(Personal note: Individually, current Qtown council members actually are nice people. But put them in a room together, and they are transformed. For the worse. They have allowed ethically-challenged manager David Woglom to seize so much power that they have become timid and out of touch. Sad for them, but residents, who elected them, are the real victims.)
New councilman Dave Zaiser is getting an education. It isn't easy being Don Quixote. Tilting at windmills. Fighting the establishment. Trying to prod Cowardly Council to make Quakertown a safer, better place to live.
Zaiser campaigned, and was elected, on promises to make council more responsive to the people, and to fight what he perceived as an ominous rise in drugs, and late-night public disturbances. And he didn't waste any time in confronting council with a series of initiatives designed to implement his plans. The first seemed simple: post the agendas and minutes of borough meetings on the town website, and give each council member an email address so the public can communicate with them easily and quickly.
Next came his Five Point Plan for Community Improvement, including a curfew, restrictions on where convicted sex offenders could live, a low-level town watch, and regular informal "town meetings". All excellent ideas, adopted in other municipalities. Quakertown police were on board. But not Cowardly Council. Surprised?
Brave councilman Don Rosenberger opposed the whole idea of public emails. He was worried that he might receive one from (gasp!) someone who was not a resident! (How dare an "outsider" have an idea or complaint!) And he moaned that council could not respond to "a thousand emails". Having the addresses on the website would, he said, "make things more difficult for us". Doesn't that just perfectly sum up Cowardly Council's whole attitude??!!
My February 2 column predicted "Quakertown will no doubt 'study' the (email) ideas, as Woglom searches for a way to stay in control of the flow of information". Lo and behold, a month later Woglom offered these options: separate email addresses for each member, where citizens could write confidentially (perhaps about Woglom!); or, a group email for council, where everything sent would be seen by all. And no one has any particular responsibility to act, or even answer.
After two nights of discussing how best to avoid resident emails, they voted for safety-in-anonymity. One email, open to all. No personal accountability. No responsibility to actually answer. No councilman interested in dealing with citizen issues personally.
I get emails every week from the community, many with complaints or information on alleged wrongdoing. These should rightfully be handled by a councilman who cares - like Zaiser - without fear that others, including Woglom, can peek and interfere. Alas, residents may be hesitant to speak up if the message isn't in confidence.
But why do you think Woglom is still in power after all of the revelations about his misconduct? In other towns he would have been fired long ago. Cowardly Council members, who rely on him for their thinking and "governing", do his bidding, and back him 1000%. If he wants to know about the emails (and he will), they certainly won't deny him. He knows where every Qtown skeleton is buried, and they know that he knows.
The best that can be said for Zaiser's five point plan is that he was able to actually "present", and "discuss", two of them. Council toyed with him for an hour, taking turns bogging down discussions of the curfew and sex-offender ban. Finding reasons to say no rather than yes. Unworkable. Unconstitutional. Unenforceable. Unmanageable. Unbelievable! These folks have a paranoia for every occasion.
And the final insult was Vice President Jim Roberts' hint that Cowardly Council had heard enough for one night, and that Zaiser should end the discussion and regroup for a month. Dave clearly was no match for their ability to obfuscate. He will try again at the March 27 work session, but the best he can hope for is to be shuffled off to a committee rather than being rejected outright.
Meanwhile, many forward-thinking communities in Bucks County are busy protecting their residents with plans exactly like Zaiser's. On the same night that Qtown was burying the ideas, at least three other towns took action. Richland supervisors directed the township solicitor and police chief to immediately work together on the possibility of enacting a sex-offender residency law.
Hatboro council voted 7-1 to enact a "sexual offender residency prohibition" in most of the borough. Their borough solicitor created a law similar to an Iowa state statute, which the U.S. Supreme Court declined to interfere with.
Doylestown council, which is in the process of drafting a curfew ordinance, showed its concern for residents by appropriating $20,000 for security cameras in three high-nuisance areas of the borough. They ordered the police to cite trouble-makers, and notify parents. The police chief will also begin interviewing people interested in participating in the new town watch program.
And Montgomery Township is moving to ban sexually violent predators after one supervisor observed, "If we wait until the state legislature enacts something, we'll all be on Social Security."
Other communities like Philadelphia, Lansdale, Souderton, Dublin, Lansdowne, and Allentown have curfew laws. In fact, a 1997 survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 80% of the 276 survey cities nationwide had a nighttime youth curfew. 93% reported that it was a useful tool for police officers. 88% said that curfew enforcement helped to make streets safer for residents.
At least these other governments are trying to help their citizens. If their ordinances need modification some day, no problem. But they acted! Now! Or long ago. Quakertown's seven nice people have, again, failed the community by their cowardly inaction.