Thread by @gaughen

This is a short story about the lengths the political establishment will go to to evade accountability and oversight.

I ran a write-in campaign (as a Libertarian) for Auditor of Silver Spring Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania this past November.
[Part 1 of 19]

To my surprise, I won my election! It's pretty unusual for a Libertarian to win an election. I received a nice congratulations letter and a nifty Certificate of Election from the County Bureau of Elections. [Part 2 of 19]

But I never heard anything from the Township where I was to be seated. Dead silence. [Part 3 of 19]

I figured the township supervisors just assumed I knew what to do next (I didn't). So, I went to the Township's scheduled reorganization meeting on January 3 of this year. I was quite surprised to see that my swearing-in wasn't even on the agenda! [Part 4 of 19]

During public comment, I got up to inform the supervisors that I had won my election and that I was there to take the Oath of Office and be seated as a township auditor. The supervisors all looked at each other and then said that it must have slipped their minds. [Part 5 of 19]

The supervisors assured me that I would be able to swear in at either the next meeting on January 26th or they would make arrangements to have me sworn in before the local district justice. I figured, 'OK, this was just an oversight and they'll correct it.' [Part 6 of 19]

I was wrong to give them the benefit of the doubt. [Part 7 of 19]

Three days after that meeting, I received an email from the township manager to the effect of, "sorry, we hired a CPA to do that job and we have no need for elected auditors to oversee the township." (This is my paraphrasing; his exact words are screenshot here.) [Part 8 of 19]

Now, it's within a township's rights to hire a CPA to do the official audit of the books, but that doesn't have the effect of abolishing a board of auditors. Relevant state law can be found here: legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/…
[Part 9 of 19]

With a CPA hired, the other duties of the Board of Auditors still remain in place. Auditors have several duties in addition to preparing the annual audit. [Image courtesy of @JakeTowne .]
[Part 10 of 19]

The idea behind the office of the township auditor is to have a government watchdog for the citizens of the township. I have trouble believing that the state legislature intended to give township supervisors the power to hire and fire their own overseers. [Part 11 of 19]

I decided to call the Township's solicitor (attorney) since he was CCed on the email. I wanted to understand the justification for the manager's email. I received no call back. I also called the county's solicitor but I never heard back from him either. [Part 12 of 19]

It gets worse. There are always three auditors on a board, so I decided to look into who the other elected auditors of my township were. I discovered that another gentleman had won a six-year term two years before me. I went to his house to introduce myself. [Part 13 of 19]

My fellow auditor informed me that they given him the EXACT SAME runaround two years earlier. They had also prevented him from swearing in and being seated. He also got an email from the township manager saying his services were not needed. [Part 14 of 19]

The state legislature created, and the governor signed, a law compelling townships to have boards of auditors. The county Bureau of Elections put that office on the ballot, and the citizens of the township spoke loud and clear when choosing their auditors. [Part 15 of 19]

Yet, I live in a township where the Board of Supervisors feels so confident that it doesn't need any oversight that it will flout Pennsylvania's Township Code and it will straight-up say in writing that, nah, we won't seat duly-elected auditors. [Part 16 of 19]

The audacity to simply ignore an election and state law just floors me. If anything, this ordeal has shown me exactly WHY the Board of Supervisors needs to be overseen by a Board of Auditors. [Part 17 of 19]

The natural question anyone would have after all this is: WHY won't the township seat its Board of Auditors? Is there something on the books that that certain people don't want to be discovered? [Part 18 of 19]

How do you feel about this? Let Silver Spring Township know your thoughts:

@SilverSpringTwp
facebook.com/sstwp/
[e-mail]
717-766-0178

[Part 19 of 19]

Coda 1 of ?: The other auditor, Christopher Trafton, sent me this screenshot of the email he received two years ago denying him the office. This was the previous manager. Does this wording sound familiar? The managers are being told to send these emails by someone higher up.