was writing “Thursday, June 6, 2024” on the board for my students, I instantly recognized the significance of the date. As an American soldier and combat veteran, it is one of those dates in history that I and so many others should and do remember: D-Day.

One of those dates when your imagination takes you everywhere, wondering what those servicemen who landed on Omaha Beach experience on their mission to save the world.  The determination of Allied forces to bring an end to a crude and merciless war that shamelessly claimed the lives of so many innocents must never be forgotten.

As the day continued, I kept receiving calls and text messages about a flag raising outside the Delaware County courthouse in Media. I assumed it was in honor of D-Day. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Indeed, there was a flag raising—but it was not Old Glory. Instead, a Pride flag was raised to commemorate LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

Why on June 6th and not on the official start date of June 1st?

Why ignore the memory of our fearless heroes?

Surely, Delaware County leadership understands that we all owe a great deal to their sacrifice.

Surely Delaware County leadership knows we have treasured veterans still with us who could have been asked to speak.

Does their inclusion count?

Whether it was due to incompetence or an intentional ideological snub, it raises fundamental questions about the competency of our county leadership.

Given the universal efforts by heads of state – including the President of the United States – to honor this incredibly special 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I find it unconscionable that our County Council simply forgot what day it was. I do not want to believe it, but I cannot help but think that this was another attempt by our ideological and out of the mainstream County government to divide and push their ideology instead of commonsense unity.

Would it have really hurt to give all of us Americans and Veterans one day in June? Why not put together something special in honor of D-Day? Honoring the heroes who made the landings in Normandy takes nothing away from our LGBTQ+ community.

June is big enough to honor both communities. Leaders should be smart enough to understand that.

Whether or not County Council heeds my call for honoring our Greatest Generation and what they did on June 6, 1944, let all of us do it anyway.

Delco – join the rest of the nation and the world in remembering and acknowledging the importance of D-Day and of treating our heroes right.

(This column first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

During the last month, Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon has been busy representing Delaware County residents in Washington. Well, at least some of the residents. Others might feel even less represented than usual as Scanlon continues to lurch leftward, leaving the average Delco citizen behind.

Let’s look at a few of her well-thought-out and truly courageous votes.

First, a bill was put forward in the House called the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

The act was a response to the wave of virulent antisemitism that is sweeping college campuses. The authors believed that congressional action was needed to stop this hate on the campus and to keep it from spreading beyond the campus. Congresswoman Scanlon decided otherwise and joined 91 other members to vote against the bill. She was joined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the so-called “Squad” — essentially the far left of the Democrat Party.

This places Scanlon outside the mainstream, even among Pennsylvania delegates. Only Pittsburgh’s Summer Lee — another darling of the far-left — and Philadelphia’s Dwight Evans joined her. Other reliable Pennsylvania Democrats like Brendan Boyle and Madeleine Dean saw the wisdom of monitoring the hateful actions of these radical students and professional agitators. None of the Republicans from the state voted against the act, either. But Scanlon chose to join the radical fringe.

Second, a bill was introduced which would require the deportation of any — can I say this? — “illegal alien” who has assaulted a police officer. The bill passed, 265 to 148, with 54 Democrats joining 211 Republicans. Scanlon was, once again, not with the majority.

How can anyone conclude that someone who has entered the country illegally and assaulted a police officer, should not be deported? I presume she and the rest of the Squad had a Zoom call and came to the conclusion that illegal aliens trump police officers in their weird hierarchy.

Third, the House passed a resolution that condemns calls to defund the police. It did not have the force of law, but is a good way for members to let the country know where they stand on the issue. Scanlon and the rest of the Squad voted against it.

Sixty-one of the most progressive members of congress are still holding out hope of defunding the police. Scanlon, who lives in a tony and safe area of the county, thinks those who don’t should fend for themselves. She is not new to this cause — here is a photo of her marching in a parade calling for the defunding of the police.

Scanlon won’t fight campus radicalism and antisemitism, won’t vote to deport illegal aliens who commit violent crimes, and won’t show even a minimal amount of support for funding the police. Does that sound like representing Delaware County to you?

