Dark clouds are roiling, and lightning is flashing over the castle! Angry villagers are storming up the hill. Bring the torches and pitchforks!!!
It took a lot of columns, but borough council ostriches are finally seeing that they have created a Frankenstein, whose name in Quakertownese is David Woglom. For two decades, council has given him total authority, so they don't have to think. Control freak Woglom gladly took it. The perfect marriage. Bride of Frankenstein!
But is a divorce coming? Council has finally acknowledged publicly that Woglom, and solicitor Chuck Fonzone, have served the citizens so poorly that there is a need for an independent investigation to determine if they should be fired. Illegal no-bids. Illegal purchases. Illegal votes. Favors to council members. Misread contracts. Incorrect legal advice. Improper handling of worker pensions and insurance. And lots more.
There has never been so much as an "I'm sorry" from Woglom or Fonzone. Ever. And never as much as a slap on the wrist from council. Ever.
Most towns don't have any of these issues. Quakertown has them all. And, not surprisingly, council needs an outside "expert" to tell them what is going on in their own administration! But investigations often turn out the way that the people paying the bills want them to. Woglom has done many favors for council members: free stone delivery, buying borough supplies from their businesses, free lunches, perhaps even getting one a county job. All on your dime. He also knows their secrets.
Will council authorize adequate funding for a report that almost certainly will be critical of them? They are The Enablers who gave this monster life, and protect him from those angry villagers. The whole procedure can be very honest, or very tarnished. But if public input is denied, question the true intent of the project, and the findings.
The final report won't tell council what to do - they will have to interpret it (shudder!) themselves. Unless they hire another expert to do that! But people (including councilpersons) can draw entirely opposite conclusions from the same facts, depending on their mindsets. Frankly, if they find what I have found, Quakertown needs to start advertising two positions ASAP. But with council, who knows?
And there is already reason to doubt their sincerity. Last meeting's printed agenda, posted on the borough website, intentionally omitted the two most important and controversial topics, hiding Woglom's actions. President Dennis Hallman (not Dave himself) briefly glossed over how Woglom had made a "mistake" in not getting three proper bids on $8100 worth of Premark, a heat-sensitive tape used like paint to make lines on the new Mill Street speed humps.
Council should have been aware of this, since I filed an Open Records request a week earlier. There was a flurry of meetings and phone calls. Hallman even prepared a statement defending Woglom, although the borough's own documents show that the guy had handed out improperly-bid contracts ten times before. But it was kept off the agenda, and no one with an opposing viewpoint was permitted to speak.
Remember, the borough supposedly adopted "updated procurement procedures" in March, 2005, after Woglom was caught giving $60,000 in no-bid contracts to landscaper Lynn Kraft. But guess who is in charge of watching? And now, fighting for his job, he attempted to show council that his latest illegal no-bid was "no harm, no foul". He (belatedly) gathered prices on the heat tape from two other sources. Both were suspiciously the same, $8953.96. Woglom says the taxpayers saved over $800. Not.
The low $8100 price came from the factory that manufactures the tape. Woglom's "competitive" bids came from local area retailers. Not other factories. Not distributors. Not wholesalers. Just stores. Of course the price was going to be higher! But Woglom deceived everyone about who the "bidders" were. He also misled them that "his" company was the only one that made this product. A monstrous lie. A few minutes on the Internet turned up at least 10 manufacturers and wholesalers selling virtually the same thing.
But there was a big difference: many of those other heat tapes are pre-approved for state contracts. I found the approval lists for five states. None include Woglom's Premark. Hallman tried to prevent me from revealing all of these deceptions in the public meeting, threatening to have me arrested rather than have council answer why they were still blindly accepting all of Woglom's fantasies. Can we expect any different from the "independent" report"???
Also left off the agenda was council's brief meeting-ending announcement that they intend to "outsource" most, or all, of the town's blue-collar employee jobs. Translation: fire 'em before the union vote next month. These workers had repeatedly protested Woglom's handling of their pensions, health insurance, and working conditions. You can count on a union war in Quakertown now! With your tax dollars defending council. They eliminate dissent - you pay. And the workers suffer.
And sometimes dissent even comes from higher-ups. On November 10, 2005, police chief Scott McElree sent Woglom a memo quoting Chief Donnelly of Doylestown concerning their traffic calming issues, like speed humps. Donnelly warned that as soon as Doylestown had implemented these measures, "everyone and every neighborhood" wanted them. McElree wrote, "He (Donnelly) strongly recommends that before instituting traffic calming measures, adopt a Borough Transportation Management Plan".
McElree attached Doylestown's 33-page plan. This was the seventh study done by Doylestown over six years. They prepared like pros. When Woglom did nothing about a plan, McElree sent him the same memo again on January 23, 2006. It was again ignored.
The way that council handles this investigation will be the most important factor in next year's election. If it becomes nothing more than a cover-up, they should remember what happened to Dr. Frankenstein. Our villagers don't carry pitchforks - they vote.