On Saturday, October 17th, the Facebook pages of the Conshohocken Democrats, Plymouth Township Democrats, Whitemarsh Township Democrats, and Colonial Democrats all made the same post.
The post criticized an unnamed local elected official and included a photo of his home. The unnamed official, Robert Stokley, voted against a permit needed by the local Democrats to hold a walk today (the walk was approved overall). It wasn’t hard to identify Stokley as he is the lone Republican with a seat on Conshohocken’s Borough Council, and actually, the only Republican holding any municipal board seat in Conshohocken, Plymouth, and Whitemarsh.
Stokley confirmed the photo was of his home and explained his vote as follows:
It has always been a gentleman’s agreement that we do not hold political events in our parks, since I have been a councilman for 20 years. With the current climate in our county, I did not feel it was in the best interest of the families that frequent our parks to hold a political event.
The walk was held today. Democrats have a six-to-one majority on Conshohocken’s Borough Council.
MoreThanTheCurve.com contacted all of the elected Democrats and party officials in our area. We asked if they supported their local committees’ leadership taking photos of elected officials’ homes and posting them on social media. We got one response, a “no comment” from Yaniv Aronson, the mayor of Conshohocken. No one else responded.
Borough of Conshohocken
Karen Tutino – didn’t respond
James “Ike” Griffin – didn’t respond
Tina Sokolowski – didn’t respond
Anita Barton – didn’t respond
Jane Flanagan – didn’t respond
Colleen Leonard (President) – didn’t respond
Yaniv Aronson (Mayor) – texted back “no comment”
Plymouth Township
Chris Manero (President) – didn’t respond
Karen Bramblet – didn’t respond
Martin Higgins – didn’t respond
David Gannon – didn’t respond
Kathy Bandish – didn’t respond
Whitemarsh Township
Laura Boyle Nester (President) – didn’t respond
Fran McCusker – didn’t respond
Michael Drossner – didn’t respond
Vincent Manuele – didn’t respond
Jacy Toll – didn’t respond
Montgomery County
Val Arkoosh – didn’t respond
Ken Lawrence – didn’t respond
Montgomery County Democratic Party Leadership (Area 10)
Joe Foster – Chairman – didn’t respond
Jason Salus – Area Leader – didn’t respond
Kevin Dwyer – Conshohocken Leader – didn’t respond
Jennifer Dow – Plymouth Leader – didn’t respond
Amy Grossman – Whitemarsh Leader – didn’t respond
The four social media posts didn’t get much attention. The most comments were on the Conshohocken Democrats page. When questioned in the comments about the appropriateness of the post, the administrator tried to justify the post by saying the house number had been hidden. Since Stokley is the only elected Republican and represents a small portion of Conshohocken, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out what house is his without even looking up the address in public records online.
The administrator then tried to justify the post by pointing to a news article published by MoreThanTheCurve.com in which we covered a protest held in front of Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale’s (R) home.
When further challenged in the comments, the administrator of the Conshohocken Democrats page justified sharing the photo of the home by referencing a post made by Eric Trump in which he showed Joe Biden’s house.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
UPDATE – This story was updated to reflect the statement from Stokley.