A month after an order from the office of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR), Delaware County officials continue to hide basic information from the public about the tax dollars they are spending on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

Since the county announced in 2022 it was spending $125,000 to hire a DEI officer, DVJournal has requested basic information about its diversity and equity efforts, including total spending, the number of programs and, perhaps more relevant, any data showing the Democrat-run county has a diversity problem that would justify the taxpayer expense.

Instead, DVJ was repeatedly told “we have no records” to avoid releasing the information.

For example, in March, County Solicitor Jonathan Lichtenstein claimed the county conducted a search for information on DEI hiring numbers, targeted numbers, and salary information — and they didn’t exist.

“[The Chief Human Resources Officer] replied that the County did not have such records,” wrote Lichtenstein to an OOR appeals officer.

The appeals officer didn’t buy the explanation.

“One cannot logically infer that every responsive record flows through only [The Chief Human Resources Officer],” determined OOR Officer Catherine Hecker last month. She demanded the county do a more thorough search.

The result? The county still claims it doesn’t have basic information about its own DEI programs or spending.

“Neither of the…inquiries resulted in the finding of any records that were responsive to [your request],” Delaware County Open Records Officer Anne Coogan wrote Delaware Valley Journal in response to the OOR order.

One person who questions the county’s claims is the former DEI director, Lauren Footman. While her salary was made public, she told DVJournal there is more data in the county’s hands.

Footman was fired earlier this year after alleging discrimination by her boss, Chief Administrative Officer Marc Woolley. In a podcast interview with DVJournal at the time, Footman recalled the reaction inside county government to DVJournal’s requests.

“I would try to have conversations…because I believe I saw some of your requests. And they’re like, ‘Oh, well what is this answer? And I’m like, ‘Well, you know that I don’t even have access to the system that has the information so why are you asking me?’ It’s either with HR or the controller.”

According to Footman, the entire DEI effort was a “PR stunt” for elected Democrats on Delaware County Council.

“There were certain council members, particularly the individuals who identify as women on council — Dr. Monica Taylor, Elaine Schaefer, and Christine Reuther — who said that they were prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion when they ran for office.”

One way to disprove this claim would be to release information showing county government was disadvantaging people of color, or women, in its practices or policies. For example, the county’s population is about 22 percent Black. If the government workforce is only 10 percent Black, that would be a fact to bolster the county’s policies.

But county officials have repeatedly refused to release that data when requested by DVJournal, even after the OOR order.

Meanwhile, the DEI spending continues.

Publicly available budget documents contain nebulous language regarding exactly how much more money was used for DEI. Documents from Fiscal Year 2022 list a planned DEI Officer under the county executive director, but no other details.

It was the same last year when Delaware County budget documents mentioned the need for a “supplier diversity program” in Central Purchasing and more DEI awareness for staff.

A series of DEI initiatives was announced later that year that included a $450,000 taxpayer-funded “micro-grant” program for parks, community gardens, and bike facilities. The county spent at least $1,7000 for five directors to receive a DEI certificate from Delaware County Community College and spent an undetermined amount of money for department logos.

A Georgia-based consulting firm was hired for an unknown sum to investigate whether minority and women-owned businesses faced barriers in getting public works contracts. The study looked at contracts from July 2017 through June 2022. It was originally supposed to be completed by the end of May but the deadline was quietly extended to August 2024.

No reason was given. An email to the consultant was not returned.

Please follow DVJournal on social media: Twitter@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal

Senior Assistant Montgomery County solicitor John Marlett said some 474 Montgomery County primary voters returned ballots with the wrong date.

“The year was either missing or incorrect,” he said. The Board of Elections then voted 2-1 to accept ballots without a year or the incorrect year.  However, neighboring Delaware County adopted the opposite policy.

Marlett told the Montgomery County Board of Elections on Friday that the secretary of state’s guidance says a missing or incorrect year does not disqualify the ballot, leaving it up to county boards of election. The state issued that advice despite the fact that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found wrong dates disqualified the ballots.

Montgomery County Board of Elections Chair Neil Makhija, a Democrat, said the policy of accepting incorrectly dated ballots was implemented during the North Penn special election and “the year [on the ballot] doesn’t provide any sort of security or validation.”

He moved to accept ballots dated between when they were distributed and when the election would be counted. Vice Chair Jamila Winder, also a Democrat, seconded it.

