When: East Cocalico Township supervisors meeting, July 18.
What happened: A former East Cocalico Township supervisor claimed wrongdoing over a recent hire. Romao “RC” Carrasco verbally lashed out at his former fellow supervisors. Carrasco, whose term ended Dec. 31, accused the board during public comment of “maliciously, proactively making sure that I was 100% cut out of everything that they did” as the board went through the process of hiring a new financial administrator.
Cut out?: Carrasco referenced a “confidential memo” dated Dec. 26, which was a conditional job offer addressed to Deborah Beury to fill the position of township finance director at salary of $90,000. The memo was copied to the board of supervisors. Carrasco said he would “testify under oath” that he “was intentionally kept out of the loop during the negotiation, deliberation and actual offer of employment for the position of financial director.” He added that “a supervisor-elect who had not yet taken a seat (on the board) was fully involved.”
More: After the meeting, Carrasco said the documents were obtained through Right-to-Know Law requests made by resident Ken McCrea, who provided LNP with his record requests and communication with the township and state Office of Open Records.
Quotable: “I’m going to the state ethics board on this one,” Carrasco said after the meeting. “I will meet with them in person, I’m not going to just file it. I’m also going to meet with the state bar ethics association in regards to (Township Solicitor) Matt Creme. He had to be involved. In my opinion they have falsified official government records.”
Rebuttal: Neither the supervisors nor township staff responded to Carrasco’s charges during meeting. However, Township Manager Tommy Ryan said in a July 23 email that an executive session held to discuss the hiring of a financial director to be considered or acted on by the board on or after Jan. 1, would be sent to the incoming supervisor, not the outgoing one. During the Jan. 18 supervisors meeting, the board unanimously approved the hiring of Beury, as noted in the official minutes of that meeting.
Quotable: “This is the protocol when managing Executive Session matters such as personnel,” Ryan said in an email. “While my position possesses the authority to hire all non-uniform personnel, the ratification of a hire is a personnel matter, an Executive Session matter. Since the Board of Supervisors was to consider this ratification on January 18, the information was provided only to those in office at that time.” He added, “I’ve worked in municipal government for 30 years and this is the way it’s done.”
Top Gun: During the police report, Chief Steve Savage acknowledged Officer Shane Johnson for being named a Top Gun DUI officer by the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office and the DUI Council of Lancaster County. Johnson was one of eight officers countywide to be honored.
Quotable: “It’s a huge award,” Savage said.
Next meeting: The board will meet again at 7 p.m. Aug. 1 at the township building, 100 Hill Road, Denver.
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