Jamie Walker: Bucks commishes still using your tax $ to keep you in the dark

As much as local elections matter, they typically draw extremely low turnout — especially, these days, from Republicans. Democrats often have at least double the number of requests for mail-in ballots, so they go into Election Day with an advantage. In 2023, this played out in Bucks County with the reelection of Democratic Commissioners Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia. 

Most people have no idea what county commissioners do and how their decisions impact our lives. In short, the three commissioners — Harvie, Ellis-Marseglia and Republican Gene DiGirolamo — are the county’s legislature and top executives. This board develops county policy on a wide variety of topics such as parks, solid-waste management, roads, bridges, land use, and personnel. 

Amid these important responsibilities, the current commissioners saw fit to sue two mothers, including me, to hide emails that the state Office of Open Records (OOR) in Pennsylvania ruled we could obtain. Those lawsuits are ongoing and Bucks County taxpayers are still paying the commissioners’ legal bills to keep those same taxpayers in the dark about Covid-19 policymaking.

Here’s what happened.

Among the agencies the commissioners effectively control is the county Department of Health. Most counties in Pennsylvania do not have their own health department and it is not a requirement for such an agency to be run by a doctor. Bucks County’s health office is  however run by a board-certified medical doctor, David Damsker. You’d think Bucks County Democrats would want to defer to him and “trust the science,” but when he ran afoul of their desire for draconian Covid policy, they couldn’t help themselves. 

Damsker wrote a school guidance on August 15, 2021 that would allow schools to open normally for children. That was too much for Democratic committee people, who sent an email to Ellis-Marseglia demanding the commissioners take control of health department decision-making. She did just that, putting politics above children’s education and social development.

The commissioners, I believe, illegally, changed pandemic school-health guidance and silenced the health director on August 23, 2021. That hurt children not only in Bucks but all over the state; our schools were on a path to open normally for children in 2021 and other regions might have heeded our example. 

Working with fellow Bucks mother Megan Brock, I closely monitored every Covid restriction that affected children. It was obvious to us that Damsker did not conceive of the new health guidance himself. We put in right-to-know requests to discover how this advisory document was created. We did so repeatedly because the county attorney in charge of handling our inquiries made every effort to deny them. 

I appealed those denials to the OOR, eventually winning two appeals in May 2022. I have yet to see one email the state agency permitted me to view. Instead of granting me what I won, the commissioners sued me in the Court of Common Pleas. They are using your tax money to ask a local judge to ignore open-records law, making Bucks County less transparent, potentially causing a chilling effect for governmental openness across Pennsylvania. 

The commissioners abused their power and hurt children. Post-pandemic test scores proved as much, showing serious learning loss. I hope these officials’ decision will stay with them for the rest of their lives, if they have consciences. 

Unfortunately, residents were largely unaware of these events and voted accordingly in November 2023. As if local governance hasn’t suffered enough so far, Harvie actually wants a promotion; he’s now running against Republican Brian Fitzpatrick to represent Bucks and part of Montgomery County in Congress. 

Bucks County residents are meanwhile stuck paying the legal bill for out-of-control politicians who only care about themselves.

Jamie Walker is a former teacher and a Central Bucks School District mom of three.