Republican Tom DiBello opposed the move, saying, “My opinion hasn’t changed.”

He noted that Act 77, the law allowing mail-in ballots, has not changed. “There’s been no change to the law. I didn’t support it then, I don’t support it now, and I won’t support it moving forward.”

Makhija said, “We shouldn’t allow something immaterial to disqualify or discount their vote… I think it’s really important for this board to protect the right to vote for all residents.”

The motion passed 2-1.

DiBello said, “Obviously, in Montgomery County, we interpret Act 77 the way we want.” He noted there were “significant issues” in the primary election process and suggested the election board meet monthly leading up to the general election to ensure a smooth process.”

In Delaware County, the Board of Elections took the opposite position from Montgomery County.

“The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the dates can be required by state law, overruling the federal Circuit Court ruling,” said James P. Allen, elections director for Delaware County. “Therefore, Delaware County did not process any ballots from envelopes that were completely missing a date or that were dated incorrectly.”

Linda Kerns, a Philadelphia election lawyer, said because of the guidance from the secretary of state, counties are making different decisions about which mail-in ballots to count.

“So, yet again, we have counties interpreting the issue quite differently which means, as usual, in Pennsylvania, ballots are being treated differently based on the county where you vote,” said Kerns. “Generally, counties with Republican election offices are interpreting date to mean month, day, year that you filled out the ballot. Democrat-led offices are taking a much more broad and liberal approach. That is not exclusive, though, as some Democrat counties are not counting. So it is, as usual, a disgrace.”

Kerns added, “Each court is interpreting a poorly written law very differently. We should have uniformity as to how these ballots are treated.  That is what is fair and democratic. We do not have that.”

Please follow DVJournal on social media: Twitter@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

Delaware County Councilwoman Christine Reuther said last week the county was already eyeing a “sizable” new tax increase to meet the demands of an ever-expanding budget that now includes inflation-fueled pay raises, running a prison, and managing a health department that’s only two years old.

Reuther’s remarks at Wednesday’s personnel board meeting comes less than four months after council voted to approve a five percent tax increase on county residents — the first county-wide tax increase since 2014 and the first tax increase since Democrats took over the majority of the council after the 2019 elections.

Reuther seemed irked when responding to a presentation from the director of the county health department who was asking for a number of raises to complete a department “realignment.” Many of those raises, the director said, would be offset by grant funding.

But then the director said, “I think they [employees in other departments] too should consider the opportunity to get paid better.”

Reuther jumped in.

“But the problem is [the other employees are] not grant funded and we’re looking at a sizable tax increase just to keep things where they are for next year. So I mean, that’s the reality. I’m hoping it’s not going to be as sizable as some people think it will be, but there is going to be a…,” and Reuther then cut herself off.

(Video here, minute 25:25)

Reuther’s forecast of a “sizable tax increase” was underscored by comments made earlier in the meeting from Delaware County Controller Joanne Phillips, who questioned some of the raises that were up for approval.

As an independently elected official, Phillips is tasked with being the taxpayer’s watchdog. She is not, however, a member of the personnel board, and as such, addressed the board during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“I just wanted to make it clear that the costs that you’re considering today are just the salaries, not any other benefits, and the cost of our benefits that go into our budget,” Phillips began, (video, minute 1:10).

“Two, I wanted to make note that there’s an impact on our pension ultimately, which hasn’t really been determined as we accelerate our salaries. If that’s the case, our salaries have really gone up in the last couple years. We’ve gone from about $167 million after Covid after the prison came online to looking at really, almost $188 million about two years later. So we are incrementally raising this a great deal.”

In an email to Broad + Liberty, Phillips clarified that her 2022 payroll figure should have been $162 million, and she estimates $187 million for 2024 — in other words, an increase of $25 million in two years. The 2022 baseline payroll number already includes all of the employees added by the county taking over the prison and creating the health department.

Phillips also submitted a memo to the personnel board, which was just as stern in its warnings.

“The [Government Finance Officers Association] warns against excessive labor costs, noting that labor costs comprise a high proportion of most local governments’ budgets,” Phillips wrote.

“Excessive compensation costs can severely damage a government’s financial position.”

“After the grant funding ends, the County will be left with the entire cost of the program, especially compensation increases. That is the situation we see here in a few of the agenda items,” she added later in the memo.

