WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2015
CHESTER COUNTY PRESS
PAID ADVERTISEMENT O ENTCOHG O East Nottingham Township Citizens for Open and Honest Government Mission Statement
Local Republican Leadership Has Corrupted the Election Process. Notification All documentation referred to in this letter can be obtained by writing an email to ENTCOHG@gmail.com. It has become apparent that the Area 19 Republican Committee has gone rogue under the leadership of Coalition for Advancing Freedom (CAF) Tea Party leader, ENT Supervisor, and Republican Committee Chair, Jane Ladley. Over the past few years the Oxford Area Republican Committee (OARC) has been infiltrated and high jacked by CAF members who have corrupted the endorsement process. Their activity has even extended to circulating alleged illegal political mailers with false information, which we believed, was an attempt to influence this past May’s primary election. ENT COHG has in its possession four separate alleged illegal political mailers we believe violated PA Election laws. The mailers range in time from the General Election of 2014 involving state candidates, and the primary election of 2015 involving county and local candidates. Two of the mailers contained misleading, and downright false, information pertaining to John P. Coldiron, who was the Republican endorsed candidate running for East Nottingham Township Supervisor. The false statement is as follows: "During his tenure on the board he led the effort and voted to lower the local earned income tax by 50%." The fact is that there has never been a vote put on the table or motioned by the ENT Board of Supervisors to lower our Earned Income Tax (EIT) by 50%. We also believe that this false statement was an attempt to mislead voters on the open space issue. We believe that this statement was an effort to influence the voters to support Coldiron. What makes all of the mailers a legal issue is the fact that they did not contain the required "Paid for by" disclaimer required by law. We also believe that when those mailers were put into an envelope and stamped that they could possibly have committed mail fraud, a federal offence. This is not the first time CAF Leader,
Supervisor, and Committee Chair, Jane Ladley has used campaign dollars to finance literature containing false information to attack the open space program. In 2011, when she was running for Supervisor, Ladley circulated a mailer containing false information about the open space program. These mailers were paid for by LKB for Good Government. This was the campaign finance committee for CAF leader Ladley's election as Supervisor. Who is responsible for these mailers? Who approved the expenditures for the OARC Area 19 Republican Committee? According to an April 29, 2015 email from Area 19 Rep Committee Chair, Jane Ladley, she is. In addition, the minutes of the Area 19 th Committee meeting that was held on May 7 2015 state the following: "Donna commented that in her 5 years of being on Committee, the expenditures were never formally taken up for a vote by the entire Committee. Instead the request for expenditures was always made to the Area Chair, who gave authorization." According to the campaign finance report filed by OARC for primary election they spent $646.31 to circulate the mailers in question. On October 20th just before the monthly township meeting Supervisor Ladley and Board appointed Supervisor Joe Raffa asked me to have a sit down to discuss some issues after the meeting. During the meeting the subject of the illegal mailers came up including the mailer from 2011. Supervisor Ladley was quick to put the blame of the false statements in the mailers on to John P. Coldiron. After I stated that in 2011 Coldiron was not running for office that she was and that she authorized the mailers she responded by saying the she did not have to defend herself to me. In addition to the mailer issue Board appointed Supervisor Raffa announced that he was going to do a write in for the November election and asked for my support. I found this to be completely inappropriate at
the time knowing that the Republican Area Chair was sitting with us. What is wrong with this picture? We have several questions about the OARC endorsement process. The first one is why were residents not provided with sample ballots prior to the Primary Election listing the Republican endorsed candidates for statewide, county and local offices? Here is a possible reason…during the Primary election cycle and on Primary Election Day, some of our CAF-led Republican Committee people were caught supporting un-endorsed candidates running at the County and State level. They were even caught handing out sample ballots that were not approved by the Republican Party. Most voters rely on their committee people to inform them of the issues and who to vote for, especially for the less-known positions and candidates at the county and state level. We believe that in Area 19 the voters in the last election were kept in the dark by members of the CAF-controlled Republican Committee who were not in support of some of the county and state endorsements. If this isn’t a manipulation of the voters with the express intent to influence the outcome of an election, we don’t know what is. Now the CAF dominated Area 19 Rep Committee is trying to manipulate the outcome of November’s election by not putting the names of the candidates, those candidates who you the voters chose to represent them in the General Election, on their sample ballots. In other words, they are defying the decision of the Area 19 republican voters. CAF doesn’t like who the Republican voters chose, so they are going to try to manipulate you into voting for their candidates. So when you are approached by your Republican committee people on your way to vote next week, take the time to ask them if the people on their sample ballot are the people who actually won the Primary last May.
Ladley exposed on slander lawsuit no accountability for CAF Leader One of the fundamental principles of the Tea Par ty movement in our countr y is accountability. The suppor ters of this movement strive to hold Politicans accountable for their promises, decisions, and votes. This is also one of the Coalition for Advancing freedom initiatives that you can find on their website. Evidently this initiative does not apply to some of the leadership of the CAF organization. Over the past year ENT COHG has been asked what happened with the slander lawsuit against Supervisor Jane Ladley. We have heard a number of reasons that have been given to residents such as “it was dismissed for a lack of evidence”, “there was no merit to the case” and then the ever popular “nobody knows”. How about the truth. Supervisor Ladley claimed that she should have high public official immunity. This court case will not be herd by the courts on its merits and facts because Supervisor Ladley asked for and has received immunity. Anyone who would like to read the court’s decision and reasoning on their decision you can an email to ENTCOHG@Gmail.com and we will send it to you. This is the chain of events that took place on 8-13-2013 which led up the lawsuit against CAF leader Ladley. These facts are documented, and there is a full length video of
the incident. At the start of the Township meeting Supervisor Ladley asked to be added to the agenda. She never stating why or what she wanted to discuss. When it came to her turn on the agenda she immediately put a motion on the table to have a feasibility study done for the Wyndham Creek development. Supervisor Ladley made the motion and John P. Coldiron seconded it. Supervisor Ladley then attempted to read a statement into the record but was cut off by Supervisor Blum in order to hear what a resident from Wyndham Creek had to say. After the resident spoke Supervisor Ladley made her statement. It was clear to anyone present and after reviewing the video, that Supervisor Ladley came to the meeting prepared to read her statement. It was later determined that the motion for the feasibility study that she made was illegal do to an alleged Sunshine Act violation. The action was presented again at the next meeting. A statement was read into the record acknowledging the mistake at the next township meeting, however, the statement was not put into the minutes. Unless you were present at the meeting you would never know that Supervisor Ladley’s
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motion was illegal and had to be redone. When the resident from Wyndham Creek was done speaking Supervisor Ladley read her prepared statement that she had begun before she was interrupted by the Chair. This is the statement for which she was sued. You can read the complete accounting of her statement in the court decision that you can obtain from ENTCOHG@gmail.com. It was obvious by anyone present at the meeting that this whole issue involving the slanderous statement was nothing but an orchestrated bullying tactic by Supervisor Ladley. It was stated by residents that it was an attempt to quiet the residents of Wyndham Creek from speaking out against the Board of Supervisors and the handling of their Community problem. Supervisor Ladley was not sued as a Supervisor, but rather as an individual. She immediately turned to the Township for legal representation and was ultimately given high public official immunity. Although Supervisor Ladley was not held accountable by our legal system, she WILL be held accountable in the court of public opinion and, eventually by a much higher authority. Rick Orner, Member of ENTCOHG
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