Story has been posted to The Phoenix Files for your thoughts and comments:Phoenixville Borough Council president requests resignation of planners’ vice-chairBy G.E. Lawrence
Special to The PhoenixPHOENIXVILLE — Council President Henry Wagner has requested the resignation of the Planning Commission’s Vice-Chair, George Martynick, from that body.
The request followed Wagner’s assessment of Martynick’s role in the Commission’s reversal of its support of the pending Downtown Commercial (D-COMM) zoning district ordinance revisions, and was made in an e-mail to Martynick Saturday morning.
In remarks at the Commission’s Thursday evening session, Martynick, presiding in the absence of chair Deb Johnston, said that “the extension of the D-COMM district out to Nutt Road is under active consideration” by Council’s Ordinance Subcommittee, according to conversations he had held with Kendrick Buckwalter (R-West), the Subcommittee’s chair, and Subcommittee member Michael Hott.
“My argument,” Martynick said, “is that with the expansion, let’s send it [the current ordinance] back [to Council] and do it right.”
When Martynick’s remarks appeared in a report on the meeting in The Phoenix’s Saturday edition, Buckwalter sent an early-morning e-mail to Martynick. “I don’t recall a conversa
tion where I said the D-COMM Ordinance was under active consideration in the Ordinance Subcommittee,” Buckwalter wrote.
“We have had only one meeting with me as chair (April 16) at which time it had already been presented to Council and returned back to [the] Planning Commission,” Buckwalter continued. He sent copies of the e-mail to Hott and Wagner, attached copies of the April 16 meeting minutes, and noted that both Hott and Wagner had attended that Subcommittee meeting.
Reached for comment, Buckwalter said, “I’m on record as opposing [aspects of the ordinance], and maybe George misunderstood what I was saying in another conversation. But we [the Subcommittee] certainly didn’t discuss it.”
“For you to put forward a misrepresentation in order to garner support for a reversal on your original opinion,” Wagner wrote to Martynick, “demonstrates to me that you are not qualified to participate in the Planning Commission….
“In this, yet another incident, I cannot help but once again express my profound disappointment in your lack of professionalism,” Wagner told Martynick. “There is no room for those that use misrepresentation and their senior position and what is apparent political posturing in attempt to embarrass Council.
The “other incident” to which Wagner referred was Martynick’s public charges against colleague Commission member Father James Evans of a conflict of interest in discussions of the ordinance and in the Commission’s March vote. Wagner said then, “I am embarrassed that a body like the Commission” would have such charges discussed “on the Planning Commission floor. If a member has a concern about a question of ethics, file it with the state.”
Wagner concluded his Saturday e-mail to Martynick: “I am formally asking you to tender your resignation from the Planning Commission.”
“If I had misinterpreted my previous conversations with Ken and Mike,” Martynick wrote to Wagner, “I am truly sorry but the nature of that information was relegated to the background in light of the overwhelming need for a complete rewrite of the ordinance.
“I am not sure I fully understand the reasoning for your request,” he said. “There is no ‘embarrassing Council’ since no decision has been made yet by Council. We [the Commission] reconsidered our vote of which I was just one vote,” he wrote.
“Our original vote was taken 2 days after receiving the ordinance and with extended consideration (and studying), I came to the conclusion that we could really come up with a comprehensive and progressive ordinance… instead of patching some of the problems.
“Don’t denounce my actions because they appear to be unprofessional as written in the paper,” Martynick wrote.
Late Saturday Martynick said, “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if Henry’s request is a request from the full Council or not. But if eight [Council members] feel that we shouldn’t come up with more progressive, incentive-based zoning [alternatives], so be it.”