Municipal Authority Votes to Take On More Debt

At Monday night's Newtown Township Municipal Authority "special meeting," board members Joe Sweeney, Larry Fischer and Linda Gabell voted to accept an additional $100,000 debt for the Municipal Authority.

Jack DiPompeo voted no and Mark Caldwell did not attend. The three municipal authority members voted yes to accept this debt despite the fact that a portion of this $100,000 was clearly work done on behalf of developers and others.

Newtown resident Paul Guest asked for details about the $100,000. Larry Fischer, treasurer for the Municipal Authority, initially said that it was an accounting entry. When Paul challenged Larry's statement and said that it was real money, Larry revealed a page-and-a-half list of items prepared by and on Kelly and Close Engineers' letterhead that represented $100,000 in charges (see attached document).

Finally, Larry and Joe Sweeney agreed that this was more than just an accounting entry. Sweeney and Fischer finally indicated that they were shifting these expenses to the Municipal Authority so that the money would be paid out of a proposed bond issue. Joe, Larry and Linda were willing to shift these expenses from the township who paid and was responsible for this debt with the ultimate goal to charge any new Municipal Authority customers.

In what seemed to be an attempt at justification, Joe Sweeney said that in the big picture of a $20,000,000 bond over 30 years, this is nothing. Paul Guest's response to Sweeney's comment was to say that to the Muncipal Authority which has no money and already has substantial debt(see attached documents) and to me as a possible customer, it's $100,000. 

Sweeney scolded Mr. Guest by saying that, of the $100,000, approximately $31,000 would be reimbursed to the Municipal Authority by Rouse, Terrazzo, Melmark, Marville , Olde Masters, PNC Bank, Martin-20 Surrey Dr, Paul Lanni, DC Homes, Groff-419 Second, Devereux, Turrill, Orsato and Springton Pointe. But this may not actually be the case.  

In going through documents provided by the Municipal Authority, it appears as though the Municipal Authority paid the invoices for Rouse, Melmark, Marville and Olde Masters in March 2012. This may mean that the township has claimed to pay these invoices and then the Municipal Authority paid them again.

Apparently, $69,000 of the $100,000 is charged to the Upper Crum Creek project which is stated as Municipal Authority expense for engineering and construction of the new system. Since there is no approved plan for construction, there could not be any expense for engineering and construction. Nothing is or has been constructed. 

It also seems some of the amounts on the list of invoices are "General" which is Kelly Engineers' attendance at Municipal Authority meetings and PA 1 call. In regard to 1 call, the discussion revealed that the Municipal Authority never should have paid for 1 call.  

It is a township expense and the township now pays for it, but Kelly put it on the list and the Municipal Authority is going to assume this expense from 2010, even though it never was responsible for 1 call and doesn't pay it now.

Mr. Guest also specifically asked if the Echo Valley special study engineering was in the Upper Crum Creek numbers, in which Fischer said, "no, the township paid that." Fischer couldn't explain what the Crum Creek expenses were for other than to say there are Kelly invoices for the amounts.

Sweeney asked Fischer if, in Fischer's opinion, the Municipal Authority authorized these expenses. Fischer, who was not a member of the Municipal Authority in 2010, said "yes." 

Jack DiPompeo raised a concern about personal liability for Municipal Authority funds and said the board members don't have insurance. It seems that the Municipal Authority members don't know whether these charges should have been paid. They seem only to know that Kelly prepared the list, township officials want to dump this on the Municipal Authority and three members of the Municipal Authority, which, as a majority, agreed to take on the debt. 

DiPompeo strongly opposed this for many reasons. DiPompeo said that getting something at 4:30 p.m. after having requested the information for months was not enough time to make a proper decision. He said that he strongly believed that the Municipal Authority had already paid some of these invoices so they should not be on the list.  

Treasurer Fischer was unwilling to take the time to check. Turns out, DiPompeo appears to be correct. Some of the invoices on the list were paid again in 2012 by the Municipal Authority. DiPompeo said that this is blackmail money, paid by the township to Kelly to get their engineering documents. When Guest again asked who wanted the Municipal Authority to do this, Sweeney responded, "the supervisors." When Guest asked who among the supervisors, Sweeney said all of them.  

The Municipal Authority is an independent entity and, yet, on Monday night, three members of the authority appeared to make a decision without independently questioning. On Monday night, three members of the board, Joe Sweeney, Larry Fischer and Linda Gabell, voted to accept $100,000 in debt without seeking to see individual invoices.  

They voted to accept that a list provided by Kelly & Close was accurate without question. Now, the Municipal Authority will have to explain this decision to their auditors and certainly should be offering an explanation to the taxpayers of Newtown Township.