A spokesperson for the county provided little additional information. “The [fiscal year] budget will be presented and voted on later this year. The County doesn’t have any additional comments to add,” said Adrienne Marofsky.

Phillips’ comments that each dollar in salary has other sidebar costs is accurate and apropos.

Broad + Liberty asked the county in 2022 how much it spent in these “parallel” costs on things such as the county’s obligation to make Social Security contributions for every employee, and the cost of fringe benefits like health insurance, etc.

The county gave an estimate of 70 percent. When Broad + Liberty double-checked to see if that meant that the county spent an additional 70 cents for every dollar of employee salary in other obligatory costs, the county did not respond.

Broad + Liberty presented the same figures to the county again for the purposes of this report, and once again, the county did not respond to the core question.

If the county does have a parallel cost of 70 cents for every dollar of payroll, then the $25 million in payroll increases forecast by Controller Phillips means the county has incurred another $17.5 million in additional payroll obligations, like benefits, because of the raises.

Putting the two figures together means the county’s comprehensive cost of payroll increases from 2022 to 2024 will be around $42.5 million.

After Democrats won control of the county council in the wake of the 2019 elections, enacting many of the reforms they promised such as the creation of a county health department and de-privatizing the prison have put constant pressure on the budget. Some of that budgetary pressure was temporarily papered over by funds received from the federal government to help with the 2020 pandemic. But now, four years later, most of that pandemic money is gone.

When the county hired a consultant to estimate how much the county would spend if it operated the prison itself as opposed to the private contractor, the consultant’s top-end projection was $49.9 million.

In the current budget, the county is spending $56.6 million, even as the prison’s overall population has been drastically reduced by twenty percent or more.

In addition, the county is also now seeing the first wave of lawsuits from the prison now that it is the liable party for most of the prison activity, as opposed to the private contractor holding that liability.

Under Democratic control, the county has also spent millions more on outside legal help.

Previous analysis of the budget by Broad + Liberty estimated that even after passing the $5 million tax increase last year, the county was still facing an annual structural deficit of $65 million.

President Joe Biden took a victory lap at Strath Haven Middle School in Nether Providence Township on Friday after his Thursday night State of the Union speech.

While pundits have described Biden’s speech as “fiery” and “angry,” the 81-year-old Pennsylvania native was more subdued in front of the Delaware County audience. Biden’s local appearance also contrasted with his more focused and on-point performance in Washington, D.C. On Friday, he reverted to form, losing track of his thoughts and misspeaking several times.

Some of Biden’s difficult-to-parse remarks included, “We added more to the national debt than any president in his term in all of history;” and, “Pennsylvania, I have a message for you: Send me to Congress!”

But the Biden-friendly audience, which included many local politicians, cheered and applauded nonetheless, even throwing in a chant of “Four more years!”

Another key difference in his Delco speech was that Biden attacked his likely GOP opponent, Donald Trump, by name rather than referring to him as “my predecessor.”

“Folks, our freedoms really are on the ballot this November. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are trying to take away our freedoms,” Biden said. “That’s not an exaggeration. Well, guess what? We will not let him.”

Biden hopes the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will again spur Democrats to vote.

“Those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America,” said Biden.

Biden touted the U.S. economy as “the envy of the world,” with “15 million new jobs in just three years” and unemployment at a “50-year low” with “800,000 new manufacturing jobs and counting.”

“Wages are up, and inflation is coming down,” he said. “Inflation’s dropped from 9 percent to 3 percent.”

He called for “the wealthy” and corporations to pay more taxes. He would set the corporate tax rate at 21 percent. “No billionaire should pay a lower tax than a teacher, sanitation worker, or nurse.”

He would set the tax rate at 25 percent for billionaires to raise $500,000 billion over the next 10 years, which the government would use to cut the deficit and “provide childcare.”

He said he’s fighting the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of drugs and mentioned lowering the price of insulin to $35 a month for senior citizens, a move Trump made in his presidency. Biden promised he would lower the price of medications for all Americans.

Biden proposed giving Americans $400 a month tax credit toward their mortgage if it’s their first home or they’re moving to “a larger place.”

“We’re cracking down on big landlords who are price-fixing and driving up rents,” he said, adding Congress should pass his plan to “bring those rents down.”

