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From the BCCT.

Meeting features police security
By: DANNY ADLER
Bucks County Courier Times

Township meetings have become increasingly hostile, with shouting, name calling and heckling among residents and supervisors.

Some new faces joined the usual cast and crew at this week's Northampton Board of Supervisors.

Two police officers, one in uniform, the other in plainclothes, were asked to stand guard at Wednesday's meeting by township Manager Bob Pellegrino. This happened two weeks after Pellegrino called police to a supervisors meeting because of a raucous recess.

Northampton's meetings have been increasingly hostile, with shouting matches, name calling and heckling - residents versus supervisors, residents versus residents, supervisors versus supervisors.

With the officers there, Wednesday's meeting was, by far, the most civil in quite some time. But not everyone appreciated the police presence.

Supervisor Jim Cunningham said he was troubled by the police presence at the supervisors meeting and at a Northampton Bucks County Municipal Authority meeting down the street last week. He requested police be excused from sitting through public meetings.

"It's my belief that their presence in these meetings only serves to fuel any resentments or hostilities that the residents have," he said. "There are more pressing matters I'm sure that they would have to tend to in the community."

Supervisors Chairman Vincent J. Deon agreed, but also noted the good behavior at the meeting with the cops sitting in the audience.

"I agree 100 percent with you, Mr. Cunningham. But it's pretty clear that the civility and decorum has gone up about 105 percent with them in the room," he said of the police officers. "There are others of us that believe the same way, but it's the safety of this board that Bob Pellegrino is partly in charge of."

Pellegrino, who didn't attend Wednesday's meeting, said Thursday that it was his decision alone to have police on site. He said he wants to ensure order and make sure everyone is safe at Northampton's meetings. The police, he said, are there only to break up any possible physical confrontations.

The move also was criticized by some residents, including Tim Snee.

"What kind of paranoia is going on that you have to have armed police here at our meetings?" he asked. "What are we going to do next? Metal detectors? Are we going to have to take our shoes off before we come in? Put everything in a crate when we come in, put it through an X-ray machine? This is ridiculous."

People who attended the meeting two weeks ago at town hall said tempers flared during the public comment portion. During the recess, arguments broke out and there was a potential physical confrontation brewing, they said. That's when Pellegrino called the police.