With a hearing scheduled Thursday on contempt charges against her, Muncy Township Supervisor Terri Lauchle began the week by filing in the Court of Common Pleas a “supplemental memorandum concerning alleged coercive sanction, alternative execution authority and related issues pending further review.” It is the latest chapter in the ongoing legal battle between developers at FAMvest LLC and the Muncy Township supervisors over Lauchle’s refusal to sign land development plans for the former Lycoming Mall, now the District at Lycoming Valley.

Citing the township’s subdivision and land development ordinance (SALDO), Lauchle claims that it provides for the Board of Supervisors “to review and render a decision to approve the final plan,” which she contends means that the board, which is composed of Denise Artley, vice-chair, Supervisor Heath Ohnmeiss, and Lauchle can take “institutional Board action” rather than “mandatory execution by one specifically identified elected official.”

Her filing noted that there are separate signature lines for the chairperson and the vice-chairperson or secretary, but Lauchle is saying that the “certification structure is disjunctive,” which means that it can be separated and that the certification of the plans does not have to be executed by all the supervisors or the chair alone.

During a May 21 hearing before President Judge Eric R. Linhardt, Lauchle was held in contempt for refusing to sign FAMvest’s land development plans. She was to pay $500 per day for each day she refused to sign. As yet, it has been reported, she has not paid any fines.

Artley did sign the plans at the May hearing and Ohnmeiss was told that he could not sign.

Lauchle’s filing said that with Artley’s signature, “the ordinance’s contemplated alternative execution structure was not merely theoretical, but was in fact utilized.”

According to that, it would seem that Lauchle believes that Artley’s signature is sufficient to approve the plans under the townships SALDO.

From that assertion, Lauchle’s filing questions if the sanctions are coercive, which can be taken to mean the fines for contempt and which were directed personally against her, and if the sanctions were “necessary or appropriately tailored.”

From that Lauchle is contending that because another supervisor “publicly expressed support for the project and a willingness to execute the certification; the ordinance and certification structure contemplated alternative authorized municipal execution authority; the Vice Chairperson signature line was actually executed; and the Township was therefore not institutionally incapable of acting absent Supervisor Lockley’s (sic) personal execution.”

Breaking this down, it seems to say that Lauchle is asking the court to believe that she did not need to sign the documents that have been at the center of many contentious township meetings.

At the May meeting of the board, a legal representative of FAMvest said they were asking Lauchle to recuse herself or be recused from any further dealings with the land development plan for the proposed site of a Bass Pro Shop.

Attorney Ambrose Heinz, from Stevens & Lee PC of Harrisburg, legal counsel for FAMvest in asking for her recusal, referred to a letter from his firm which stated, “Over the last six months, Ms. Lauchle has made multiple statements, including statements in open court, and including actions that she has taken that have demonstrated to us and have evidence that she is not impartial, she is in fact biased against both the application, the project, and the applicant, and therefore we are asking that she announce tonight that she is recusing herself from any further participation in the review processing deliberation action on that land development plan application.”

In her filing Lauchle stated that the requests for recusal were at odds with assertions that her signature was necessary for the plans to be approved, a fact she claims was not necessary because of the way the SALDO signatory structure is worded.

Because of these arguments, she feels that there should be an “emergency stay of enforcement” of the fines; an application to supersedeas, which is a legal term to stay the former order; a clarification and modification of the May 21 order; temporary suspension of “alleged coercive fines pending review; preservation of appellate rights;” or “such additional interim relief as counsel deems appropriate under Pennsylvania procedural rules.”

In reference to Linhardt’s order that the defendants — Muncy Township Board of Supervisors — execute the plaintiffs’ — FAMvest — approved preliminary/final plan, Lauchle is claiming in her filing that is directed to the defendants collectively and does not identify her individually as the “sole or indispensable signatory.”

Also, because she claims the written order doesn’t appear to expressly set forth the fines for contempt, which she calls “escalating personal coercive sanctions” she questions the “scope of the written order; whether personal execution by Supervisor Lockley (sic) was specifically required; whether alternative authorized municipal execution satisfied the order and whether ongoing sanctions should be stayed, clarified, modified, or suspended pending further review.”