“We’ve got $359 billion passed for climate change,” said Biden.

“We beat the NRA when I signed the most significant gun safety law in 30 years. Now, we have to beat the NRA again. I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden said.

Biden told his Delco audience his goals are the same as they were in 2020: to grow the middle class, to “restore the soul of America,” and to unite the country. Republican critics were quick to respond that his State of the Union speech a day earlier was one of the most partisan and divisive in history.

On the street outside Strath Haven Middle School, pro-Palestinian protesters picketed, chanting “Genocide Joe has got to go,” among other slogans.

Please follow DVJournal on social media: Twitter@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal

A Common Pleas judge ruled Thursday the Delaware County Health Department can’t bigfoot local municipalities when it comes to health inspections of restaurants, businesses, schools, and public swimming pools.

Judge James P. Bradley enjoined the Delaware County Health Department from inspections in the municipalities involved in his ruling after a Feb. 1 trial.

The towns include Middletown, Thornbury, Clifton Heights, Eddystone, Prospect Park, Ridley, and Lower Chichester.

In 2022, Judge Spiros Angelos ruled the county could not take over health inspections from first-class townships unless the townships agreed.

The DCHD was accredited on Feb. 28, 2022, and obtained state approval that April. It costs $10 million or so each year, but much of the funding comes from state and federal grants. Democrats, who swept county council offices in 2019, ran on creating a county health department.

Once inspectors were hired, the county began conducting health inspections in the 49 towns in the county. However, the municipalities mentioned above and a handful of others already had health departments in place and fought to continue performing the inspections locally.

Lower Chichester received a letter from the state Department of Health confirming it was entitled to continue the health inspections. The county then sued it, bringing it into the litigation. Other towns had sued the county to stop its inspectors from performing inspections.

Jim Byrne, the lawyer representing Springfield, Ridley and Aston, said he was “very pleased with the court’s ruling. I think it is consistent with facts and law.”

Jeff Seagraves, Thornbury Township manager, said, “We’re pleased with the outcome of the trial.”

Frank Catania, solicitor for Lower Chichester, said the municipality tried to work cooperatively with the county and even asked the state Health Department for guidance, only to be sued by the county.

Township administrator Joseph Possenti Jr. said they were “very disappointed” when the county sued them.

“We didn’t want to fight,” said Possenti. He said they tried to arrange talks with the county about the health inspections but were unsuccessful.

After the county sued Lower Chichester, county Councilwoman Christine Reuther brought up the litigation at the Dec. 6, 2023, council meeting and told her fellow council members that she objected to giving Lower Chichester a $45,000 grant to tear down a derelict building on Green Street.

“Lower Chichester is one of the municipalities which is refusing to allow Delaware County Health Department health inspectors to do their inspections,” said Reuther, saying the town had sued the county rather than the other way around. “They’re costing us to spend a considerable amount of money in legal fees.”

After listening to Reuther, the council voted against the grant.

Business owners were shocked to find that health inspection fees increased significantly when the county took over. Lower Chichester charges $75 to inspect a business. But the county charges $300 or $400, said Possenti.

“That’s what they charge some of these restaurants and bars,” he said. “It’s a lot of money.”

“I’m very happy with the judge’s decision,” said Possenti. “We’ve been doing this (health inspections) for a number of years… It’s small businesses in Lower Chi that get inspected, a pizza shop, and the elementary school. We’ve been doing it for years and doing it well. We’ve never had any issues with food contamination. Our health officers do a great job, and we don’t make money off it. We cover her fee and charge the customer.”

“The county is currently reviewing the opinion with its attorneys to determine whether to appeal,” said spokeswoman Adrienne Marofsky. “The county and the Delaware County Health Department remain committed to its mission to build healthy and thriving communities throughout Delaware County.”

Please follow DVJournal on social media: Twitter@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)

Editor’s note: The following story has explicit descriptions of suicide and suicide attempts that may be disturbing for some readers. For anyone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts or ideations, call 988. If it is an emergency, call 911.

For any family, a suicide is a tragedy not only of the death itself, but a tragedy of unanswerable questions that gnaw and corrode.

When that suicide happens in prison, the number of those destructive questions only multiplies.

