Forward Township settles planning commission after record-keeping errors
FORWARD TWP — Much of the supervisors meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 9, was spent settling a series of clerical errors regarding the makeup of the township’s planning commission.
According to township manager Tom Hartwig, the township recently discovered that, due to lapses in record-keeping combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, it had mistakenly let some members stay on the planning commission past the end of their terms.
“The record-keeping on planning commission member terms, in some cases, was off by a year,” Hartwig said. “Due to the pandemic and staffing members, there were a few Planning Commission members who should have been reappointed January of 2022 and January of 2023, but were not.”
Hartwig believes that these errors popped up because, for a period of time during the pandemic, the township was short on staff.
“The township didn't have a full-time secretary, so there was a period of time where the township tried to run itself with a supervisor and the former secretary coming in intermittently during the week,” Hartwig said. “I think that contributed to this.”
Over the past week, township administrators dug through years’ worth of records to determine which planning commission members needed to be officially reappointed and when their terms expired.
In the midst of this discussion, the board of supervisors also floated the possibility of cutting the planning commission from nine members to seven. New supervisor Susan Oliver-Stough said this would fall in line with other surrounding townships.
Other supporters mentioned that with a seven-member board, it would take fewer members to achieve quorum in the event of multiple absences.
“I think we should go to seven so that we reflect the same structure that the majority of other second-class townships across the commonwealth have,” Oliver-Stough said. “It’s a manageable number.”
Steve Longwell, the chairman of the planning commission, was strongly against the idea. He argued that this was the worst time to shake up the planning commission, as Forward Township is in the middle of deciding whether to implement a zoning ordinance for the first time — a major change to how the township operates.
“I think it's a bad time to look at reducing the number of the members on the planning commission, because I think they are experienced and add value to those discussions,” Longwell said. “You’re talking about changing something that's been this way for a long time, over the course of two months. I think it’s a bad idea.”
Ultimately, the board of supervisors decided to compromise by not cutting two members but also by appointing three alternate members, in accordance with the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.
Out of the six disputed seats on the planning commission, five were taken by those who had filled them previously: Longwell, Shane Rhoades, Mike Lamperski, Stuart Thompson, and John McElhinny.
For the purposes of official records, any extra time they served on the board was served at will, on a month-to-month basis. Unlike the board of supervisors, the planning commission is made up of volunteers.
Oliver-Stough was appointed to fill the one other seat, replacing Carl Powell, who opted not to return for another four-year term.
The three alternate seats went to Sheryle Long, Peter Francino and Jeff Wolski.
