This letter is to explain to my Watson Township, Lycoming County, constituents (especially the 30-plus who went to the polls last November to vote me in as a write-in candidate) and the general public as to why I have decided to resign as a Watson Township supervisor.
There are two basic reasons: (1) I believe that the state's recent passage of Act 13 has essentially pre-empted any action that a township or other municipality could take to regulate the Marcellus Shale gas industry in any substantive way, and I would be unwilling to participate in what has been determined by our township solicitor as a necessary rewriting of our township's zoning ordinance to "place it in line" with Act 13, an action that would, in my view, be weakening it, whereas I ran for office with the intent of possibly strengthening the zoning ordinance; and (2) I have found it impossible to work amicably and productively with James Seltzer, the chairman of the Watson Township supervisors.
Returning to my private life "outside of politics," I assure those who know me and, especially those who voted for me last November, that I will continue to work to mitigate the safety hazards created by the Marcellus Shale hydraulic-fracturing industry, to try to maintain as much as possible the style of life we had come to expect and treasure here in Pine Creek Valley, and to publish the reality of life as it has deteriorated with the advent of the "fracking" industry to as wide an audience as I can reach through my writings, interviews with the media, and speeches at anti-fracking rallies.
