Deleted Facebook Comment Leads To Yardley Executive Session

YARDLEY, PA —A deleted Facebook comment off a Patch.com story about the borough's budget had Borough Council adjoining Tuesday night's meeting to go into executive session about the matter.

The council went into executive session for a legal discussion of possible settlement negotiations with resident Earl J. Markey III, who filed suit against the borough for deleting the comment last Wednesday. Patch had written a story that Yardley was facing a possible tax hike with its 2023 budget.

Markey, who petitioned Bucks County to get a Nov. 8 election ballot question to reduce the council's size, wrote a Facebook post reacting to the tax hike, criticizing Councilman Matt Curtin who serves on the borough's budget committee and plugging his referendum, which goes before voters next Tuesday.

Council President Caroline Thompson told the public that the council would be moving into executive session. Thompson and Councilman David Appelbaum have stated publicly that they are against the ballot question.

The day after the Facebook comment was deleted, Markey said he filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania seeking injunctive relief and monetary damages.

He also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to allow him to report the comment.

An emergency hearing was scheduled before U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick for Monday.

But Markey said borough officials contacted him and agreed to allow Markey to repost the comment. Markey said he was told the borough would pay court filing fees, and disclose the individuals responsible for removing the post to avoid the hearing.

Markey provided the court documents to Patch.

“Removing comments that are protected by the First Amendment from public social media pages is a blatant civil rights violation. This violation is particularly egregious because the Yardley Borough official who decided to censor my comment used another official Borough Facebook page to promote an opposing view as people vote by mail," Markey said. "Public officials across the country should take notice and tread carefully: Censoring protected speech from official social media pages may quickly land you in Federal Court in these circumstances.”

Thompson told Patch in a Facebook Messenger chat Wednesday that there was no vote or announcement after the executive session.