Morrisville gets a mention in this piece. Who is the Morrisville council member Mullane is referring to?
from the BCCT:
The 'town hell' phenomenon
By: JOHN MULLANE
Bucks County Courier Times
In the early 1990s, the Bristol Township school board planned to raise taxes, big.
Meetings became tumultuous and, when more than a thousand people jammed a high school auditorium to scream, jeer and boo the board, the cops were called.
These kinds of school board meetings went on for several weeks. Board members had their cars vandalized. Death threats were made.
I asked one of the members why the board didn't cancel the meetings or walk out.
"Be a wimp?" he said.
I thought of this when I saw how members of Congress, confronted by constituents upset over proposed national health care legislation, are canceling town halls because some meetings have turned into "town hells."
Federal legislators have been grilled and yelled at, insulted and threatened by voters who have been characterized in media accounts as malcontents stirring trouble to create embarrassing "YouTube" moments.
Perhaps some are. In Bucks County, I didn't see that at the two meetings held by Congressman Patrick Murphy. Attendees were locals concerned that the feds - who cannot run a used car trade-in program without screwing it up - may soon be running the health care industry.
At Murphy's events, there were heated exchanges - health care is an emotional issue - but nothing uncivil, really. Still, reports came in that town hall meetings in St. Louis and Tampa turned "violent." After watching videos of these events, all I saw was some arguing, pushing, shoving, chanting and maybe - maybe -someone threw a punch. Big deal.
To anyone who attends local town meetings, this is not unknown. As someone who spent many years covering local government, I have seen far worse. Guns, stalking, fist fights, tossed garbage, flattened tires and vandalism.
The general punditocracy seems to think that town hall meetings are to be conducted in the manner of oral arguments before the Supreme Court.
Maybe it comes from some dreamy Rockwellian vision of the common Joe standing to speak his mind at borough hall while neighbors sit, rapt. Right.
I departed from a Morrisville council meeting to find a councilman attempting to pummel a resident who had harassed him during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Morrisville also had one of its cops stationed at council meetings because one meeting-goer carried a concealed gun, and there were troubling rumors that other meeting-goers, fearing the gun carrier, also began bringing firearms to meetings.
Fighting? How about two Bristol councilmen in a showdown in the parking lot after a particularly stormy meeting?
Threats? How about the Bristol Township commissioner who found a dead fish on his front step with a rolled dollar bill tucked in its mouth. It was a cryptic message, the police chief told me, indicating the commissioner should vote the "right way" or he would "sleep with the fishes."
How about meeting weirdness?
? A man dressed as a Leni Lenape in moccasins and a long, feathered headdress protesting a trash incinerating plant in Falls;
? A woman who rose at public comment solely to insult the Bristol Township mayor's newly fitted toupee;
? A man who dropped frozen beavers on the floor in front of the Falls supervisors.
Democracy is messy. One needs the testicular fortitude to face the frenzy.
Not so our national leaders, who come off as delicate hot-house flowers, unable to take the heat, or a punch.
Across the country, they are canceling town hall meetings on health care. Some are replacing them with "telephone town hall." (You must sign up, and the legislator's staff hand-picks who gets to participate in a glorified conference call.)
How are our national leaders reacting to the "town hell" phenom?
Sen. Arlen Specter is out and about this week, facing the madding crowds.
But Sen. Bob Casey Jr. has no public appearances until Sept. 17, and has not announced his August schedule.
Meanwhile, Congressman Murphy has no plans for public discussion. Maybe in national politics, that makes you wise. In certain quarters of Bucks County politics, it makes you a wimp.
