The Upper Merion Area Democratic Committee recently sent a campaign mailer to advocate for the election of the party’s slate of candidates running for West Conshohocken’s Borough Council (Chris Cella, Jeff Ewing, Amelia Gale, Tara Gorney, and Zach Nelson). According to Gale and Cella, the candidates has no involvement in the mailer, didn’t pay for it, and did not learn about it’s content until it hit mailboxes.
The mailer screams that “Extremism has no place in West Conshohocken” and that voters need to “fight back!”
The mailer than lists four issues that need defending on behalf of your family! The issues listed were reproductive freedom, right to vote, quality public education, and safe neighborhoods.
Only one of those has anything to do with powers bestowed to the West Conshohocken Borough Council, and that is safe neighborhoods. The other three are irrelevant when it comes to a municipal election.
So lets talk safe neighborhoods. `
Did you know, that West Conshohocken has had an interim police chief for almost two years? Now, that is not to say that interim chief is doing anything but a spectacular job, but it is a reflection on the council’s priorities. There have been no Republicans on the council since 2018.
Did you know that one of the two Republican candidates, David Frankenfield, has been making West Conshohocken’s neighborhoods safe for 52 years as a firefighter and works as a state firefighter instructor? I am going to guess that the out-of-town politicians or political hacks in Upper Merion and/or Bridgeport that put together the mailer didn’t know that.
The election is effectively over (polls close in less than an hour as we write this). Every Democrat on the ballot will likely win. The two Republicans, based on registration and recent results, didn’t really have a chance.
The mailer served no purpose.
We call on the five Democratic Party candidates in West Conshohocken, whose faces and names are on the mailer, to renounce the mailer, apologize to the two Republicans (and voters), and a offer a commitment to advocate for a change in leadership in the Upper Merion Area Democratic Committee (which includes West Conshohocken).
An email sent earlier today to Kyle Shenk, the area leader for the Upper Merion Area Democratic Committee and the council president in Bridgeport, has not yet received a response.
A municipal election involving a town of 1,500 residents doesn’t have to be this way.