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Bucks County Courier Times: CB Mailer That Warned of Replacing Teachers Based on Race Sparks Calls for Doylestown Official Who Delivered It to Resign

  • November 19, 2021

A political mailer attacking a teachers union and an LGBTQ+ youth center brought calls for a Doylestown Township supervisor to resign Tuesday.

A group of more than 20 people came to the meeting room at 425 Wells Road demanding Supervisor Nancy Santacecilia step down for using Central Bucks School District’s inter-office mail to deliver over 40 letters described as hateful propaganda.

On Tuesday, she only apologized to her fellow board members, and warned the community it was “being deceived.” Santacecilia did not step down.

Central Bucks Education Association President Bill Senavaitis said Santacecilia was “positively identified” in a district office dropping off the letters in early October that claimed he was trying to “replace” teachers based on their race.

In addition to being an elected official, Santacecilia was also head of school and community outreach for the nonprofit CB Cares Educational Foundation.

“While it is unclear if she is the author of the material, (Santacecilia) acted alone when she distributed the fliers via interoffice mail and was not on school district property in any capacity with CB Cares when she did so,” said Senavaitis. Senavaitis said Santacecilia has since resigned from the foundation.

 

The two-page letter begins by referring to Senavaitis as a former “president” of the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System for two years before returning as head of the Central Bucks union in June.

Senavaitis said Wednesday he has never been involved with the PSERS board, and an internet search for Senavaitis’ name yielded no results connecting him to the fund.

Although the dubious claims about Senavaitis and PSERS were troubling, it was the second page of the mailer sent to teachers and staff that enraged community members.

The letter includes July meeting minutes of the Doylestown Borough Human Relations Commission where Senavaitis discussed concerns in the school district over a lack of diversity among its teaching staff.

“Why is he trying to replace you based on your skin color and divide our community?” the letter asks.

The letter adds that Senavaitis “aligns with Rise Up Doylestown and Marlene Pray – Director of the Rainbow Room and the NAACP Bucks Education chair to prompt a slate of school board candidates that will vote on policy, curriculum and the union contract for the largest suburban school district in Pennsylvania.”

The letter ends with images of social media posts made by the Rainbow Room, an LGBTQ youth center in Doylestown, and Pray about the center’s events and a post about school board candidates.

Pray provided this news organization with images of the letter.

Pray, a former CB Cares board member and Doylestown Borough council member, chastised Santacecilia on Tuesday for attacking what she described as a life-saving resource for “some of the most vulnerable children” in the community and maligning “an essential and historic civil rights organization.”

“The Rainbow Room saves lives, children’s lives. Shame on you. Shame on you,” Pray said.

The Rainbow Room has been a common target of criticism at Central Bucks school board meetings over the past year, often with accusations of allowing adults and minors to have sexually inappropriate discussions.

Karen Smith, who is also a board member at Central Bucks, said she works with a similar foundation in Montgomery County, and that distributing the letter to staff through the district was a serious breach of trust.

“As an employee of an education foundation, I cannot fathom damaging that trust with an action like this. Even more inconceivable is that the action took place in the very school district the education foundation serves,” said Smith, who said she was speaking Tuesday as a resident and not representing the district.

Deneen Dry, head of the Central Bucks support staff union, pointed out that interoffice mail, including the letter bashing the teacher’s union, was delivered by support staff.

“I also want that supervisor to understand that my members did her dirty work,” Dry said, adding she and her coworkers were distressed and “disgusted” by what happened.

While the letters were sent through interoffice mail, Dry and others reported receiving letters at their homes and at least one other resident, Michelle Wire, said she received the letter the same day as the meeting.

Santacecilia, who ultimately did not step down Tuesday, faced accusations of spreading racism and vitriol that didn’t just come from the several employees and residents who received the letters at work and, in some cases, at home.

“This abhorrent flyer utilized fear of people of color taking jobs and attacks against an essential resource for the LGBTQ+ youth in our community. It is unacceptable that any member of our community, especially an elected official, is willing to incite division and harm the lives of children to gain political advantage,” said supervisor Jen Herring.

