To Honorable Mayor Mason Strouse and members of the Clearfield Borough Council,
I am writing in my capacity as the editor of GANT News regarding the May 7 council meeting. Concerns have surfaced among both the media and Clearfield residents regarding the executive session and the subsequent vote held that evening.
After reviewing the live feed—prompted by reporting from The Progress—I wish to address several procedural concerns.
The council convened the executive session specifically to “discuss legal matters.” Both the council and the solicitor stated multiple times no official action would be taken following the session. Consequently, the public, the borough secretary, and the media left the meeting. However, the council then returned to a regular session—which was no longer being broadcast—and voted to hire Rod Witherite as police chief.
This sequence of events creates an unfortunate appearance of inconsistency. While the session was cited for “legal matters,” the subsequent vote confirms that personnel matters were a primary focus.
The council’s actions effectively denied the public their right to witness and question a significant municipal decision. Neither the motion to enter executive session nor the motion to hire a police chief appeared on the original agenda. Under Act 65 of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Law, agencies may amend an agenda during a meeting only through a majority vote of the members present. No such vote to amend the agenda occurred during the public portion of the May 7 meeting. Additionally, the borough failed to post an amended agenda within 24 hours, as required by law.
The public only became aware of this hire through the diligent follow-up reporting by Jeff Corcino of The Progress. Transparency is the bedrock of community trust—a trust that is currently fragile. Even if these errors resulted from an oversight of Sunshine Law requirements rather than intent, the impact on public confidence remains the same.
The proper course of action would have been to defer official business until the May 21 meeting. To rectify this, the council should void the motions from May 7 and conduct the process in accordance with state law.
GANT News does not seek an adversarial relationship with the borough; rather, we aim to ensure the community remains informed through transparent governance. To that end, we are offering to host an educational seminar on the Sunshine Law with a qualified specialist. We provided a similar service several years ago during my tenure at the Courier-Express, and we would like to extend that same professional courtesy again.
We encourage the council to rectify the procedural errors of May 7 and join us in this effort to prevent future inconsistencies. I look forward to your response regarding both the meeting’s minutes and our offer for the seminar.
Respectfully,
Kim Kaschalk
Editor, GANT News
*Editor’s Note: As a professional courtesy, I reached out to Mayor Strouse to provide the opportunity to respond to this letter. I received the following response via email:
Kim,
Thank you for reaching out and for sharing the letter in advance.
I would also like to note that during the executive session, I asked for the vote to wait until the next Council meeting, and that did not happen. I had, and still have, every intention of asking for the matter to be reconsidered and re-voted on at the next meeting.
To be clear, I am completely in favor of hiring Rob Witherite as Chief and believe he is capable of doing a good job for our community. However, I do agree that the process should have been handled in a more proper and transparent manner.
I appreciate the opportunity to review your piece ahead of publication. I will also share it with members of Council.
Mason Strouse
Mayor of Clearfield
