From Main Street to Mean Street: The poisoning of Perkasie’s politics and the future of local elections

There was a time, not so long ago, when local politics was the last refuge of civility in American life. It was a space where disagreements were settled over coffee at the diner, where zoning variances and sewer maintenance took precedence over ideological warfare, and where a neighbor was a neighbor first and a partisan second. But if the 2025 election cycle in Pennsylvania proved anything, it is that those days are dead. They have been strangled by a new breed of political operative who sees no distinction between a borough council race and a congressional bloodbath.

William Hillman’s recent analysis correctly diagnosed the macro-level disaster: the nationalization of local elections. Voters, swept up in the currents of Washington turmoil, cast ballots based on national angst rather than local competence. However, Hillman’s assessment misses a darker, more corrosive element that accompanied this shift. It wasn’t just that voters were thinking nationally; it was that local Democratic operatives imported the scorched-earth tactics into even our smallest communities.

Nowhere was this transformation more grotesque — and more disheartening — than in Perkasie.

For generations, Perkasie has been defined by a quiet, steady stewardship. But in 2025, the Democratic campaign machine, operating under the banner of “Perkasie First,” decided that the path to power lay not in better ideas but in personal destruction and calculated disinformation. The most egregious example of this was the weaponization of the South Perkasie Covered Bridge.

Here is the reality, unvarnished by campaign spin: After Hurricane Ida devastated the historic 1832 structure, Councilman Scott Bomboy (R) undertook a grueling, years-long administrative battle to save it. Dealing with years of the Biden Administration-led federal bureaucracy is not for the faint of heart. It requires patience, persistence, and a refusal to settle for scraps. Through Bomboy’s leadership, the borough rejected low-ball offers and successfully negotiated approximately $1.7 million in FEMA funding. This money will not only restore the bridge but move it out of the floodway to ensure its survival — all at no direct cost to Perkasie taxpayers.

In a sane political environment, this is a triumph. It is the definition of fiscal conservatism and historic preservation working in tandem to protect and preserve a community landmark.

But to the local Democrats — or at least their campaign arm — this success was a threat. So, they invented a failure. They spent weeks leading up to the election with digital ads and even illegally posted campaign signs on borough-owned park property branding the project “Scott’s Blot.”

They looked at a complex engineering feat funded by federal grants and superhuman efforts of local historical leaders and labeled it a “bridge to nowhere.” They took the necessary time required to secure $1.7 million in federal funds — time spent ensuring local taxes wouldn’t be raised, though a funding referendum would have certainly passed to pay to it — and spun it as “bureaucracy” and “inaction.” They cynically conflated the bridge restoration with unrelated electric fund deficits, hoping that if they threw enough sand in the voters’ eyes, no one would notice that the bridge project was actually a financial win for the town.

This was not a debate about policy. It was a mugging.

Perkasie First claimed that the bridge was a symbol of “eroding character.” The irony is suffocating. The only erosion of character in Perkasie this year came from a campaign willing to mislead the public to win a few council seats. When you attack a fully funded historic restoration project just to score points, you are not offering a vision for the future; you are engaging in vandalism of the civic spirit.

The tragedy, of course, is that the tactic worked. The combination of a national Democratic wave and these nasty, disingenuous local maneuvers handed Democrats control of the Perkasie Borough Council.

Now that the yard signs are down and the “Scott’s Blot” placards have been removed from the parks, the residents of Perkasie are left with an uncomfortable question: Who exactly has taken the reins of our town?

During the campaign, these Democrats marketed themselves as “pragmatists” — sensible neighbors just looking to manage the budget and fix the roads. Yet, when they speak among themselves, the mask slips. One of the newly elected Democrats even declared that her key issue was that “the demystification of municipal politics is crucial in rebuilding the bonds between progressives and the working class,” as if the borough was a laboratory for lefty political theory.

However, their behavior regarding the covered bridge suggests a third, more troubling possibility: That they are simply political hacks.

Consider the cynicism required to run a campaign based on the premise that securing $1.7 million in grant money is a “failure.” Consider the dishonesty of complaining about “budget gaps” while simultaneously attacking a councilman for securing outside funding that protects the municipal budget. If they are willing to demonize a historic preservation project and mock the tireless work of a colleague just to grab a gavel, what will they do when faced with actual, difficult decisions?

Will they govern with the cooperation they promised in their door-knocking literature? Will they legislate with the heavy hand of national progressivism? Or will they continue to operate as cynical partisans who prioritize political bloodsport over the good of the community they now serve?

The construction on the South Perkasie Covered Bridge is slated to begin in early 2026, just as the new Democratic majority takes its seats. Assuming they don’t cancel the project entirely — a move that would at least be consistent with their campaign attacks — when the work is finished, the very same folks who branded it “Scott’s Blot” will inevitably elbow their way to the front of the ribbon-cutting line. They will smile for the cameras, grip the oversized scissors, and happily take credit for the restoration they derided. But for those of us paying attention, that photo-op will stand as a silent rebuke to the new council — a permanent reminder that they were willing to trash our history (and a committed civil servant) to win an election, only to embrace it once the hard work was already done.

Hillman warned that Republicans must “reclaim the local message.” He is right. But we must also demand that our local politics return to a standard of decency. Perkasie deserves leaders who build bridges, not operatives who try to tear them down for votes.

Publius Pax is a tenth-generation Bucks Countian, political consultant, and author.