"You know, we’re at the RDA and we’re looking at deals that are millions of dollars for the city. And nobody comes..City Council is arguing over a basketball ring somewhere and the room is full. You know it’s just, it’s sad that’s what it is"

At the City of Coatesville Redevelopment Authority Meeting May 16, 2011

RDA Volunteers.mp3

RDA VOLUNTEERS

RDA Chairman Joseph DiSciullo, “Next thing we have on our agenda are the RDA Volunteers of which I guess we have 4 and we already have Mr. Collins who turned in his volunteer agreement, thank you for that. So we’re waiting for Corley Pearce’s agreement, Dave (Collins) agreed to work on some projects for us.  And then the other 2 we have Mr. Pawlowski and Mr. Givler, have agreed to work on the boxes of files which Rob and I brought back from Pat O’Donnell’s office to inventory to inventory those items and such, so we know what’s there and so forth.

I will need to get you a volunteer agreement for both of you and then we can get you started with some of that and you fellows can start going through it. It's how many boxes Rob?"

Mr. Robert Barry, “There are 8 boxes.”

Mr. DiSciullo, “8, 8 boxes from Pat. There is a lot of information in there and if we can get an inventory so the solicitors can look at it and decide what we need to retain and what we might be able to shred. But that’s going to be their decision not ours.

Yes Sir John.”

Mr. John Pawlowski, “Mr. Chairman, do you think we can we take some comments on that now?”

Mr. DiSciullo, “Certainly, I told you we were going to give you your turn John.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “Thank you; I got a call from Mr. DiSciullo a couple of weeks ago about basically for a review for ---material. That Pat O’Donnell who was our previous solicitor for this group had some files from RDA in his possession and I guess he returned them back to the city.

And Mr. DiSciullo called me at home and asked me if I would be willing to go through those boxes along with Mr. Givler and see what should maybe stay as a matter of record and what possibly could be expunged with a solicitor’s or somebody’s approval.

And Mr. Givler and I talked for about 3 or 4 minutes over the phone. Just to say; did you get a call? I said, yes I did.  No discussion of should we shouldn’t we help.

I would just simply like to make this suggestion; those 8 boxes that Mr. Barry has, I would say for the time being speaking for myself I have looked through that and I can’t speak for Mr. Givler but I would strongly, strongly recommend that not one sheet of paper be taken out of those boxes.

Here’s why; Going back, going back to, this is how fate, this is how fate has things… going back to the election City Council Election year of 2005, the Redevelopment Authority was not appreciated by a lot of people as a matter of fact it still isn’t. You can just look around the room and see the size of people here besides the newspaper reporter.

Back then Mr. Givler and I were part of the initial 5 people on the RDA and while we were working on the list we had $700 million of redevelopment coming into Coatesville. The question is, what happened since? How much do we have coming into Coatesville today? Not because of mismanagement, not because of lack of ability just circumstances.

And the reason I’m suggesting, the reason I’m suggesting not to take anything out of those boxes is there were times particularly during the campaign of the 2005 election where it was a very bad time in Coatesville. Particularly when the City Council was involved with building the golf course here in Coatesville the RDA had nothing to do with that. That was not an RDA function. It was a City Council function. Eminent domain was a factor and consequently there was a lot of hatred. And I do not use that word loosely I mean it in the way I’m saying it. There was a lot of hatred toward some council members not everyone but to a few. Basically against the few who favored the golf course and the eminent domain process.

Those people were even accused of taking pay to play money from developers for these projects. Consequently if that were the case, am I boring you guys with all this? Consequently I took that rather personally. I personally was never accused of pay to play. I’m not speaking for Mr. Givler. Just for myself. I was never accused of pay to play but the fact I supported the golf course and the eminent domain issue, I was kind of drawn into that because now I was part of it with some of the City Council people. Do you follow me? In other words If they were to use pay to play then John Pawlowski was through them also. Friends, friends.”

