NewtonPA.com

The people of Newton Township need to consider that the false sense of security from an unlawful ordinance can do more harm than good.   When people feel helpless they are vulnerable to schemes that have little or no value.

Reportedly, The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) drafted an ordinance to stop gas drilling in Newton Township in Lackawanna County.  The Activist group pushes ordinances that among other things attempt to strip corporations of their rights and prohibit them from doing business in a municipality.

The group held a rally at the Newton Recreation Center on March 30, 2011 but as of today Newton Township has not received the proposed ordinance.  The township supervisors will be meeting on Monday, April 11 at 7:30pm.

While CELDF puts on a good show to recruit people and perhaps make them feel good, the problem is that it has a history of writing illegal laws and losing court cases in Pennsylvania.  The activist group’s campaign against farmers caused many municipalities to be sued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General for having unlawful ordinances.

CELDF’s co-founder attorney Thomas Linzey lost two court battles over ordinances that the group wrote for Blaine Township in Washington County which, among other things, banned natural gas drilling in Blaine.  Similar ordinances written by CELDF and adopted by neighboring Donegal were repealed in order to settle a lawsuit.  See Federal court decisions Range v. Blaine and Penn Ridge v. Blaine

Among the activist group’s bizarre declarations is that by simply claiming certain rights to “self-government” or of “Nature” is sufficient to invalidate the property rights of individual citizens and corporations.

Blaine’s Township solicitor advised against adopting the ordinances but the Township supervisors adopted CELD’s ordinances and initiated enforcement.

Penn Ridge Coal, and then gas driller Range Resources, sued the township, and the cases went to Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose.   Blaine's insurance company even filed a complaint against the township, arguing that it had no duty to defend its client in the matter.   CELDF Executive Director Thomas Linzey, an attorney, handled the defense.   Read more: http://post-gazette.com/pg/10276/109225 ... z1IluSq62v

Recently, the same activist group drafted a drilling ban ordinance for the Borough of Harveys Lake in Luzerne County based on the same failed assertions used in Blaine Township.  Borough council voted 6-0 against the ordinance. Click here to see the ordinance.

Borough solicitor Charles D. McCormick called the ordinance “overly broad” and “legally questionable,” particularly in its outlining of the inalienable rights of natural communities and ecosystems, and said “it will most likely cause significant difficulty for the residents down the road completely outside of the question of the gas drilling.”  Read More: http://www.timesleader.com/news/Harveys ... -2011.html

Update:  April 11, Newton township supervisors meeting.

The group headed by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) spent a lot of time condemning gas drilling and promoting their proposed ordinance but did nothing to show how it would actually stop drilling.

At one point I asked CELDF’s spokesperson Shireen Parsons about the cases that CELDF lost in Blaine Township and she denied that it involved a gas company.  I asked if Ranger Resources was a gas company and she said yes.  I then held up the two above referenced Federal court orders for everyone to see and gave them to the township solicitor Joseph Sileo.

Sileo asked Parsons if CELDF would defend the township if it were sued over the ordinance and she said yes but added that they would prepare the legal documents and all the township would have to do is hire a lawyer to read them.

The group used the same doubletalk in the Borough of Harveys Lake.  We’ll defend you, all you need to do is hire a lawyer.  Apparently, CELDF is not willing to represent any municipality that gets sued over its ordinance.   After all, how many times can the same lawyers go to court with the same ridiculous arguments before a judge slaps them in the head?

The topic concluded with the supervisors stating that they would wait for the solicitor’s opinion on the ordinance.

Based on what other nearby communities did with CELDF’s ordinance it is unlikely that Newton Township will even consider it but there may be an alternative.   A local person said he had powerful snake oil for sale that is guaranteed to be just as effective as the ordinance.