PENNSDALE — Although data centers were not on the Muncy Township Supervisors’ Board agenda, a large group of people from the township and surrounding communities showed up anticipating what had been described on social media as a town hall on the topic only to find out that was not the case.

Attorney Joseph Orso III, who had been scheduled to be approved as the township’s solicitor before he withdrew that offer, told the group of concerned citizens that if procedure was followed there would be a hearing scheduled on the application that was allegedly filed April 28. That hearing would probably not be until mid-July.

The group may not have gotten their chance to speak out against data centers, but what they did get was an attempt by township residents to try and understand why Board Chair Terri Lauchle told them there was no application for a data center when it had been delivered almost two weeks prior to the board’s April 28 special meeting.

Township resident Cori Cotner asked Lauchle how she didn’t know about the application for a data center from Danko Holdings, even though it had initially come into the township office on April 15, and an email was then sent to Danko on April 22 stating that the materials provided informally to individual township officials “do not constitute an official submission.”

Danko, according to Cotner, then re-submitted the application on April 28, the date of a township board meeting, where Lauchle then denied there was an application.

Prefacing her inquiry with “My concern right now is not whether a data center belongs here or anywhere, that’s a separate conversation for a separate time,” Cotner said, “So, are you telling us that in six days from the time that they dropped it off on the 15th, you sent an email on the 22nd they dropped it off again on the 28th that you knew nothing about that, and you said to these people, and to your constituents, that there was no application received?”

“The issue is, as of April 12, we switched from our zoning officer, Victor Marquadt, to Joe Lyons,” Lauchle responded.

She claimed that the former board solicitor, attorney Joseph Orso III, had told her on April 15 that she might want to see if the township secretary had received any materials about a data center and that she should check to see what materials Marquadt had received. She said that she had told Orso that she hadn’t seen anything about a data center at that point.

“He said, ‘Well, I understand – not an application – there was materials given to Victor Marquadt, and he has…to look at it and see if he can’t pass a data center as a warehouse,'” Lauchle said.

“And I said, ‘Really?’ Now that’s the 12th. Victor was done. He receives this, whatever, the 15th, and I’m only hearing about it. So I go over on the 21st, because we did not receive anything from Victor yet, and Joe Lyons is now our zoning officer. When I go over there, I walk in the office, and what I do on the table is this map and nothing else, and Victor’s on the phone, and I thought, wow, and I figured, boy, I’m going to take a picture of this. It says Muncy Township, Muncy Creek, Muncy, and you’re like, ‘What is this?’ Victor’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to send this stuff over. He’s already done. He’s no longer.’ I said, ‘Well, what’s this?’ He said, ‘You can take it. Someone gave it.’ I didn’t ask who. He said, ‘They gave it to me and said, see if you can’t pass this as a warehouse,'” she claimed.

Lauchle alleged that she took the materials and gave them to the township secretary, noting that they were from Danko and telling the secretary to get in touch with them.

“That’s the process. Tell Danko, ‘Listen, if you have material, if you are, make sure it comes in the right way,’ because we have an issue with developers not bringing in the materials the right way, whether we get it at the firehouse, whether I can say I don’t know what Victor was getting, so then, so it’s nothing, I figured maybe he’s decided he’s not, he can’t do it as a warehouse, I don’t even know,” she said.

When someone in the audience challenged her claim she knew nothing about a data center, even though she had at one point in her explanation stated that she was going to take a picture of the materials at Marquadt’s office, Lauchle accused the people of not wanting to hear the facts.

“I knew nothing about any data center,” she said.

She further claimed that by April 28, “We had already advertised we are protecting the township with a moratorium, so people who say you’re for data, you’re against developers. No, we took care of both ends. When I heard about it, I saw it didn’t have any clarification. Again, it had nothing to do with us, because it was Victor Marquadt,” she reiterated.

When asked if the township had reached out to the county commissioners or county planning for input on how to handle data centers, Lauchle stated that Orso had told her that at the last commissioners’ meeting the commissioners had said that the county wants to get involved with townships about the issue.

Actually at the meeting that she was referring to, the commissioners stated that townships, such as Muncy Township, which have their own planning commissions, are responsible for passing ordinances for their own municipalities. County planning provides services to 19 municipalities and Muncy Township is not one of them.

“What this community continues to ask for is not complicated. This is not hard. We want you to follow the law. We want you to be transparent. We want you to do the job that you were elected to do,” Cotner told the board.

She accused Lauchle of “failing to demonstrate the willingness or the capability to

meet those basic operations.”

“The residents of this township and members of surrounding communities have made it very clear that they do not have confidence in your leadership. The most responsible and respectful thing that you can do for Muncy Township is to step down and let capable leadership move this community forward, so we are formally and publicly asking again for your resignation,” Cotner stated.