Resident Accuses Borough of 'Sanitizing' Meeting Minutes

If you attend Lansdale Borough council meetings, and you want to make a public comment, then it depends when you go out to borough hall.

If it’s during council’s information session on the first Wednesday of the month, then you can speak before adjournment.
If it’s during council’s work session on the third Wednesday of the month, then you can speak at the beginning of the meeting only, prior to any action items.

Furthermore, if any issue is raised during public comment, council does not respond immediately. Rather, a councilmember either contacts the resident at a later time or it is discussed at a following meeting.

Resident Joe Cionzynski, of Perkiomen Avenue, caused some fervor last Wednesday at borough council’s work session when he told council he wasn’t given a chance to ask a question following this month’s information session.

Cionzynski said the borough’s meeting minutes were “sanitized” and “edited” and that he was told to “sit down and shut up” and the end of last month’s work session.

Prior to his comment, Cionzynski asked council President Matt West if he was going to apologize to two recipients of his “venom” from two months ago when he called out everyone but councilmen Jack Hansen and Rich DiGregorio for voting for more police officers last year.

Cionzynski said at last month’s meeting, West gave a “self-aggrandizing” speech blended with diatribe, and then put forth a “half-hearted” apology to the audience.

He then segued into his issue with West at last month’s meeting when he was barred from asking a question after the gavel was struck, adjourning the meeting.

“At the end of last month’s meeting on a different subject, I asked in response to Mr. Dunigan’s comment to continue the edited, sanitized, condensed version of the meeting minutes as oppose to a full verbatim version of the minutes as had been done to councils prior to your arrival here,” Cionzynski said. “I was told to sit down and shut up at that point because it was at the end of the meeting and not at the beginning of the meeting.”

He accused council of not being “interested in efficiency” by discussing the subject at that time when it was fresh in everyone’s minds.

“Therefore, I renew my request at this proper time to resume full verbatim minutes for every meeting because there have been tremendous errors in the sanitized, edited, condensed versions which are quite contrary to what many people said,” Cionzynski said.

“When I read the minutes several months later when they are approved and published, I look back upon that and remember what was said and it doesn’t resemble anything like the minutes,” he said. “In fact, in many cases, it conveys just the opposite meaning of what was said at the meeting.”

Councilwoman Mary Fuller responded to Cionzynski, asking if he was really asked to sit down and shut up.

“I take exception to some of the comments that were just made. I know we’re not supposed to answer. I won’t sit here and listen to the borough employees being told they are inefficient and water down and misconstruing minutes,” Fuller said. “I read the same minutes, I’m present at the meetings, I listen to them, I read them over, I go to approve them because I think they are correct record. I wasn’t here for the last meeting. I find it really hard to believe that anybody up here told anyone to sit down and shut up.”

Fuller said she would review the minutes to see if that happened.

Cionzynski said he was told by West that the public comment period was at the beginning of the meeting and he was not allowed to speak toward the end of the meeting about something that was said within the last few minutes.

“Did somebody tell  you to ‘sit down and shut up’?” Fuller asked.

“Maybe not in those words,” said Cionzynski. “But it was quite clear that was the intent.”

West banged the gavel to break up the debate.

“This is the reason why I don’t like responses,” West said. “Debate does not belong in a public meeting.”

At the May 18 meeting, West had banged the gavel to adjourn. Cionzynski asked if there could be another comment from the public.

“So I have to wait until next month? It was something that was brought up in the course of the meeting which I was not aware of at the time of public comment,” Cionzynski said.

West told him public comment period was closed. Cionzynski said it would be a lot more efficient to do it now while it was fresh.

“You’re not interested in efficiency?” he asked West.

West repeated that public comment period was closed and that it occurs before the meeting.

At that time, councilman Dan Dunigan told Cionzynski he would talk with him about his issue after the meeting.

At the June 15 meeting, Dunigan said he would talk to Cionzynski again. He said Cionzynski’s comment about “sanitized” minutes did not sit well.

“I spoke to him after that meeting and I will speak to him after this one,” Dunigan told the audience. “Specfically, the word he chose to use ‘sanitized,’ to say that doesn’t sit well with me is a more than mild understatement. Our minutes are not sanitized. They are properly categorized, and I will show you and make a point that on the specific that you raised, I believe, and I bet a group of reasonable people would believe, that sanitized would be incorrect.”

He said it’s a big concern that council’s minutes match the actions they take.

“It’s just the way it’s got to be,” Dunigan said.