August 18 – Little Quincy Township has certainly had its share of turmoil in the last few years.
They had an FBI investigation of a supervisor for misusing funds in the spring of 2021. Then in December of that same year, the supervisor under investigation committed suicide.
Since then, there have been new supervisors in place, but now, it looks like the strife is back.
A special meeting a few months ago saw numerous staff resignations, many of whom spoke at the public meeting. The minutes of that meeting are here: https://www.quincytwp.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/june_29_2023_special_meeting_minutes.pdf
Now, at a workshop yesterday morning, two of the three supervisors resigned.
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM attended the workshop where Psalm readings have become a trend.
Jansen explained, “For someone who thinks we may have made fun of the reading of Psalms. No, we’re not making fun of the reading of Psalms. What we said was the theme of the Psalms, in terms of using the Bible to passively aggressively attack a fellow supervisor, rather than straightforward, here’s where I disagree with you. These are the issues. If they don’t think he’s working well or they don’t think that he’s cooperating, I’d like to hear some straightforward talk, not passive aggressive Psalm readings that put this person in the in the role of say, David, from the Bible and his enemies smoting him and unjustly attacking him. That’s passive aggressive using a Bible amongst a very faithful community to attack rather than being straightforward and telling people more specifically, what’s the evidence that this person is maybe not doing their job right? And what did you try to do to do it? And what changes did you ask for that he wouldn’t do for you? Or what are the answers and solutions? We didn’t hear any of that. We just heard passive aggressive Bible reading, and a lot of self-aggrandizement, in terms of the word, we’re the good guys, there’s the bad guys. That’s ridiculous.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM added, “We’ve been to school board meetings and never have I seen such soap operas and dramas, and oh my god, the tears and the hair pulling. I would think I was in grade school watching some of this nonsense and thankfully, the resignations continue to flush out here. It was a couple of weeks ago that we would hear a 20-something lecturing and thanking and now we’re working for Franklin County.”
Jansen noted, “And as she claimed the person she was referring to, and that everybody else piled up on, she claimed he had been nothing but nice to her and encouraging and kind, but it was things she heard about him that made her say what she said.”
Ryan said, “This is straight out of fourth grade here.”
Quincy Township has less than 10,000 people and is part of Waynesboro Area School District. The township has been growing with new development.
Jansen wondered, “I know people who live in Quincy Township. Has it become a mean township? I’m not talking about the supervisors and their staff. I’m talking about the township itself. Like the rest of this area, it’s a place where it’s a small town living, people know each other, and they’re kind to each other. They help each other. Have you seen a drastic change in Quincy Township where that doesn’t happen anymore?”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “No. Quincy Township is also a very valuable part of our county in the sense some of our biggest, richest farms are in Quincy Township as well. There’s a lot of agriculture that happens, really important agriculture in Quincy Township as well. Great people in Quincy Township.”
Ryan said, “And they deserve better and ideally we’re on that path now with more resignations here and we’ll get a chance to clean things up a touch out there.”
At the supervisor’s workshop yesterday, this exchange occurred between Jansen and Supervisor Lee Daywalt:
Jansen asked, “Do you think this is the most responsible thing for you to do? Leave Quincy Township with only one supervisor knowing they don’t have the wherewithal to be able to keep business going?”
Daywalt said, “I’ll answer your question with a question. Why is this the first time you’re talking to me? Why is the first time you asked me anything about all of this in two years ever? You’ve talked about me on the radio. You’ve made fun of me on the radio. You never talked to me.”
Jansen asked, “Have you ever bothered to contact us?”
Daywalt said, “That’s not my responsibility.”
Jansen said, “I’ve been wronged by a reporter and I contacted them immediately and ask for clarification.”
Daywalt said, “Good for you. It’s your job, not mine.”
Ryan noted, “Listen to the bitter and the sarcasm in this one. It’s remarkable that you’re getting into an argument back and forth.”
Jansen said, “Because all these people love Quincy Township, and they’ve worked there and they were cheering each other on about how great of a job they’ve done. But leaving only one supervisor means they cannot do business. You have to have at least two. If you think this one person is just so bad, and you’re all jumping ship, well, but then now you’re going to leave the township with the inability to do business. And he didn’t answer the question ever. You know what he’s done with meetings. He bolted right out afterwards and we were given the word that they were told not to answer questions from us. So this idea of why didn’t you? First of all, supposedly the last two years this has all been going on. I thought they said the last two years everything was going great and it’s only been in recent months that they had to leave. Those were some of the other comments that were made. Apparently there’s Resident Evil there and this is from the people who say they’re not they’re not the dramatic ones. They don’t do drama, but it’s just interesting.”
Ryan said, “By the way, the invitations right out there. Mr. Daywalt, by all means. Come on in. The water’s warm. We’ll be happy to have a conversation with you on the radio.”
Jansen said, “And a real conversation.”
Barkdoll said, “I don’t know what in the world is going on out there. I mean, this is just constant drama it seems like. Remember, it was just within the last couple of weeks you had staff members resign, the manager resigned. Part of this meeting yesterday, two of the three supervisors have now resigned, one of whom was Mr. Daywalt that you were just playing there. So they’re down to one supervisor. Although I think the Daywalt resignation is not effective for another week. This is a very bad situation for people living in Quincy Township. I mean, a government there is really to the point that it’s having difficulty operating. I don’t know where this goes. I mean, is there some scenario that there’s going to need to be a court intervention? Obviously efforts need to be made to get those seats filled very quickly, but if it sounds like you’ve seen this movie before, it’s because you have. These resignations at the supervisor level vacancies seem to be the norm out there and it’s really becoming a difficult situation.”
