Integrity, honor, and accountability: What Buckingham deserves

Every election, candidates come with promises. They talk about values, they talk about looking out for the people, and they talk about what they’ll do if they get into office. But at some point, you’ve got to ask: do their actions actually match their words?

Here in Buckingham, in the race for Buckingham supervisor, that question sits right in front of us with Mike Bateman. His recent ideas and behavior raise red flags. To me, the three things that matter most in local leadership are integrity, honor, and accountability. And on each one, Bateman has fallen short.

Integrity

Integrity means being straight with people. It means you don’t say one thing and do another.

That’s why Bateman’s proposal for a 30% tax increase is so concerning. Families here are already stretched thin with higher grocery bills, rising gas prices, and the cost of just living day to day. Piling a huge new tax burden on top of that isn’t ‘responsible planning’… it’s careless.

And what’s behind that 30% increase? Expensive, unnecessary land swaps. A land swap that could open the door for expansion of the Doylestown Airport. Replacing our respected volunteer fire companies with costly full-time departments. Scrapping our award-winning spray fields in favor of expensive sewer plants. These would drive up costs for residents while ignoring the systems and people that already serve us well.

It’s not just about taxes, though. Time after time, Bateman has not been truthful. Initially, he advertised on social media that the warehouse plan was for Amazon. That was untrue. Now he claims he secured a deal with the warehouse developer… something the developer stated didn’t happen. Bateman has not and will not take accountability for intentionally misleading the public for his own political gain.

He’s pushed to scrap Buckingham’s spray fields, which means replacing them with sewer plants all over Buckingham. He falsely claimed our water quality is poor and attacked the township over a well that belongs to the Central Bucks School District. Even after learning the truth, he never corrected himself or questioned his Central Bucks School Board allies. The whole thing was meant to score political points. That kind of deceit, manipulation, and misrepresentation isn’t leadership. It’s politics at its worst.

A leader who values integrity looks for ways to make government work more efficiently before reaching into the taxpayers’ pockets. Bateman went straight to the easy option: Raise taxes. That’s not integrity. 

Honor

A main component of honor is respecting a person’s dignity. So, when Mike Bateman mocked his opponent, Paul Calderaio’s eye disability, it crossed a line. We can debate policies all day, but making fun of someone’s condition isn’t politics; it’s bullying and disrespectful. And it’s not the kind of behavior that belongs in Buckingham.

This is a community where neighbors help each other. Parents still teach their kids to show respect. Honor means carrying those values into public life. Posting cheap shots and personal attacks instead of shutting them down tells us exactly what kind of leader Bateman would be.

Accountability

Then there’s accountability. Being willing to answer your choices.

If you push a 30% tax hike, you should explain it to the people paying for it. If you or your campaign does something ugly, you should own up and condemn it. If you make a mistake and say something that isn’t true, you take accountability and do better next time. That’s what responsibility looks like.

But Bateman hasn’t done that. His tax plans are vague, his answers change depending on who’s asking, he will tell someone anything they want to hear in order to advance his agenda, and, when challenged, he brushes it off. That’s not accountability. That isn’t leadership.

What Buckingham deserves

Integrity. Honor. Accountability. These aren’t lofty ideals; they’re the basics of good leadership. And right now, Mike Bateman isn’t showing any of them.

What we need are leaders, people sincerely interested and willing to work hard for the people of Buckingham. I believe my colleague Paul Calderaio truly embodies this ethic. He has kept our taxes low, preserved thousands of acres of open space, and made sure Buckingham stays safe, strong, and well-managed. Paul’s decades of work in Buckingham built a thriving township, while Mike Bateman spent his few years here telling us the place we live is lousy.

Paul has already shown what real leadership looks like: Balancing the budget every year, protecting our farmland, improving local infrastructure, and earning Buckingham its strong financial standing. He has worked with neighbors, not against them, to keep our township a place we’re proud to call home.

The contrast could hardly be greater.

Jon Forest is a lifelong Buckingham resident, a farmer, and a township supervisor.