This is the life now of Janet Owens of Elverson Borough, as she seeks what answers she can gather to the death of her son, Andrew Little, who hanged himself in a prison cell at Delaware County’s George W. Hill Correctional Facility on the first Saturday in June of 2022.

“They called me on Monday and I asked [the chaplain] some questions and she said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you.’ I asked her, ‘Was he on a mental health unit?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ ‘Was he receiving treatment?’ ‘I don’t know.’”

Andrew Wesley Little was born in September of 1987. With Andrew being her second son, Janet remembers him as a much more peaceful baby than her first.

“When he turned fourteen, fifteen, when he went through puberty, that’s when his mental illness kicked in and he took off and went out [to California] and lived on the streets,” Owens said.

Eventually, Owens was able to help get Andrew enrolled in the forestry program at Penn State, Mont Alto, but Andrew’s illness came to dominate again.

Court records show Andrew had numerous contacts with various police departments in Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia. The dockets show mental illness factored into several of those cases, such as a judge requesting a mental evaluation.

Owen’s frustrations are many, as anyone might imagine. But in particular, she feels as though many medical privacy laws, like the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, acted as a constant barrier between her and her sick son.

Understandably, a law like HIPAA assumes that it is meant for individual, rational actors. But Owens feels like that’s where the HIPAA and other laws like it are incomplete, and incompatible with mental illness.

“The patient has an inability to recognize their own illness. And that’s why these people think, ‘I don’t need medication.’ And part of their paranoia is they’re [thinking] ‘They’re trying to poison me. They want to give me this medication.’ and that’s why they can’t be medicated or they won’t be medicated because they don’t believe there’s anything wrong with them.”

Owens pointed out that her son’s resistance isn’t just an anecdote, it’s a diagnosis — anosognosia, when “someone is unaware of their own mental health condition or that they can’t perceive their condition accurately,” a webpage from the National Alliance on Mental Illness says.

Retired, with abundant time to just think about her departed son, she wonders how else privacy laws put a wall between her and her son.

For example, Owens says her son was in Chester County months before he was transferred to Delaware County. While there, she says he attempted suicide twice. Owens wonders if a suicide attempt is privileged medical information, and if it is, would Chester County have been prohibited from relaying this safety information to Delaware County?

She says her numerous calls over months and years to jails, prisons, hospitals, all were turned away leaving her with no way to even begin to try and help.

There are other, more straightforward questions as well.

Broad + Liberty showed Owens documents obtained from Delaware County via Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law.

In an email from April 15, 2022, a sergeant at the GWHCF alerts several other staff members that “On unit 10, we have multiples [sic] doors issues, ranging from broken locks to doors not being able to open or only open with keys,” (emphasis added). The email went on to say that many of those same cells in the unit were frequently subjected to sewage backups.

“Every time a toilet and sink are flushed, a backup of water and sometime [sic] feces into cells and day rooms,” the sergeant wrote.

The timing of the email is important because when it was written, the government had only taken over the management of the prison from a private operator earlier that month. The email represents one of the first alerts that the new management was struggling to deal with broken locks or inoperable doors, a problem that persists to this day.

On May 4, 2022, a work order shows a repair technician worked on cell A210 to replace a wire harness on the door lock, a door lock that is meant to be operated from a remote control room.

One month later in cell A210, Andrew Little hung himself apparently using sheets in the cell. But an incident report shows the door locks were still an obstacle for the officer who was rushing to help.

“Sgt. McDevitt stated that the cell door was inoperable from the Control room, so he quickly proceeded to the main hallway to retrieve the cell key from Officer Kpadeya.”

The documents stunned Owens.

“I was appalled to know that first, some of the letter from the maintenance man was saying that sewage has been seeping into these places. So is it sewage and backup that was making these [lock] systems not work? And then, if somebody should be watched regularly, what are they doing in a unit that locks and they can’t get to the locks in time? My son could still be alive, maybe.”

Two days after Little’s death, another work order shows the lock being fixed.

Owens’s theory about moisture is given credence when the technician noted, “Seems that moisture into the inner lock parts…” The rest of the report is obscured for some unknown reason.

Two sources with intimate knowledge of the prison say the run from Little’s cell to the control room and back for the physical keys would have taken at least two minutes, possibly as long as four minutes. Those sources have requested anonymity out of fear of career retaliation.

