Doylestown, PA – “This past Friday was a clear victory for transparency and the right of citizens to seek answers from those who should be representing them” said Bucks GOP Chair Pat Poprik.
The Bucks County Court of Common Pleas recently ruled in favor of parent activist and county resident Megan Brock who has been tirelessly fighting the Democratic Majority of the Bucks County Commissioners in her quest to seek transparency. For nearly a year now, Democrats Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia have been using county resources to overrule decisions by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records in order to hide communications and documents generated when the county’s guidance for schools related to COVID suddenly changed in the midst of the pandemic. After a review of the hidden documents, the Court sided with Brock.
Pamela Van Blunk, the County Controller, called the litigation the county brought against Brock a “waste of taxpayer dollars. Harvie and Ellis-Marseglia are irresponsibly spending taxpayers’ money to hide communications that the public—including Brock—have a right to see.”
This was confirmed by the Court’s ruling, which also imposed the maximum civil penalty in the form of monetary sanctions against the county. The Court specifically found that county—Commissioners Harvie and Marseglia—denied access to the public records in bad faith.
The editorial board of the Bucks County Intelligencer wrote an op-ed in the summer of 2022 about the County’s lawsuit. In it they stated that they “hate to see the county throw good taxpayer money after bad or fight tooth-and-nail to keep information away from members of the public.” Van Blunk calls on Commissioners Harvie and Marseglia to end this wasteful spending and release the documents to Brock and to also release the public information sought by Jamie Walker in a separate but similar litigation.
Poprik added that “Transparency is a keystone of good government. Something we have lacked in Bucks County these past four years. To return transparent, competent, caring leadership to Bucks County Government we must elect Gene DiGirolamo and Pam Van Blunk as our County Commissioners.”