hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil

What the audit tells us

As expected, Jenkintown residents have taken to the Jenkintown Community Page to voice reactions to the audit we released on Monday. And like clockwork, the apologists and the “Jenkintown is a Special Place” crowd heaped on their rebuttals. What (so far) none of them has remarked about is how hard the Borough worked to keep this a secret. Are you people okay with that?

It should also be noted that the court handed down its decision on July 31 of this year. It took a resident more than two months to get a hold of a copy after filing the Right-to-Know request, filing it a second time only after hearing rumors of its existence. Conveniently, the Borough managed to keep it under wraps until after the last election. 

We always come back to this transparency thing because it reminds us of Deborra Sines-Pancoe’s assertions that she’s working hard to make sure that your borough government is as transparent as possible. She’s said so on several occasions, usually as an attempt to defend herself right after she worked to keep something under wraps. 

Since the founding of this website in 2015, the list of the Borough’s attempts to ramrod projects, proposals, and policies under our noses just grows longer. The park, the lack of sidewalk data, the refusal to turn over of email records, the Kilkenny invoice redactions, the Taco Bell and Summit Hill fiascos, the Church of Our Savior property development, and now a police audit commissioned by Council that cost an unknown amount of money to get and then more to block. 

When you have to go to court to force your own government to get the truth, you do indeed live in a “special” place. 

Regarding the audit itself, I just want to say that since I moved here in 2002, I’ve had exactly four direct interactions with Jenkintown Police, including the Chief. I can say that in every case, they’ve treated me professionally and with respect. However, I know lifelong residents who tell less complimentary tales. Some are heart-breaking.

I see the audit as an assessment of the organization and how it is run, and not necessarily and indictment of specific officers or their character — although it’s clear that even within such a diminutive force, bad apples can and do exist. The audit points to some major problems that demand remediation, including the department’s oversight by the mayor and Council. To deny, as some have, that there’s “nothing to see here” and that we should all just move along is patently naïve. 

Yes, some of what Smeal recommended (implicitly) will cost money, but in today’s world, thorough record keeping, accountability, and communication are vital tools for keeping our community safe. One only has to look at what’s being spent on the park and handed over to Sean Kilkenny to know that the money is (or was) there. 

Yet to dismiss this report as “obvious” or no big deal is head-in-sand thinking at its worst. If Jenkintown is to be truly special in a good way, then it must demand better from its public servants or find better.

Jenkintown Council President Deborra Sines-Pancoe

Lateral damages

The town that works harder to attract visitors than it does to keep its own residents eventually loses both. 

We keep sending that memo to Jenkintown, and it stubbornly refuses to read it. This week, realtor Andrew Smith sent out a memo of his own that asks Council to reconsider a 2017 ordinance requiring inspection of sewer laterals before a property sale. Of all the claims made, the assertion that these inspections waste large, equity-devouring sums of money and do no good should resonate the loudest.

Our borough council has a real problem truly understanding the concept of financial hardship. They pay lip service, but they do not act upon their feeble expressions of empathy. It makes one want to call for them to release their tax returns if only to show the hypocrisy of joining a party that blames the nation’s ills on the apathy of the one-percent.

With this ordinance, rarely does a “For Sale” sign pop up in Jenkintown without a backhoe appearing to dig up the front yard, a brand-new sidewalk, and sometimes a chunk of a freshly paved street. Don’t move here unless you can afford this council’s unsubstantiated environmental agenda.

The lateral ordinance was snuck onto the agenda and passed in 2017 despite Cheltenham’s eventual abandonment of a similar program that they found fixed nothing and cost too much.

This latest example of expensive municipal folly follows the surreptitious acquisition of the Cedar Street property, the vindictive persecution of Peggy and Dave Downs and their subsequent lawsuit, and the grossly mismanaged sidewalk repair “program”. In all three cases, the Council ignored the facts, leaving onerous and unnecessary burdens upon hapless homeowners. 

It’s no coincidence that this municipal dysfunction started about the same time Deborra Sines-Pancoe ascended to Council leadership. It’s also no coincidence that council has become a revolving door or that it has an open seat going into the general election. People who value their time do not want to share that board with her. 

Pancoe has not contented herself with running the main meeting, but she now exerts undue influence into the committees as well. Rick Bunker quit his seat in a huff during a fire commission meeting after Pancoe, who wasn’t even a member, hijacked it. She has even gone so far as to refer to herself alternately as Jenkintown’s manager and its leader. As Council President, she has no managerial authority at all. Officially, Jenkintown has no leader.

Pancoe, a Quaker, serves also as a director for Abington Friends Academy. Quakerism’s central tenet of non-violence should make one wonder how a professed believer can be so blind to the violence that financial disaster can bring to struggling families, the elderly, or anyone who desperately wants to jump ship before she steers it into the iceberg.

Twenty years from now, when the history of Jenkintown’s decline and annexation by Abington is written, look forward to an entire chapter devoted to Deborra Sines-Pancoe’s role in this sad development.

Escape from Jenkintown

One now-former resident tells his story and why he waited to get out before telling it.

The hype that surrounds Jenkintown often describes it as a “A Big-Hearted, All-American Town“, and if you remove the politics or the insidious machinations of our public officials, and maybe it is.

We settled here in 2002 and in 2015 made the mistake of looking under the municipal rocks. It wasn’t pretty.

This reporter has heard from several hostile quarters, “Why don’t you just move?” or “If you don’t like it, leave,” or most famously, “Jenkintown isn’t for everyone,” as if other towns don’t have their fair share of Rick Bunkers, i.e. apathetic fools tone deaf to the needs of their constituents and unfit for public office.

Lucky is the person who has the resources to do exactly that. We receive emails, calls, and discrete taps on the shoulder on almost a monthly basis from people admitting to a fearful reluctance to speak out against our government. Indeed, we heard from Jim Smith much earlier this year who asked me not to convey his opinion about Jenkintown’s ongoing decline for fear of retaliation by George Locke.

Now safely ensconced in nearby Rydal, Jim posted the following on the Jenkintown Community Page:

We moved. Seriously. After 48 of 51 years in Jtown; my wife, kids, and I graduating from JHS; and our holding out hope that things would get better, we finally threw in the towel. Over the last few years especially, it appeared that the town was going in the wrong direction – increasing storefront vacancies; a school district running a deficit despite increasing taxes; spiteful Borough management; the ‘curb fiasco’; failure to see the ‘big picture’ and take actions beneficial for the future; and more, we finally decided that our dream of living happily ever after in the borough was just that – a dream.

We stayed in the zip code (Rydal) and will continue to support the vendors in the borough as much as possible (filled with wonderful business owners who deserve our support), and we really hope our fears of continuing deterioration of the town don’t come to fruition, especially because what makes the town so special is the residents. Jenkintown is a very unique place… but as evidenced by how things are being run, it appears there is a major disconnect between what the residents want and deserve and those making the decisions.

So instead of voting with our mouths, we voted with our wallets. Instead of continually being angry over things like the Downs situation (just a microcosm of bigger issues), we can watch what happens without a ‘dog in the fight’, so to speak. We hope for the sake of all the great people in Jenkintown, present and future, that things change for the better – perhaps the elections next year will be a step in that direction. Kudos to all of you who are putting in the time and effort with the hope of making a difference – our hearts and hopes will be with you!

Having visited hundreds of similar small towns across this country and reporting upon those in varying degrees of decline or revival, we’ve come to the inexorable conclusion that the blame for decline — like ours — almost universally falls at the doorstep of borough/township/city hall.