Was a candidate for an opening on the Upper Darby Council treated fairly?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Law attended the Nov. 19 council meeting and said that while he appreciated the opportunity to be interviewed for the 2nd District Council seat, he objected to being asked by Councilman Myron McNeely about which political party he belonged to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was asked two questions about my political affiliation, and my question is, why?\u201d Law asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I looked at it was, we\u2019re filling a Democratic seat,\u201d McNeely said. \u201cAnd we wanted to make sure the person that held that seat was a Democrat, OK?. And we\u2019re a Democratic Council, OK? So, I felt as though the question I asked was being fair. The fact is, why would we want anybody in the seat other than the person that was in there\u2026 I asked you how long you voted as a Democrat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Law told McNeely he was wrong. McNeely apologized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would expect you to be more professional and ask everybody the same question. Was that question asked of anybody else?\u201d Law asked.<\/p>\n
McNeely said it was not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou already know what the rules are. You need to follow the rules,\u201d said Law.<\/p>\n
Councilor Laura Wentz argued that asking a candidate for office what their political party is was a violation of the township\u2019s administrative code.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s discrimination, and you\u2019re not filling a Democratic seat. You\u2019re filling a 2nd District Council seat. There\u2019s nothing that says it must be held by anyone of any political party. It\u2019s discrimination. And the fact that the question was not asked of every political candidate, it should have never been asked. Because in fact, when we had the 5th District interviews, Councilwoman (Danyell) Blackwell tried to ask that of a different candidate, and I stopped it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy point is it\u2019s discrimination to ask any candidate interviewing for any position in Upper Darby what their political party is. That\u2019s discrimination.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And no candidate should ever be asked that. Just like you don\u2019t ask what their disabilities are. You don\u2019t ask them what their age is. Those are all discrimination aspects. You don\u2019t ask them those things. That was discrimination, and there\u2019s a huge problem with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because McNeely had been chosen for the 5th District in that same process, he should have known, Wentz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe represent everyone in the township, everyone in your district, regardless of their political party. The moment you ask that question, you are discriminating. That is blatant discrimination, and it\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brian Burke, a former Council president, agreed that McNeely had discriminated against Law and told Broad + Liberty later that Law should sue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you blatantly say it was a Democratic seat,\u201d said Burke. \u201cIt was a Republican seat for 30 years before that. It is a seat for the people of the 2nd District.\u201d And not only Republicans but Independents should feel discriminated against, he added.<\/p>\n
Council voted to appoint Jonathan McMahon to the seat and Mayor Ed Brown swore him in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, at the Dec. 3 meeting, Township Solicitor Michael Clarke announced that no discrimination had taken place when McNeely asked the \u201cpotential candidate what his party was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a violation of the administrative code,\u201d said Clarke. \u201cThe administrative code only deals with employees. These seats are inherently political. That\u2019s why they run as part of political parties. The question that was asked by Councilman McNeely did not violate the administrative code.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNeely declined to discuss the matter further, saying that he relied on the solicitor\u2019s opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wentz told Broad + Liberty, \u201cI do not agree with Solicitor Clarke\u2019s interpretation of the administrative code. Chapter VII is clearly talking about Council and all elected positions. It\u2019s a clear violation of 7.02 B 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs elected or appointed officials, we represent every resident\/business in our district regardless of political party. Political party has no place in the conversation, and by asking the questions, it becomes biased discrimination if their answer is not what the asker is looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked to comment on Clarke\u2019s decision, Law said he might sue but planned to start with the state Human Relations Commission because he believes that he was discriminated against.<\/p>\n
He said he laughed when he heard Clarke\u2019s comments from the audience because a council member is a paid position and therefore covered by the administrative code. The councilors are paid $5,000 plus additional benefits, including health care and pension, although they pay ten percent toward those costs, and can decide whether to join those plans, Wentz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t he read?\u201d asked Law. \u201cI applied for a job.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He believes McNeely asked him how often he voted as a Democrat because he\u2019d recently registered with that party. Also, he made a right-to-know request for the job posting and got a reply with it listed on the township\u2019s Facebook page, not a legal advertisement in one of the papers of record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what they sent me,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n
And McNeely said, \u201cWe decided,\u201d to ask the questions, Law noted. In addition to McNeely, he was questioned by Council President Hafiz Tunis Jr., Vice President Marion B. Minick, and Secretary Michelle Billups.<\/p>\n
At the Nov. 19 meeting, Tunis referred Law\u2019s questions to McNeely as the councilman who asked those questions during the interview.<\/p>\n
Linda Stein is a Philadelphia-area journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Was a candidate for an opening on the Upper Darby Council treated fairly?\u00a0 Michael Law attended the Nov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[31585,31586,212,2258,31587,2309,31588,31589,31590,31591,5019,147,2262,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-57354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-brian-burke","tag-danyell-blackwell","tag-delaware-county","tag-democrats","tag-hafiz-tunis","tag-laura-wentz","tag-marion-minick","tag-michael-clarke","tag-michelle-billups","tag-myron-mcneey","tag-republicans","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-council","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\/57354","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=57354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}