Supervisor Dan Wood echoed Herring’s comments, calling the letter “disgusting” and saying it served “no purpose” in the township.

Supervisor Chairwoman Barbara Lyons said the decision to step down was Santacecilia’s  make since the board cannot force out a duly elected official.

“I’m not going to comment any further on Nancy’s actions, however, I will say this about my actions: If I had done something indefensible and it became public scrutiny and it affected this board room, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I would already have resigned,” Lyons said.

Under Article VI of the Pennsylvania Constitution, civil officers can only be removed “on conviction of misbehavior in office or of any infamous crime,” but only then by the governor.

Even after an order from the state’s highest executive, a public hearing ending in a two-thirds majority vote in the state Senate would be needed to unseat Santacecilia.

While some commented that Santacecilia may have been trespassing on school grounds and committed “theft of service” by dropping the letters into the district’s interoffice mail, there were no direct accusations that what she did was illegal — just unethical.

The public comment period almost ended after Lyons’ statement without comment from Santacecilia or supervisor Vice Chairwoman Ryan Manion, but murmurs from the audience stoked Manion to respond.

Manion referred to a phone conversation she had with Santacecilia prior to the meeting in which Santaceilia “accepted accountability” for sending the letters.

“Nancy, like I said to you on the phone, what you did was unethical. We can skirt around the issue of the legality of it, but what you did was wrong,” Manion said.

“I don’t have the solution, but what happened was wrong. What you did was wrong and I think you owe the people here tonight a chance to explain yourself,” added Manion.

Santacecilia did apologize, but only to her fellow supervisors, and saying that the letter was “never meant to be any harm, but awareness.”

Santacecilia then, referring to the content of the letter, gave a warning to the community at large.

“In terms of the actions of others and what is happening, people need to pay attention because of the children, the parents and the community that are being deceived, and I’ve been advised that that is all I can say,” Santacecilia said.

Manion said the letter and the response at Tuesday’s meeting seemed to be the result of the now constantly heated meetings of the Central Bucks School Board that have become hostile over pandemic policies.

“It’s a sad state of affairs in Central Bucks right now, and to see that it’s now trickling over into Doylestown Township … this is disruptive to the work that we have to do,” Manion said.

One woman at a Central Bucks meeting earlier this month was in tears at the podium after board President Dana Hunter didn’t gavel down transphobic and anti-Semitic comments made by two district taxpayers.

The Anti-Defamation League, which was specifically referenced in a statement alleging they were involved in a Jewish organized crime racket, issued a statement following that Nov. 9 meeting.

“Hate speech, even if protected speech, must always be called out and condemned.  We urge the School Board leadership to disavow these remarks and make clear that they in no way reflect the views of Central Bucks School District,” the league wrote.

Emily Kaufman, an investigative researcher with the league’s Center on Extremism, said the accusations of racism in the letter raised during Tuesday’s comments were not unfounded.

The letter’s statement that Senavaitis was trying to “replace” teachers in a predominantly white area based on skin color is essentially the same idea behind a common idea embraced by the white supremacy movement known as The Great Replacement.

“This philosophy, this Great Replacement philosophy, was really quickly adopted and promoted by the white supremacy movement because it fit in to their conspiracy theory about the impending destruction of the white race, which they call White Genocide,” Kaufman said during a phone interview Tuesday.

“The direct reference to replacement specifically does immediately bring to mind this theory, so that in and of itself, to me, doesn’t even seem to me to be particularly coded,” Kaufman added.

Kaufman also said that, while the replacement theory is tied to white supremacy, it’s also been “mainstreamed” through popular political pundits like Tucker Carlson, of the Fox News Network.

Whomever wrote the letter could be repeating a popular talking point without expressly subscribing to a worldview that white people are superior to everyone else.

“I wouldn’t necessarily label this person as a white supremacist or anything like that … There’s general bigotry, but the embrace of white supremacy would be the embrace of this ideology of white superiority that would be more complex; an all encompassing worldview,” Kaufman said.

This is at least the second time the fervor in the Central Bucks community has spilled over to a municipal government meeting.