New information on Menlo Pool incident comes to light (RED FLAGS)

As a result of a Right to Know (RTK) request, a borough resident has obtained emails and a copy of the rental contract for Menlo Pool for the 8/11/13 incident- after the borough RTK officer Donna Benner invoked the 30 day extension on August 13 without giving reason and anticipated date and cost of the records as required under state law.

Obtaining information from the borough is like pulling teeth.  Why the dishonesty?  Why were RED FLAGS ignored?

The first email dated Thursday August 8 at 12:32pm is from assistant manager Andrea Coaxum to the interim parks and recreation director Carolyn Hanel, also copied are borough manager Dan Olpere and Interim Police Chief Steven Hillias.

This email contradicts earlier statements by borough officials that they were initially aware of only around 100 party patrons as it clearly references "several hundred people" and also admits "concerns over the size of the party" and encourages Ms Hanel to be "very clear to the man that no alcohol will be permitted".  According to published reports by NBC news "Borough officials insisted the promoter told them only 100 people would be coming to the pool for a small birthday party" and “The renter was told three times that he couldn’t bring alcohol in and he knew that,” said Perkasie Borough manager Dan Olpere.

It also encourages notification of the police (who are copied on this email and have previously claimed no knowledge of the event until they were called that night) and a warning "The pool staff should already know to call 911 if things start to get out of hand."  Also mentioned is a $1,000 donation which was offered by the renter but never accepted by borough officials.  Coaxum gives her approval of the rental.

The next email is from the manager Olpere to the assistant manager Coaxum and Hanel, again the police are copied.  To his credit he states that he would not want to inconvenience pool members by rescheduling the movie night just to "accomodate hundreds of non-members that we will never see again" and tacitly gives his approval for the rental.  Again the $1,000 donation is mentioned.

The next email is from Hanel to Coaxum and CC to Olpere and Hillias.  It mentions extending the party to midnight and again the $1,000 donation is mentioned and closes with "Stay tuned, more to come." No further emails were received but the packet did note that there were other documents related to the RTK request that were not disclosed because they could be related to a criminal investigation. 

The next email timestamped 1:38pm (just an hour after the first emails on the subject) is from Hanel to the Menlo Pool manager advising them of the decision to rent the pool and that the organizer would likely be stopping to pay that day. 

The next document is the actual executed rental agreement, the name of the staff member who executed it has been redacted by us to protect their identity because they did not make a decision to rent the pool and are simply acting as an agent of borough officials. 

This document reveals the Philadelphia address of the renter Antwan Garfield, and also several policies that were violated by borough officials including 

• all parties are held to a 3 hour limit
• a guest list must be submitted to the Aquatics Director 2 weeks prior to the party to ensure the correct patron to guard ratio is met
• Full payment of rental fees must be paid two weeks prior to event

In addition the de facto policy as stated on the Borough website that  "Private parties are limited to Friday and Saturday nights from 8:00 - 11:00 pm. Sorry, no Sundays." was ignored.

Here is the memo from Manager Olpere to council with his version of the events.  Of interest is where he reports that the pool manager was told that some guests would be "some people had vouchers from a cancelled event and that they would be admitted with those."  Yet another RED FLAG that was ignored putting our community and pool staff at risk

Are you Fed up yet?  Sign the petition HERE asking for resignations of borough leadership