Mr. DiSciullo, “By association.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “Friends by association, guilty by association.”

This guy in Coatesville who was very, very vocal about all this, his name was Pat Sellers…Everything should be documented here sometimes minutes, recordings…As fate would have it, Pat produced a little flyer sent around town and I was hit in that pretty hard as being senile, not taking my medicine, blah, blah blah and other things, to the point where I said, this is wrong accuse me of what you want to but now you’re, you’re influencing my reputation, my family, and on and on and on.

See:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011

 Larry Pratt and Coatesville's Pat Sellers

I talked with a local lawyer about it. I showed him these things. ‘What can I do with this?’ He says, ‘John, I agree with you these things are terrible, blah, blah, blah; but I’m not going to help you, I’m not going to work with you. Walking out the door and he said, ‘By the way, please don’t tell anybody that you talked to me.

I talked with another lawyer that suggested recommended.

This is a long thing, this is why I am saying Mr. DiSciullo do not touch those papers don’t delete anything. You know what I mean? Even if Mr. Mancini is willing to come over and say, OK… let it in there. This is a long story.

I talked to another; I talked to attorney, my wife and I, in West Chester. They said yes we’ll take you case but a deposition will cost you a minimum of $8,000. That’s to return back my reputation. The problem is when we’re done with all this, you’re cost to us will be around $62,000. And we still may not get the results that you want. So we went and talked to a 3^rd attorney didn’t get too far there.

The reason I say this is all come back today by coincidence in today’s Daily Local News is a newspaper article by Pat Sellers. And the 3^rd Attorney I talked to Sam Stretton I have a copy of his letter to me, John these things are libelous yeah, blah, blah, blah well…Called me the other day on the phone, wants me to vote for him for district attorney. All tied in with today.

So what I’m saying is in 2005 we had a couple of city council people got elected because they said the RDA wasn’t moving fast enough and getting enough done. They wanted the city to move faster. But that election set the city back 6 years.

There’s a candidate running for this election right now who’s saying things aren’t moving fast enough in Coatesville, we got to speed it up.  It’s like déjà vu all over again.

So what I’m saying is as much progress has been made, I will not want anybody, I don’t want this board put itself in a position where somebody could say, ‘One sheet was taken out, I wonder what was on there? And if one was taken out, many others were taken out. Do you follow my point?”

Mr. DiSciullo, “Yes John, and we discussed that and are very concerned about that. That’s why we discussed the idea of, if you gentlemen would be kind enough to get some imagery of what’s there we would let an attorney make that decision, so that it’s not you or us that destroyed anything… The reason that we want to get this is John, I’ll be honest with you. You know these guys here, it’s not cheap to pay them to go look through paper through these boxes and of course we’re on some issues that go back. The Flats, some of these other projects, Comfort Care; they’ve got to dig through those files and I don’t know what’s in the boxes. Rob doesn’t know what’s in the boxes. Rob and I went to West Chester, Pat said come this day, we just loaded it all up and we all loaded it up brought it back and they were all on the floor in his office.

And since then we still are trying to think about where we store them, shouldn’t we know what’s in there. And that’s where the thought came up that you and Paul were both around when a lot of these files were created. So you would know more accurately than anyone the proper way to describe them what they were involved with and so forth.

Yes, the utmost care needs to be taken if anything, if anything is destroyed it has to, they’re going to make the call (the attorneys). I don’t want to make it and I’m sure that neither of you gentlemen want to… John, you and I both know the way it is in this city, ‘You guys were trying to hide something , you guys were trying to hide something.’ And we don’t want to go there. We’re not going to open that box."

Mr. Pawlowski, “That’s exactly my point and Paul has what transpired. Once again I was accused of being senile but I can almost remember meeting, to meeting, to meeting things that did transpire.

And what you see here is a big attendance to what we had in our prior RDA meetings. We were talking about $700 million. And then we always had 3 people, incredible.”

