Political flyer sets off calls for resignation of Doylestown Township supervisor

Doylestown Township Supervisor Nancy Santacecilia faced an outraged group of people at the board’s Nov. 16 meeting after she distributed a flyer to 44 Central Bucks teachers attacking the head of the district’s teachers union and several area human rights organizations.
She used the district’s inter-office mail in early October to deliver the politically-motivated two-page letter in plain envelopes with the recipients’ names handwritten on the front, according to Bill Senavaitis, president of the Central Bucks Education Association.
Despite calls for her to resign, Santacecilia, a Republican, only offered an apology to her fellow supervisors and said the community is “being deceived.” She has resigned from her position as head of school and community outreach for the nonprofit CB Cares Foundation.
Santacecilia did not respond to a request for comment.
The letter attacked Senavaitis, telling teachers he was “trying to replace you based on your skin color and divide our community.”
The accusation centered on a July meeting of the Doylestown Borough Human Relations Commission (HRC) where Senavaitis was a guest. He joined the commission’s discussion about the lack of diversity among the district’s teaching staff.
In a letter to Santacecilia, Doylestown Borough officials chastised her portrayal of the commission. “The literature you are associated with, through inappropriate distribution and perhaps authorship, is blatantly false. It mischaracterizes the mission and the work of our Human Relations Commission. It also mischaracterizes the mission and work of a variety of community nonprofit organizations.”

The letter calls on Santacecilia to apologize to the HRC “for the extraordinary harm you have done to them and to the Borough of Doylestown.” It was also sent to the township’s board of supervisors, said borough Manager John Davis.
Additionally, the flyer states 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.”
During last week’s meeting, Pray, a former CB Care board member and Doylestown Borough council member, adamantly defended the Rainbow Room, which she founded to provide a supportive environment for LGBTQIA youth.
“The Rainbow Room saves lives, children’s lives. Shame on you. Shame on you,” she told Santacecilia.
Senavaitis, who teaches ninth grade English at Tohickon Middle School, said the ordeal has been “upsetting and distracting for teaching and learning.” The letters “felt very targeted…the teachers are not connected in any way we can see,” he said during a phone interview. “It’s difficult to understand the motivation.”
In his comments at the supervisors’ meeting, Senavaitis told the board, “the recipients of this mailer and all involved organizations are owed an apology – by actions and words – from Mrs. Santacecilia.”

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