“He [Sgt. McDevitt] would’ve had to first run downstairs from the top tier (because that cell is on the second level), get buzzed through the 10A block door, secure that door, get buzzed out of the octagon door that connects all four blocks (A, B, C and D), get the cage door buzzed (there is a cage door that secured the control room) and finally get into the control room (which was probably already open because the officer knew he was coming). After retrieving the key you run through the same steps to get back on the unit to the cell,” one source explained.

The second source said other details in the incident report are telling. The report begins by noting that the officer who first became aware of the situation “was conducting chow relief on Unit 10[.]”

“The fact that the Sgt. is ‘conducting chow relief on Unit 10 control room’ is a very clear indicator that the unit was short staffed,” the second source said. “Essentially, the Sergeant had to step in as the Control Room Officer to allow another officer to take a lunch break. The report only mentions one other officer being present at the time of the incident. The information suggests that there was one Control Room Officer and one Block Officer left responsible for a unit that is supposed to have the highest level of security. If the unit were fully staffed it would consist of six total officers.”

The first source confirmed the concern about staffing levels, saying, “At the time of the incident only one officer was assigned to that block.”

The county declined to comment on several questions posed by Broad + Liberty, some of which were not specific to Little’s death.

Owens said she has already been working with local attorneys on a wrongful death lawsuit, prior to seeing the documents provided by Broad + Liberty. While no suit has been filed yet, should it be successful, she hopes to use any monetary awards to work on mental health issues.

“He [Andrew] shouldn’t have been in prison. He should have been in a mental health institute. And because there’s nowhere to go, that’s where he was. And if that’s what they’re going to do, then they need to protect these people, these kids, these children, these young men that should be getting care outside, but they don’t have anymore. And they closed them down. They closed down Brandywine. It was the last one here. He was in Belmont. He was in Brandywine. I can’t even tell you how many places he was.”

The incident makes clear Andrew was in Delaware County’s custody because of a parole violation related to an indecent exposure charge. None of the court dockets available on Pennsylvania’s Unified Judicial System website for Delaware County show charges for indecent exposure. But Owens says her son shouldn’t be thought of as a sexual offender, rather that he was mentally ill and had lost all sense of right and wrong. Supporting that idea is the fact that all of the dockets that are available from Delaware and Chester counties are for nonsexual offenses like disorderly conduct, trespassing, shoplifting, or simple assault.

Owens is estranged from her former husband, and Broad + Liberty was not able to find contact information for Little’s father.

Broad + Liberty has been able to get some answers for Owens. Her son was being housed in the mental health wing according to prison sources who spoke with Broad + Liberty. However, our inquiries did not get any kind of answer as to whether Little and other mentally ill patients were being checked on regularly.

As for whether HIPAA could have acted as a barrier between Little’s time in Chester County versus Delaware, Chester County spokeswoman Rebecca Brain responded to a hypothetical question about inmate privacy that essentially mirrored Little’s situation.

Brain first explained that the county contracts with Primecare for its delivery of medical care for the county’s correctional facility.

“If that inmate is then transferred to another correctional facility that also contracts with Primecare as its medical provider, that information is shared across Primecare’s medical record platform. If the correctional facility does not use Primecare as their medical provider, then Primecare, when aware of a transfer, drafts and sends a document with the patient/transporting authority which includes information regarding the inmate’s suicidal ideology and other basic medical information,” Brain explained.

“According to Primecare, this process falls under continuity of care, where no authorizations are required for the sharing of information between facilities. I would recommend reaching out to Primecare, as they are contracted as the medical provider for a number of prisons and could provide you with more information,” she said.

While this answers some questions, it raises others, such as whether one prison would be able to alert another about known suicide risks even if there were no direct transfer of the inmate, as is used in the hypothetical.

With reform in mind, Owens says she has been following changes in California led by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“Governor Gavin Newsom’s Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court initiative would grant more authority to a civil court judge to mandate treatment,” a 2022 report from a CBS affiliate in San Francisco said. “Disability rights groups say that’s a violation of civil liberty. But some family members of the severely mentally ill say it may be the only way for them to survive.”

