Yardley Borough Council leaned heavily on the experience factor in filling the latest vacancy on the governing body.
After the Dec. 31 resignation of Matt Ross, the six remaining council members voted unanimously Jan. 17 to appoint Uri Feiner to replace Ross.
Feiner had previously been on council for six years through 2021. He will serve through 2023 by virtue of the appointment, and indicated in response to questions from council that he would likely run in this year’s election to keep the seat beyond 2023. He will be sworn in and begin the appointed term at the Feb. 7 meeting.
“Absolutely,” Feiner said of running in this year’s election. “I mean, there is no guarantee, but that is my intention.”
Feiner was selected after he and five other applicants for the vacancy — Zachary Bark, Lyle Hough, Michelle Sharer, Dawn Perlmutter and Earl Markey — were publicly interviewed during the Jan. 17 meeting.
Council members felt that it was important, especially given the short duration of the appointed term, to pick someone who could hit the ground running.
“It was a great slate of candidates, but it’s a short period and we have a lot going on, and I think Uri is the ideal fit in this situation,” council member Matt Curtin said.
Feiner, a Democrat who will be rejoining the majority Democrat council, said he has found it hard to stay away from borough government since he decided not to run for election in 2021. He’d been tapped to finish a two-year appointed term on council that expired at the end of that year.
“I think I’m just called to do it,” he said. “I love Yardley, and this is a great council that I will be honored and happy to serve with.”
While the public interviews of applicants for council vacancies are generally fairly routine exercises, the process became argumentative during the interview with Perlmutter, a frequent critic of borough government who attends almost every council meeting. She has tried unsuccessfully several times, both via appointment and running for election, for a place on council.
“You’ve made it clear that if you get on council, you would want to fire the manager, fire the code enforcement officer, and I’m sure my being up here doesn’t sit well with you either,” Council President Caroline Thompson told Perlmutter. “It seems to me you are against this borough making any sort of progress on projects, on finances. Your penchant to want to come in and burn everything down is not what we need on council at this time.”
Perlmutter responded that her criticisms are meant to improve things in the borough, not be destructive.
“You’re taking this very personally,” she told Thompson. “I do think there is a lot I can do. If I was on council, I would not sit there and say terrible things. You’re not supposed to have all agreement all the time. It’s not a bad idea to have diversity of thought.”
The interview with Markey, done via Zoom because he is out of the area, also turned contentious at times, though not to the extent of Perlmutter’s. Markey is the plaintiff in a pending federal lawsuit against the borough and some of its officials, including Thompson, over the removal of one of Markey’s posts from the borough Facebook page several weeks ago. While the post was quickly restored, the suit has not been settled.
Thompson told Markey that she initially had a lot of respect for him and implemented several of his suggestions for improving borough operations.
“My respect for you started to dwindle when you started suing people you didn’t agree with,” said Thompson, who added comments indicating she felt Markey would be better served working cooperatively with borough officials to fix and improve things rather than resorting to litigation.
“I’m not going to make any comments on pending litigation,” Markey responded. He stated at several points during the interview he would work together with fellow officials if appointed to council.
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