Editorial: Hempfield vote review invites questions

Investigating yourself doesn’t work.

Hempfield’s solicitor is reviewing whether or not the municipality made decisions outside the public eye after Supervisor Rob Ritson raised the issue of four times he says that has occurred.

The instances weren’t petty. Occurring between 2016-18, they include a $125,000 union settlement agreement, a $4.3 million firefighter grant, an agreement with a design company for a monthly newsletter and a volunteer firefighter fund. Pennsylvania law is very specific about what can be done without the bright light of public scrutiny, and none of these appear to meet the bar.

Three of the five supervisors voted against inviting state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale to take a look at what the elected officials have done in the past and whether business as usual has included backroom decision-making. Instead, Chairman George Reese, not one of those three no votes, set the ball rolling for the internal review.

Kudos to Reese for initiating that because it does show some attention to an important issue. But self-policing invites spin. Find your own wrongdoing and you are likely to present it in the most flattering light, not the stark glare that shows all the cracks and wrinkles.

The whole purpose of the auditor general’s office is a realization of that truth.

Maybe there was nothing other than those four decisions. Maybe those decisions were appropriately made and unequivocally the right thing to do. Maybe there has never been anything questionable in the township’s voting or discussions. Hopefully, that is absolutely true.

But investigations and reviews are often performed by third parties because of the impartiality of someone who has no interest in the outcome.

Having your lawyer — the person whose job it is to defend you in the event you did something wrong — be the one who reviews the records rather than the auditor general — an elected official whose office is responsible for dispassionate analysis of compliance statewide — invites people to question the outcome.