Delaware County’s prison had been privately managed for nearly 30 years until 2022. Although the formal transition to government management did not take place until April 2022, the county’s hand-picked warden, Laura Williams, started in February.

In the 23 months since then, the GWHCF has witnessed eleven deaths, four of them suicides.

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

An inmate who died of an overdose at the intake department of the Delaware County prison last June was left alone for more than an hour despite the fact that the intake sergeant had already noticed that the woman was on some kind of drug.

According to an incident report obtained by Broad + Liberty through a Right to Know Law request, the intake sergeant noticed that when Tiffany Koser was being checked into the George W. Hill Correctional Facility (GWHCF), she “noticed that Koser appeared to be under the influence of something.”

That was at 9:00 p.m., according to the document.

“I told officer Hemmings to leave the [incarcerated person] on the unit so I can give her a drug test by urine,” the sergeant went on to write in the report. “After completing the discharge run, I went to cell 135 at 2222 [10:22 p.m.] I began knocking on the cell window and received no response from Koser.”

The county declined to answer any questions about the matter.

The Koser incident in June was the third of five deaths at the GWHCF in 2023. In November, the fifth death in the facility was an inmate who also died of an overdose. Broad + Liberty has filed a Right to Know request for that incident as well, and those documents are expected to be produced by the county before the end of the month.

Court documents indicate Koser was sentenced to serve 45 weekends for a DUI in Radnor Township sometime in 2022. She had several moving vehicle cases in Montgomery County, including another DUI charge from February 2022 in Worcester Township.

Broad + Liberty was unable to locate any family members of Koser to speak with.

A source with intimate knowledge of the prison said the revelations in the document should be concerning to Delaware County citizens.

“For a year and a half, there has been a pattern of preventable incidents. This incident reflects a systemic failure, in which an officer was successful in recognizing that an individual was under the influence of an unknown substance but did not notify medical staff so the individual could be evaluated and properly observed,” the source said. “Instead, the woman was put back in a cell by themselves and found unresponsive an hour later. To my knowledge, this sergeant is relatively new, so this seems to be an issue of proper training as well as staffing. I believe high turnover has forced people with little experience into these roles that, unfortunately, the prison hasn’t properly prepared them for.”

The source was granted anonymity because of concerns of career or political retaliation.

A spreadsheet of total payroll from 2022 previously obtained by Broad + Liberty shows that the sergeant earned just over five figures that year, suggesting that she was hired late that year. If that assumption is correct, the sergeant would have had less than a year on the job when the death occurred.

The revelations about the Koser incident come just as two guards were arrested this month for smuggling fentanyl into the prison. The arrest affidavits and supporting documents did not indicate the two guards were dealing to inmates, however.

The GWHCF has been a flashpoint in the county over the last decade as it was the last privately run prison in the commonwealth. Delaware County Democrats like Kevin Madden and Christine Reuther campaigned on deprivatizing it, which, after being elected in 2019, they set about doing.

The management of the facility officially transitioned from GEO Group to the county in April of 2022, although the county’s handpicked warden, Laura Williams, began her tenure with the prison on January 31 of that year.

Since then, the county has mostly achieved its goal of lowering the daily population. In media reports from late 2022, the county said it had lowered the daily population by about twenty percent.

However, other metrics and evidence show a prison that is in turmoil.

Ten total deaths have occurred at the prison since Warden Williams took the helm. That includes four suicides, one murder, one “delayed homicide,” two overdoses, and a medical emergency for an inmate while playing basketball. The cause of death for one inmate is still not known to Broad + Liberty at this time.

Those numbers far exceed those from the previous decade when eight inmates died over a three-year period under GEO’s management — something characterized by the prison’s Wikipedia page as a “controversy.” That would equate to about 2.6 inmate deaths per year, while the county is currently averaging five deaths per year under county control.

Additionally, that comparison assumes a steady prison population across those years, which isn’t the case. The death rate in the last two years has been greater given that the monthly population generally averaged close to 1,700 under GEO’s management, and has averaged closer to 1,200 under county management. More deaths are happening across a smaller number of prisoners.

Prior to the county’s takeover, it said reducing the recidivism rate was its top priority, but the facility’s own statistics show that the rate has remained pegged near 60 percent — basically identical to what it was under GEO.