The Mud has been Flung

Having received Jane Peronteau’s latest campaign mailing yesterday, and reading the malicious lies and distortions contained therein, I am compelled to stray from the neutral position I’ve maintained during the Supervisor election.  Here are my reasons why I must take this drastic step.

The frontispiece reads, “East Vincent Taxpayers Can’t Afford Saul Rivkin.  He’s cost taxpayers money…for his personal agenda.”  The rear of the postcard follows up with, “Rivkin’s lawsuits involving the Township have cost taxpayers more than $22,000 in legal defense fees.  Rivkin has lost the lawsuit every step of the way, but continues to cost us money.”

This is an example of political smear of the worst sort.  The allegation is that Saul Rivkin is frivolously engaging in litigation against East Vincent for his “personal agenda,” and that Mr. Rivkin has cost all of us taxpayers money because it pleases him to do so.  I am appalled at this slander.

Saul Rivkin has brought an action ONCE against the East Vincent Zoning Hearing Board.  Let’s examine the true series of events and dispel Mrs. Peronteau’s prevarication.

Last August, you will recall that the Township’s Code Enforcement Officer issued permits to Richard Chakejian to conduct what is known as the Pennhurst Asylum haunted house amusement in a Low Density Residential Zone.  By law, the only avenue available to a citizen to contest an official decision is to submit an appeal to the EVT ZHB.  That’s it.  There is no other method of due process.  If you disagree with the Code Officer’s determination, the only way to have it examined and reversed is to appeal to the ZHB.  This is hardly a trivial action.

There were costs assumed by the Township and Mr. Rivkin to pursue the legal right of due process.  Since I am a signatory to that appeal, I am fully aware of the appellant cost.

The ZHB upheld the Code Officer’s determination.  If one strongly disagrees with the ZHB ruling, as Mr. Rivkin and all of the other appellants did, then the only way relief can be obtained is via the court system, as prescribed by law.  Thus, Mr. Rivkin and the co-appellants decided to take the next step and appeal the ZHB decision to the Chester County Court of Common Pleas, where we all await the Honorable Judge Robert Shenkin’s ruling.

Mrs. Peronteau paints a picture of Mr. Rivkin as a bitter man spending money on lawyers in a losing cause.  She wants East Vincent voters to think that Mr. Rivkin flaunts the law, almost quoting verbatim the tired rhetoric of Ryan Costello railing on about a licensed kennel on Mr. Rivkin’s property when everyone knows that kennel permit is but part of the state licensing process.  There has never been any animal boarded for a fee on the Rivkin property.  Yet, Mrs. Peronteau screams in print about something that has never happened having heard it from one of her political allies and taking that as gospel.

I am highly distressed by Mrs. Peronteau’s calumnious tactic, especially when she engaged in a lawsuit so frivolous that the judge handling her appeal in U. S. District Court dismissed all of her, her husband’s and her son’s claims of emotional distress and other specious allegations over an incident with her son’s bus driver.  You may read the court’s rejection of her claims here: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D0170P.pdf

As a participant in the Pennhurst zoning lawsuit, it is my strong personal opinion that the Code Officer and the ZHB are dead wrong.  If one presumes zoning as being hierarchical, that is, going from most restrictive to least restrictive, doesn’t it seem to make sense that the most restrictive zone, the low-density residential zone, should prohibit a million dollar commercial business? Doesn’t it make sense to any levelheaded person that an event that brings in over 39,000 people into a residential neighborhood over seven weekends is wrong?  I, for one, loudly and legally say, “No, it does not make sense for this amusement to exist in an LR zone!”  So does Mr. Rivkin.

That is what the lawsuit, the SINGLE lawsuit is about. It is to correct what many see as a mistake made by an authorized employee of East Vincent Township.

Does Mrs. Peronteau suggest, no exhort, that a citizen should accept any ukase Township officials perpetrate and simply cry in one’s beer?  Is she saying that a citizen of the United States should not redress a grievance when it will cost government despite that privilege being a Constitutional right?

The defamatory diatribe printed on that postcard angers me to my core and I am hoping that the voters of East Vincent not only reject Mrs. Peronteau’s lies, distortions and obviously desperate attempt to reverse her losing campaign, but to let her know in any and every way possible she should be ashamed of herself.

Up until now the campaign was run professionally and without rancor.  Mrs. Peronteau now wallows in the mud, flings it without regard, and demeans herself and our Township.  For shame!