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Angry outburst gets speaker tossed out

Officer escorts leader of group from meeting

BUTLER TWP — Just mention Marcellus Shale at a Butler Township meeting and you’re sure to hear an opinion.

But the hot button topic reached a new incendiary level Monday evening, when the leader of a citizens group was escorted from the commissioner’s meeting by a police officer after taking to the public podium, raising his voice and using profanity.

“That’s never happened in the seven years I’ve been here,” township manager Ed Kirkwood said of both the cursing and the police involvement.

The outburst by Joseph McMurry, president of Section 27 Alliance, came at the end of the meeting when residents were given the opportunity to speak. Previously, the opportunity to speak occurred at the beginning of the meetings.

In an e-mail to township officials and community members earlier in the week, McMurry bemoaned the change saying his group, which is dedicated to halting a gas well planned for the Krendale Golf Course, now would “ ... have to sit through a whole crapload of township business ...”

The e-mail, provided to the Butler Eagle, further went on to allege that the board’s invitation to David Spigelmyer, president of the industrial group Marcellus Shale Coalition, to speak at the meeting — first on the agenda — was “extreme provocation.”

Commissioners Chairman Joe Hasychak during the meeting drew attention to the e-mail and said he believed all of the agenda items, which included introduction of the township’s proposed 2015 preliminary budget, were important. He asked McMurry to explain his e-mail.

McMurry said his group is focused on stopping the Krendale gas well pad, including any potential legal action, because the township forced its hand.

“We don’t like it any more than you do ... it’s a lot of work,” he said. “If you hadn’t changed the god**** ordinance ...”

At that point, township police Detective Lt. David Fish was told to escort McMurry to the parking lot. McMurry was compliant and will face no citations, Fish said later.

Meantime, Commissioner Charles Nedz, as a follow-up to a meeting of the zoning oversight committee last week, said that group at a December commissioners’ meeting will recommend changes to the township zoning laws that could include changes to the rules regulating well drilling.

This advisory group, according to township officials, is different from the citizens group formed last month to research topics related to the oil and gas industry, compile its findings and present them to officials. Kirkwood said he has not received any communication on when that group could potentially appear before the commissioners.

The township officials said those two groups also are different from the township’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Board, which formed in 2009 to research the gas and oil topics and advise the township. That group has been inactive for years, officials said.

Hasychak noted that McMurry was an original member of that group, but “he resigned.”

Before the exchange between McMurry and Hasychak, Commissioner Sam Zurzolo said he did not understand why no one complained about the zoning ordinance until now and added that the ongoing disagreement is “costing us all kinds of money and legal fees ... It’s getting a little bit ridiculous.”

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