This is a short and sweet presentation of the fact that the advertisement for the Eldred Township Water Extraction/Bottling amendment adopted on May 1, 2014 did not match the amendment as it was reviewed, recommended to be approved, and submitted to the Pocono Record. The advertisement was placed by the CJER Planning Committee, specifically by CJER Solicitor Fareri and submitted to the Record by his assistant Tracy Davidson. Ms. Davidson emailed it to the Record on April 8, 2014 at 2:30PM.
Section 610(a) of the PA Municipalities Planning Code requires the "municipal solicitor" to prepare amendment advertisements. In this case, as "Special Solicitor" Mr. Fareri was responsible for review and advertisement of all the CJER townships' amendments. Yet he billed 0 hours to review the four pages of amendments advertised for adoption on May 1, 2014, and the Eldred water extraction amendment as printed differed substantively from what he was authorized to have published. Huh.
The passage of this amendment under corrupted circumstances is the only reason that Eldred Township and its concerned citizen are now battling Nestle/Deer Park's plans to "take advantage" of passage of the amendment.
The advertisement as submitted to and received by the Pocono Record
Here is the Eldred Township portion of what Mr. Fareri submitted to the Record, as verified both through a Right to Know request to CJERP (as it is now named), as well as the legal clerk for the Record, who still has the email containing the amendments that was sent by Ms. Davidson on April 8.
Note the double underling of text to be added, and strike through of text to be deleted
The advertisement as printed by the Pocono Record on April 14 and April 21, 2014
There is no evidence of the underlining that was to indicate a change, or strike through to indicate text to be deleted, in what was printed for the water extraction amendment. For all other amendments, they were printed with such notations as authorized and submitted (but double underlining was replaced by single, with no authorization by the townships to Mr. Fareri to do so)
It should be noted as a point of order, that there were 36 total items with double underlining or strike through in the file received by the Record, and only the two items in the Eldred Water Extraction/Bottling amendment were deleted. It must also be noted that the Record printed single underlining instead of double, presumably because they were unable to print double. Therefore, as printed on April 14 and April 21, the word manufacturing, light should have had single underlining in the printed ad, but it did not. There were 23 instances of strike through and 13 instances of double underlining, so the probability that this was an intentional change is (1 - Probability it was an error) = 1 - (1/23 * 1/13) = 99.7%.
Questions
- CJER cancelled its April 2014 meeting, which would have provided them an opportunity to review these ads (they would have met after the 21st). It also would have provided an opportunity to review comments by the other CJER townships - a review required by the CJER Intergovernmental Agreement. They never asked the CJER townships to do this review, trusted Mr. Fareri to place the ads, and took the day off. Fail, Fail, Fail.
- Did Mr. Fareri or his assistant review what was printed at a cost of $1143 each time it was published, that was intended to inform the public, and not notice that the double underlining was printed as single underling, causing underlining to be ambiguous in the entire ad?
- Did Mr. Fareri or his assistant review what was printed and notice that it had obvious omissions - there was no underlining of manufacturing, light and the word
industrywas not printed? Look at the ad - how could a person miss this? - How can Mr. Fareri claim, as he did at a CJERP meeting on February 25, 2016, that everything was done correct procedurally in passage of the amendment?
- How can Mr. Fareri claim that his law firm Newman Williams has no conflict of interest, while it continues to represent landowner Rick Gower and Gower Estates, LLC?
- Is Mr. Fareri's advice to CJERP that no one discuss what happened in 2014 partly motivated by a selfish interest?
- Why is CJERP adhering to Mr. Fareri's advice, and not admitting what went on in 2014? After all, he believes everything was done properly. Is there something criminal that happened that is being concealed? This isn't Watergate or a Ponzi scheme - it's a municipal review process.
- Who authorized the substantial change to what Mr. Fareri was authorized to advertise?
- Who contacted the Record and issued the order to change what was to be printed?
- How could the person or persons in #10 and #11 been so foolish as to do this - who even reads Public Notices?
- Are these individuals going to reimburse Eldred Township and the individual citizens who have had to spend precious capital defending themselves against this travesty of municipal justice?
Mr. Fareri informs those in attendance at May 1, 2014 hearing that everything is in order.
Does it meet the requirements if the ad is a pile of meaningless garbage? You could have printed a picture of Lady Gaga and it would have been be equally informative
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