{"id":8624,"date":"2013-10-31T18:41:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T22:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8624"},"modified":"2013-10-31T18:41:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T22:41:43","slug":"letter-questions-mcqueens-campaign-contributions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8624","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Questions McQueen\u2019s campaign contributions"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\"><strong>To The Editor,<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Letters111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8625\" style=\"border: 2px solid black; margin: 4px;\" alt=\"Letters11\" src=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Letters111.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>I was reviewing the campaign contributions of the Republican Controller candidate, Norman MacQueen. Mr. MacQueen is also an elected Supervisor in Willistown Township.<\/p>\n<p>I was reviewing the contributions because the Controller\u2019s position is a very important position. The Controller is the \u201cwatchdog\u201d for county government and the office must be an example of high integrity.<\/p>\n<p>What caught my interest, after I was contacted by a fellow Democrat, was that John Payne, who is employed by Remington &amp; Vernick Engineers as an engineer, contributed $250.00 to Mr. MacQueen\u2019s Controller\u2019s campaign on June 13, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Looking further on the campaign contributions, I then noticed on October 10, 2013, the Vice President of Remington &amp; Vernick Engineers contributed $1,000.00 to Norman MacQueen\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Between those two contributions, on September 23, 2013, Willistown Township awarded Remington &amp; Vernick a contract for $40,000.00 for construction management for a remodeling of the Willistown Police Station. It appears this contract was a non-bid contract because it was for professional services. It does not appear to have been done through a sealed bidding process.<\/p>\n<p>I also noted Mr. MacQueen was not present at the September 23, 2013 meeting and, therefore, did not vote.<\/p>\n<p>As far as I can see, there would be no connection of Remington &amp; Vernick to the Controller\u2019s office, but certainly that business has an interest in Willistown Township. This clearly raises some concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The concerns were somewhat heightened since I knew in the past from looking at campaign records, that this firm had been a major contributor to Sen. Vincent Fumo\u2019s various campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly, I think this is a fair discussion in a political year.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, whether this is \u201cpay to play\u201d or not, I believe that the Chester County voters need an explanation from someone who is seeking the most important office of fiscal integrity, the Controllers office of Chester County.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Samuel C. Stretton,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>West Chester<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<form action=\"http:\/\/doc2pdf.pdf24.org\/wordpress.php\" method=\"post\" name=\"pdf24Form0\" target=\"pdf24PopWin\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To The Editor, I was reviewing the campaign contributions of the Republican Controller candidate, Norman MacQueen. Mr. MacQueen is also an elected Supervisor in Willistown Township. I was reviewing the contributions because the Controller\u2019s position is a very important position. The Controller is the \u201cwatchdog\u201d for county government and the office must be an example [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[1590,3037,3038,3039],"class_list":["post-8624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-election-2013","tag-norman-macqueen","tag-remington-vernick","tag-willistown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}