What began as a routine vote to approve minutes from a budget work session escalated into a heated exchange among Doylestown Township supervisors Tuesday night, highlighting divisions over transparency and procedure.
Supervisor Nancy Santacecilia objected to the minutes, saying they failed to reflect her concerns about security cameras for township courts and her questions on budget practices.
“I was looking for them to state that I specifically asked why the courts were not going to have cameras, what the cost would be for those cameras, and my concern about there being a safety and liability issue by not having cameras, and those three things were not mentioned in the minutes,” Santacecilia said. “Is there a problem with including that in the minutes?”
Chairwoman Jennifer V. Herring replied that minutes are not transcripts but summaries of board actions.
“Minutes are not word for word,” Herring said. “They are meant to document action items like votes and things like that, decisions that are made.”
Santacecilia pushed back.
"I understand the use of minutes, but my point is my words. After the loss we had," she said, referencing the assassination of Charlie Kirk, words are really important to me."
"Sorry, can you clarify?" asked Herring.
“My words are important,” she said. “So when I ask a question in a budget meeting, I’d appreciate my words reflecting my questions.”
She tied the issue to broader concerns about access to information, saying she had been denied budget materials in advance and then later at the meeting by contracted Part-Time Budget Analyst Ed Ebenbach.
“It’d be like going to a book club to talk about a book without reading it,” she said. “I am concerned because there is a transparency issue in that we should be having conversations about the information in front of us, not being told.”
Herring countered that the long-standing practice is for budget documents to be provided at the meeting itself.
“Our budget workshops have been occurring the same exact way for the length of time I’ve been on the board,” Herring said. “We receive information at the time of those meetings because that is when they’re introduced to us. That’s been the way it has been for decades.”
Santacecilia disagreed, saying prior boards operated differently.
“In the past when we started, we were sent the information in advance and we were told if you have any questions, please ask your staff in advance so we don’t embarrass them,” she said. “I asked Ed, ‘Can I have that information?’ because they had all the materials on the table. And he said, ‘No, you may not.’”
At one point, Santacecilia suggested she was being marginalized as the lone Republican on the board.
“At this point, being the only person of my party on this floor, I know my voice is continued to be shut down both in the way you write the minutes [and] the way I speak,” she said. “It’s really important that people understand that we represent everybody.”
New Supervisor Judy Dixon also weighed in, defending the process and rebuking Santacecilia’s criticism.
“We didn’t make any decisions. We weren’t making any decisions at that workshop,” Dixon said. “To make this political, Nancy, is really wrong because you’re implying that there’s no transparency here and that’s just not the case.”
Santacecilia fired back, pointing to Dixon’s first meeting earlier this year.
“You are a new supervisor,” she said. “If anything, you came in on your first night and nominated a brand new solicitor, who I didn’t even know their name until they came in.”
The debate ended when Supervisor Vice Chairwoman Barbara N. Lyons called the question. The minutes were approved 4–1, with Santacecilia casting the lone “no” vote.
Santacecilia's 6-year term expires in December. She is not seeking re-election. Voters on Election Day will choose to fill two open 6-year term Board of Supervisors seats being sought by Republican candidates Joseph Van Houten and Rob Caroselli and Democrats Christine Maida and incumbent Dan Wood.
