Concord First, representing the 994 Concord registered voters who signed the petition to have a question placed on the ballot at November’s upcoming election to allow voters decide if our township should become a township of the First Class, filed our brief to Commonwealth Court in support of our appeal on denial of our petition by Delaware County Common Pleas court.
To summarize our argument, the Common Pleas court – at the prompting of Delco Board of Elections using deceptive redactions of the actual code – misread and misinterpreted Section 207 of the First Class code. A plain reading of the statute clearing shows that the First Class question must be submitted to voters at the first election at least 90 days after both the minimum population density of 300 people per square mile (Concord has more than 1200) has been attained and after the petition is filed to the court.
The critical phrasing in the statute itself is:
“At the first general or municipal election occurring at least ninety days after ascertainment, by special enrollment of from the last preceding United States census, that any township of the second class has a population of at least three hundred inhabitants to the square mile, and after a petition signed by at least five per centum of the registered voters has been filed with the … court, the question whether such township of the second class shall become a township of the first class shall be submitted to the voters of the township ….”
The phrasing “after … and after” can only mean one thing: “the later of”.
Of course, that’s the way every prior First Class petition has been handled in Pennsylvania, including the one for Lower Macungie Township in Lehigh County 2007, Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, in 1956, just to name a couple. The Delaware County Common Pleas judge is the first one ever to read the statute the way he ruled, and neither he nor Board of Elections cited any precedent for their interpretation.
In his opinion, the judge ruled that, based on his reading of the statute, the only elections where voters can decide the First Class ballot question are the elections immediately following the census. The judge adopted the reading of the Board of Elections, which redefined the word “from” in the statute relating to the census to mean “beginning”, when in the clear context of the statute, “from” means “derived from.” The statute clearly indicates that the population density is derived from the census, not that the census is used to determine at which election or elections the first class question can go to the voters.
The Delaware County judge is the first one ever to read the statute the way he ruled, and neither he nor Board of Elections cited any precedent for their interpretation of this statute that was passed in 1931, 83 years ago. Yet, according to their interpretation, the Lower Macungie and Whitemarsh voters should not have been able to decide since it was not at the first election after the census. The judge made a mistake.
As for the rest of the judge’s ruling, it is settled law that unspecified concerns or objections about signatures do not constitute grounds for denial of the petition. Specific signatures must be struck for specific reasons. Concord First secured nearly twice as many signatures as needed, and the judge did not make any findings of fact to strike a single signature.
Concord First expects a quick and complete reversal of lower court’s ruling in Commonwealth Court.
Dan Levin,
Concord Township
on behalf of Concord First
(4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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