Mr. DiSciullo, “John, Jack tells me one time, he says’, ‘You know, were at the RDA and we’re looking at deals that are millions of dollars for the city. And nobody comes. He said, City Council is arguing over a basketball ring somewhere and the room is full."

Mr. Pawlowski, “Or banners across Lincoln Highway.”

You know it’s just, it’s sad that’s what it is. And we just have to keep trying to moving forward and we’ve got, and we’re discussing right now that we’ve got 4 people that would like to help resolve some of this. This gentleman and this young lady that you’ve got to move some of this stuff forward.

And yet everybody wants to move very quickly. I love to push projects as fast as I can. But when we start dealing with public money, grant money and so forth. It does not move quickly. It’s a slow process. You know, you’re not building that house you’re building a house with somebody else’s money. Things you’re going to have to get approval for.

It takes time, it takes time and God knows it took 7 years to get this hotel. OK? Ten? Paul here said it’s going to be near 10 years.

Thank God it’s finally happened. You know, I remember sitting in Pat’s office and Mr. Pulver was in with his team and me with some…Paul, you’ve got to move some top soil, you’ve got to move some dirt. The people are ready to hang us all. You’ve got to move some dirt. The time is here and it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone…"

Mr. Pawlowski, “Mr. Chairman, I’m trying to make a point. A lot of these meetings too, I’m the only guy in the audience. That’s why lots of times when you asked about some comments you looked right at me, which I expected you to do.  But what I am saying is, please rethink what you, what you have done. I will help you and cooperate with you in any way I can. But just remember what the consequences can be.

Mr. DiSciullo, “Could the two of you stay for a minute so we can talk once the meetings over?”

Mr. Matt Baker, "There’s a concern John and Paul with this is this; does it not make sense for us to go through it first to go through everything before you even touch it. So you’re coming in on the second pass. You’re going, OK, we’ve got everything here.  You guys are going to get a hand off with a concern about a piece of paper or a document missing. If we, if a person someone from a security standpoint goes through it all documents it all and on the second pass you come through and say that’s the way, it looks fine or you’re missing something that takes you out of it. Do you understand that takes you out, in my opinion, takes you out of that, that culpability, it you will. Whereas if you go through it and something’s missing, to your point John, somebody’s going to come back at you."

Mr. DiSciullo, “I don’t see a problem with that.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “I’m not too concerned with someone coming back at me.”

Mr. Mancini, “I think what John’s saying is giving the impression that we destroyed some evidence.

Mr. Baker, “Right, from year to year. But then if you take…

Mr. Mancini, “What it comes down to is keep everything.”

Mr. Baker, “Well keep everything but what I’m saying is just one person put it all together and inventory everything. And then you guys take a second pass and then you safeguard it from even giving that idea in the first place.”

Mr. DiSciullo, “Well that’s why I wanted these gentlemen to do the inventory because I think they are intimately familiar with a lot of those projects and can best describe them on inventory lists.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “I agree to help and we can start doing something and as we get into it we can report what we’ve done. I’m speaking for both of us right now. We  can report what we’ve done to see if we’re on the right track.

Mr. DiSciullo, “Hey, here’s a list for box 1.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “Well see, I wasn’t aware of that.”

Mr. DiSciullo, “No you guys can prepare a list and say well, box number 1 back here, here’s what’s in it. Then we’ll file it or whatever.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “Something comes back, if something comes back to John, I really don’t care. I’m a big boy, I can handle that. But I don’t want anything subsequently to come back to what the RDA has that they has that they don’t want… You understand?”

Mr. DiSciullo, “Understood John.”

Mr. Pawlowski, “Because this is such, well I’m going to go out on a limb, I’m not going to get misquoted and I wouldn’t care. In some respects this board is as important as or at times more important than Coatesville City Council. You have the city’s future in your hands right now, serious stuff. You can be a target.

I think I’ve talked enough.

Mr. DiSciullo, “Thank you John.”