Sadly it’s about the email trail. I wrote about this awkward topic in June:

when politics gives me pause

Sadly, this is still giving me major pause. And I don’t want to be that person, but this person running for school board in Octorara, where he is a current school board member. His name is Anthony Falgiatore, and he is also a Sergeant in the East Whiteland Police Department. I do respect people that follow their passions, but while many members of law enforcement might have side gigs and second jobs, for most people that is not a job as an elected official in the same county, but different municipality from where they work.

For those who are not familiar with Octorara School District it was founded in the 1950’s and is serving a still fairly rural area of Chester and Lancaster counties.

So allow me to share two snippets of the August 21, 2023 Octorara School Board Meeting:

Here is the entire meeting:

Here is the verbiage of what Mr. Fox said:

For anyone unaware, the District is involved in two legal actions concerning Mr. John Ryan Miller: a federal civil suit, and he was arrested on our campus in September for criminal trespass and possession of a weapon on school grounds.

I’m presenting an email to the board and the public. Miller provides this email, and its string of forwarding actions, amongst his filings in the federal civil suit.

It shows Mr. Falgiatore, in a breach of confidentiality, forwarded an email sent by former Superintendent, Dr. Orner. The email was on the topic of school safety and security.

Mr. Falgiatore forwarded this email from his Octorara email account to his personal email account. Within 3 minutes, through another intermediary email account, it was in Miller’s hands.Mr. Falgiatore forwarded this email knowing Miller had been arrested on our campus and awaiting trial for the criminal trespass and weapon charges.

The public handout is 1 page as the body of Dr. Orner’s email isn’t included because of its sensitive content. Start near the bottom, you see the original email header from Dr. Orner to only the board from March 2022. For the board handout, look to the bottom left for Dr. Orner’s email header. The board copy has the pages side-by-side.

Reading up the page, on Feb 8, 2023, Mr. Falgiatore forwarded this email twice. First to his personal account, then within 1 minute he forwarded it from his personal account to an email address of Whizwit. The unknown Whizwit then forwarded to Miller. All of this in 3 minutes.

You’ve breached confidentiality.

You’ve done so with sensitive information on the safety and security of our school.

Through your action, the person arrested on our campus and awaiting trial, received this information – all in a matter of minutes.

This is kind of a big deal, which leaves me even more uncomfortable. See a video about testimony in this case:

 

Anthony Falgiatore’s testimony begins at about the 1hr:14min point in the recording.

It’s because of Sgt. Falgiatore’s position as a police officer, his external sharing of confidential information related to safety and security entrusted to him, his statements during his testimony, and uncertainty of how he would respond to a call at a local school in his jurisdiction that causes concern, and is that over reaction and unreasonable or reasonable?

So Sgt. Falgiatore, I find myself torn and a bit stuck here. I applaud you living your passions, but this has been a very strange case and your own boss is among the people this Mr. Miller is trying to sue so how does this work? Our first loyalties are to ourselves and our family for sure, but you are an officer of the law and also a politician so don’t you ever feel conflicted by this? How can you compartmentalize? How can you be proud to be endorsed by Klanned Karenhood?

And then there is this from April:

Sir, I guess I am asking which do you wish to do more? Because this dual work life/political life thing is possibly not working? And why would you forward emails, internal emails to a person suing your school board, your boss, and who knows whom all else in Chester County?

I think gob smacked applies here as a term of expression. Maybe you need to choose what matters to you most in an effort to pay forward the greater good? Do you want to be a politician or in law enforcement? No offense, I don’t think you can do both.

Maybe it’s time to choose? If you were retired from law enforcement and then chose to be a politician, no one would have a problem with that. But this whole have your cake and eat it too is not working so well, is it? Or maybe you think it’s fine. Have a ponder on it.

That’s all.