Our Opinion: Payment of Pennsylvania township supervisors should be contingent on attendance

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Luzerne County judge upholds bail for murderer Hugo Selenski’s ex

We&#8217;ll make this easy for Exeter Township&#8217;s two, no-show supervisors. Submit your resignations from public office by simply circling the correct name below, then sign on the dotted line and drop the information at the township&#8217;s municipal building. You do recall where to find the township building, don&#8217;t you?I (James W. Dowse / Richard E. Overman) resign my position as township supervisor effective immediately.Insert date here: _ _ _ _ _Sign name here: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Absent a legitimate explanation for what&#8217;s been described as their high absenteeism from township meetings, these men should, if they already haven&#8217;t officially done so in the last few days, call it quits and stop collecting quarterly checks for their &#8220;service.&#8221;Dowse managed to be at a mere 36 percent of township meetings last year, while Overman attended only 41 percent, according to fellow supervisor Benjamin Gadomski, who called their non-participation &#8220;pitiful.&#8221; Neither Dowse nor Overman responded to the criticism lobbed at them during last Wednesday evening&#8217;s township meeting because &#8211; no great surprise &#8211; neither was in attendance.Letters previously had been mailed on behalf of the supervisors&#8217; board majority to Dowse and Overman asking them to resign because of their lack of attendance. As of last week&#8217;s meeting, however, there had been no reply.Making this situation even more galling, the Dowse-Overman duo is among four Exeter Township officials to have been charged last month for alleged record-tampering. Prosecutors say the men &#8211; along with Supervisor Chairman John E. Coolbaugh and township Secretary Mary F. Martin, a former supervisor &#8211; misused grant funds nearly a decade ago for an emergency services structure that was never built.Overman and Dowse also face charges of theft by deception; they allegedly billed for hours of labor at the EMS building site but didn&#8217;t do any work.Dowse has said he is confident he will be proven innocent. Overman, whose named appeared on the May primary ballot, lost his bid for re-election.Under these odd circumstances, there&#8217;s plenty to talk about in Exeter Township &#8211; beyond the routine but important matters of keeping the township operating. Taxpayers who attend township meetings reasonably expect to see their supervisors on hand to conduct business, not empty chairs.During last week&#8217;s session, resident Ray Pulcini asked, &#8220;Why are we still paying them if they&#8217;re not here, if they&#8217;re not doing anything?&#8221;Great question.Second-class township supervisors in Pennsylvania are paid up to a maximum of $1,875 annually, so there&#8217;s not a tremendous amount of money at stake. There is, however, a principle.State lawmakers who represent Luzerne County should review the township code, then devise a process for removing &#8211; or at least not compensating &#8211; any supervisor found to be shirking his or her meeting obligations.