unanimously approved a set of ordinances to spend the final amount of funding<\/a>. However, Democratic Council President Hafiz Tunis has concerns about the transparency of the process and the lack of expert input.\n<\/p>\nHe said the council minority at the time was not brought into the planning process until the very end.\n<\/p>\n
He believes he was put in a difficult position: vote against it and leave his constituents hanging or vote in favor of the ordinances which he believes shortchanges his district. Tunis is embracing Brown\u2019s plan to re-allocate the money.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like a lot of my colleagues have made promises to some stakeholders on these funds and they believe that they won\u2019t be met and that\u2019s not necessarily true,\u201d Tunis said. \u201cSome of these projects will happen, but it needs to be thorough. The public needs to be involved and it needs to be transparent and it needs to be open to the public \u2014 not backroom deals, meeting at someone\u2019s house over pizza and wine and that\u2019s what really happened.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Despite disagreements, township officials mend fences<\/p>\n
He said the 19082 ZIP code, which encompasses the area near 69th Street, earns less than some of the more affluent districts in Upper Darby. To Tunis, the ARPA conversation is missing a cultural component.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThose ARPA allocations, it shows that. $1.6 million to the Drexel Hill Senior Center \u2014 $250,000 to the Upper Darby Center. That\u2019s a disparity. That\u2019s over a million dollars,\u201d Tunis said.\n<\/p>\n
He believes reallocation allows for a fresh start.\n<\/p>\n
Both Tunis and Andruszko entered the ARPA controversy, relatively speaking, as the new kids on the block. Although they still sit on opposing sides of the debate, both expressed a desire to change the tenor of local government through better communication.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel like that\u2019s how government should work,\u201d Tunis said. \u201cPeople want this adversarial relationship where we hate each other \u2014 I don\u2019t think that works. Mayor [Cherelle] Parker and [City Council] President Kenyatta Johnson were able to get a budget done together. That\u2019s a big win for Philadelphia. Upper Darby wants to do the same thing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Even though Tunis disagrees with Andruszko\u2019s stance on guarantees, he believes the Republican council member has the township\u2019s best interests in mind.\n<\/p>\n
Council meetings still have their tension, but they are a far cry from public meetings of yesteryear.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has improved, and I\u2019m happy to see that, and I think we need to continue to focus on the residents, ensuring that our actions are respectful and that we\u2019re taking care of them first, Andruszko said.\n<\/p>\n
Brown said he welcomes opposing perspectives. As a newcomer, he wants to keep the peace inside of the municipal building.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think that\u2019s a collective effort, right? I don\u2019t think this is solely my effort,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI will control myself, and I can control my administration to a degree, but I think other people who disagree also have to be committed to keeping the temperature down. There\u2019s such a thing as respectfully disagreeing and accepting decisions that are made.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Councilmember Silva said he plans to do just that. He described Brown\u2019s administration as \u201chonorable people\u201d and said he has more confidence in them than their predecessors.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can do this with a level of mutual respect and understanding and if we all have that same goal of trying to do something good for the people of this township, then I feel like we\u2019ll be able to do this in a calm and rational way,\u201d Silva said. \u201cIt\u2019s entirely possible \u2014 and it might even be probable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How a $41.8 million lifeline tore a township apart For more than two years, the township government has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[52430,52431,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-109356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-american-rescue-plan-act","tag-conoravirus-relief","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}