For more backgound on me and my race, read my earlier announcement here
So, here is one of the things that happens on the Upper Darby Township council that really annoys us Democrats.
Whenever once of the councilmen is deemed to be a weak candidate, that person will step down from office. Then, the council will appoint someone else to that seat. This person is always a Republican, always someone who has been a loyal party member. I guess we really shouldn't expect any less.
Obviously, there is much more on the flip:
Here is an example: Earlier this year, the 7th district councilwoman was replaced with a pastor from a local church. Why? Because in November 2004, our current candidate for the 7th district (Josh Richard) ran for a state rep seat and the 7th district was one of two districts that he won (although he lost to the incumbent). Now Josh is going to run for that township council seat. Before the current councilwoman stepped down, our guy (Josh) had a lock on the seat, now that he's running against the pastor; Josh has to overcome the votes the pastor already has locked in through his church along with the local Republican machine votes that always show up every election.
And the woman who stepped down? Now she's running for township treasurer.
The pastor and all of the other appointees now have the advantage of incumbency, but also don't have to be held accountable for the last 4 years. Of the 6 seats up for re-election this year, appointees are currently holding 4.
The best way to make this an issue and get it in the local paper was to call them on it, I drew short straw and made a speech before the council:
The full speech is posted at my website here in its entirety
Statement Made to the Upper Darby Township Council - June 15th 2005
My Name is Don Fields. I'm the Democrat running for the 1st District Council
seat of Upper Darby
Resignations are a funny thing.
Most people, when deciding to resign, have given it a great deal of thought.
The Councilwoman in this case had already decided in February not to run for re-election. So, she had known for MONTHS that she was leaving the council.
But she stepped down the day AFTER the primary.
Why do you think that was?
If she had stepped down well before the primary and if the "Republican revolving door" on this council started spinning again, the citizens of Upper Darby would have demanded a special election to be held on primary day. It would have been 6 too many resignations and appointments, and the citizens of Upper Darby wouldn't have been able to stay silent about it.
As it is, the continuing failure of the Council to respect, honor, and protect the voting rights of the people of Upper Darby requires change.
I hereby call upon the Council to amend its' charter so that when a member steps down there is a special election.
Okay, this is where it gets really good.
Mr. Clark, you were quoted in the Daily Times as saying that Special Elections would cost the township too much money?
Right here is where Chairman Clark interrupts me: "That's right, it would be too expensive, and our solicitor just informed me that it would be against the charter"
MAN! You would have thought I had asked him to say that! My response:
" I KNOW it's not in the charter, that's why I'm asking you to AMEND it"
Then I lead right into the details of my plan, how it wouldn't cost anything extra and how it would be easy to do.:
Under this plan, you won't need to concern yourself with the cost of the election because in Upper Darby, we have an election every six months. We have one primary, in the spring, and one General Election, in the fall. They are six months apart.
Under my plan, the names of the district candidates for that particular office seat would be placed on the ballot along with the rest of the candidates. The election wouldn't actually be that "special."' We would just be having it with our regular elections. Recently Montgomery County, when they used the primary election to fill the state seat that was vacated by Allison Schwartz, followed this same process. The votes of the people of Upper Darby deserve as much respect and protection as the people of Montgomery County.
Can you believe it?? He basically introduced my plan! How cool is that?
Okay now we're in the home stretch:
Finally, I want to make an appeal to all of you.
Two weeks ago, on Memorial Day, we remembered with great honor, all of those who served this country and sacrificed their lives to preserve our Democracy. But tell me, how does this "Republican Revolving door" reflect our Democracy? How does this practice demonstrate Democracy? In what way, other than the 10 of you voting, is this council behaving democratically?
On average, your public meetings last no longer than fifteen minutes. There is typically no public discussion of the issues before the township, unless there is a question from the gallery. Final votes are then straight up or down "ayes" or "nays". Always, always unanimous.
In your heart of hearts, deep down in your being, you know this is wrong.
This Republican revolving door of resignations and appointments only serves loyal party members and cronies and does NOT serve the people of Upper Darby.
The people of Upper Darby have a voice and that voice should count. But when you appoint friends, cronies, partners to the council, you ignore that voice, you disregard that voice, you say that voice is meaningless. Well I'm telling you that voice is not meaningless. I'm telling you, you should pay attention to it and that it's wrong when you ignore it.
And finally, I rain all over their parade:
Before this meeting, I was going to issue this council a challenge, I was going to ask you to not continue with the "Republican revolving door" and appoint another loyal party member to fill this vacancy. Rather, I would have challenged you to do one of the following things:
Either leave that seat empty until Election Day OR appoint Steve Smith [Democratic At-Large Candidate] to the council.
My reason for this challenge is that I wanted to give the council a chance to show us that you could change, to show us that you could listen, and show us that you could do the right thing.
But before this meeting was even started, and for obvious reasons, this challenge could not be taken up by this council.
Congratulations Mr.Rankin [Republican At-Large Candidate, who is about to become appointed to the open At-Large seat], enjoy the advantages that incumbency brings, and try to earn it while you're there.
After this statement, I sit down, the council takes a few cheap shots at me and them proceeds to induct their new councilman: Jeff Rankin.
So not only did I put a big wet towel all over their appointment, I was the first person in the meeting to congratulate the new councilman.
To top it off, they adjourn after their ceremony; the meeting was less than 15 minutes. Just like I said it would be!
Additional Campaign Updates:
Other than the Council meeting, not too much (but that was a lot!)
My wife had (minor) ear surgery this past week, so I haven't been out doing the door-to-to-door the past couple of days. I have a flyer getting ready to go to the printers; you can see a B&W version here. I'll be printing a 2-color (Red and Blue) version this week. (I'll get that up on the website once I have the final version). I'm going to mail one to every person who has given me donation, so they can see what some of their money has gone too.
I've followed some of the suggestions made by people here when I announced my candidacy and tweaked the website. I've changed the layout of the pictures and rewrote my "About Me" statement. Eventually I will be posting concrete issues and solutions. (Top of the list: parking permits! We need `em!! Ahhh, bread and butter issues)