December 31, 2014

Concord First wants Hugh Donaghue out as Concord Township solicitor, and the group may file a formal complaint with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Members cite his involvement in what they characterize as a “fraud” and “abuse of office” by misrepresenting interested parties in a brief filed with the state Supreme Court.

The citizens’ group also named attorney J. Michael Sheridan for his involvement in the matter. Sheridan filed a petition to intervene with the court on behalf of Concord’s Government Study Commission without commission members’ being aware of the filing and a week before the commission officially existed.

The brief was filed in response to Concord First’s appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn two lower court opinions that denied the group getting a question on the November ballot. The question they wanted would have asked voters whether or not Concord should change from a township of the second class to a township of the first class.

The move to have Donaghue resign has led to an online petition that can be found here.

According to the petition: “Donaghue used his position as Concord Township [s]olicitor to disguise the positions and interests of his private law practice clients as those of GSC members. We believe that this is not only misrepresentation of the interested parties, but it is an abuse of his office and a violation of his responsibility to serve the interests of the residents of Concord Township.”

The petition references township Supervisors Chairman Dominic Pileggi and Supervisor Kevin O’Donoghue as Donaghue’s private clients in the same case.

In addition to the call for Donaghue’s resignation, Concord First filed an “Appellants’ Application for Leave to File Post-Submission Communication” with the court on Dec. 24.

“We asked the court to remove Mr. Sheridan as counsel of record and, if the evidence supports it, to motion for sanctions against Mr. Donaghue and Mr. Sheridan for attempting to perpetrate a fraud on the court,” according to Concord First’s Colette Brown.

Donaghue, who is also the solicitor for Chadds For Township, said he had no comment on the matter.

Brown later acknowledged that the push to remove Donaghue is a long shot at best.

“We understand that regardless of the number of signatures we get on a petition, the supervisors are likely to continue to disregard the opinions, needs or interests of those they were elected to serve.  We don’t have any reason to believe this will change,” she said.

However, she hopes people will attend the reorganization meeting on Jan. 5 to voice their disapproval of Donaghue.

She also said her group is considering filing a complaint with the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board.

Controversy began this summer when Concord First held a petition drive for signatures so the group could get its question on the ballot. The group needed 582 signatures, but gathered more than 900.

Township supervisors, in an attempt to “head off” that petition — according to Pileggi — passed an ordinance to get their own question on the ballot. That question asked voters whether they wanted a government study commission to explore various ways of possibly changing the township government.

Supervisors and the Delaware County Board of Elections then challenged Concord First’s petition. Common Pleas Court ruled in favor of the supervisors, and Commonwealth Court later upheld that decision. Concord First then appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the appeal.

The supervisors’ question asking for the Government Study Commission passed in November, and seven people were elected to that body.

Donaghue, speaking at the Study Commission’s meeting in December, said the petition to intervene had to be filed by the state Supreme Court’s Nov. 17 deadline for filing briefs in the case.

However, the study commission did not officially exist on Nov. 17 because the election was not certified until Nov. 24, and the commissioners were not sworn in until Nov. 25.

During the exchange with Donaghue,  commission member Matt Houtmann moved to ratify the brief but, after a lengthy discussion, members tabled the motion to ratify until they could retain a solicitor of their own. Members said they weren’t even aware that such a brief had been filed, let alone in their name.

Sheridan was not the commission solicitor at the time of his filing, nor does the commission yet have a solicitor.

Concord First called Donaghue’s request to have the brief approved retroactively an attempt to “re-write history and conceal what we believe is unethical (if not illegal) conduct,” according to the group’s Facebook page.

Pileggi did not return a phone call asking for comment.

Chadds Ford Township supervisors have scheduled a hearing that could begin paving the way for the construction of 107 townhouses on Brandywine Drive near Route 1. The board voted during its Dec. 30 workshop to authorize advertising the hearing for Feb. 4.

The hearing — requested by K. Hovnanian Homes — would accomplish two things if it goes the way Hovnanian wants. One part would change the zoning of a 20-plus-acre parcel along Brandywine Drive from PBC to a PBC-1 zoning district. The second part would allow townhouses to be built in a PBC-1 area with conditional use approval.

Current zoning does not allow residential use in a PBC, planned business campus, zoning district.

The specific parcel on Brandywine Drive is across from Hannum’s Harley Davidson motorcycle dealership and behind Painters Crossing shopping center and Brandywine Coachworks.

After more than a year, the township Planning Commission gave its recommendation to the supervisors to conduct the hearing.

Even if the zoning changes are approved, Hovnanian must still go through the regular subdivision and land use procedures for Planning Commission recommendation and also go through a conditional use hearing before getting final approval from supervisors.

There will likely be another hearing in February, according to Township Manager Amanda Serock. Tentatively scheduled is a hearing to reduce the speed limit on Brandywine Drive from 35 to 25 mph.

As previously reported, supervisors may also consider lowering the speed limit to 25 mph on all township-dedicated roads.

Serock said after the workshop that the speed limit and zoning change hearings could be scheduled back-to-back on the same date.