Harrisburg, Pennsylvania — Dauphin County’s commitment to transparency has been brought into question by a Swatara Township commissioner who publicly complained that comments are being blocked on the county’s Facebook page, during public meeting livestreams.
Tom Connolly of Swatara Township said the ability to comment was active just a few weeks ago and seemingly went away after a citizen Shelby Rexrode responded to a comment made by Shaela Ellis, President of the Swatara Township Board of Commissioners, during a livestream on Facebook.
“As a public entity, I believe it’s illegal to delete constituent comments during a public meeting,” said Connolly, who remarked he had screenshots of the exchange. As a matter of Freedom of Speech, Connolly cited legal action being taken in a similar case involving online speech being blocked by an elected official.
Connolly said the following week he commented: “Why are comments being removed?” only to find now that the comments button is now completely removed, preventing any comments from being shared.
“This comes at a time when the news is reporting potential issues where we’re looking for transparency .. the FBI is investigating things, this is not the time to stop comments, this is the time to encourage comments,” said Connolly. “Eliminating the comments now looks like you don’t want the answers, the questions… the solutions.”
Connolly asked who is this “extremely powerful” person that has the authority to remove comments, as did another citizen who followed his public remarks. All county commissioners – Justin Douglas, George P. Hartwick and Mike Pries – responded to the concerns of Connolly, and each said they weren’t aware that this control was happening. Commissioner Pries said he had oversight of IT and was unaware.
At the time of Connolly’s comments, there were a reported 39 people watching Wednesday’s Dauphin County Commissioner’s Workshop Meeting, double the number who attended the live meeting at the courthouse, per Connolly.
The Dauphin County Commissioner’s website states: “In order to ensure the greatest degree of openness, public input and accountability, issues requiring board action are placed on a workshop meeting agenda first, to be fully presented and discussed.”
Harrisburg100 
only the corrupt fear transparency. A lot of local politicians absolutely hate transparency. The more they fight transparency, to more corrupt they are.
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The deleting of comments is wrong. The Swatara commissioners don’t have the clean hands in this match as well and this power trip they’re on right now will bite them in the behind in a matter of time.
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