Cites unanswered requests to meet with mayor and council members

        John Mansfield said he was hoping to air his grievances with members of Pennsburg Borough Council face to face.

        "Criticize privately, praise publicly," said Mansfield, a 33-year resident of the borough.

        After claiming three of four council members he approached refused to meet privately with him, Mansfield appeared at Tuesday's public meeting to confront the elected officials.

        "Agree to meet with me in private or I am going to air my dirty laundry now," he said during the public comment portion of the meeting.

        During his comments, Mansfield attacked the personal appearance of council President Kris Kirkwood. The Montgomery Ave. resident said Kirkwood dressed like a street person, which displays a lack of respect for the position he holds.  "Every time I come to a meeting, I am going to ask you to go home and dress properly," Mansfield said.

        Mansfield, the father in-law of East Greenville Mayor Ryan Sloyer, also accused Mayor Vicki Lightcap of being unfit to serve as treasurer of the Upper Perk Police Commission. He also claimed Lightcap had been fired from a job as a bank teller, though Mansfield later admitted he could not prove it.

        Mansfield, 72, attended the meeting with a larger, unspoken purpose: to have Kirkwood and Lightcap removed from the Upper Perk Police Commission. In a letter to borough Solicitor Chuck Garner, which he made available to the public, along with a packet of information titled "Resignation of Pennsburg Police Commissioners", Mansfield requested that the solicitor schedule a meeting to discuss the issues he raised.

        "While it may not be possible to resolve all the issues in one Executive Meeting, an announcement that each member has agreed to meet with me individually will suffice," he wrote in the May 30 letter.

        In the prepared statement, Mansfield "expected Lightcap and Kirkwood to be replaced on the police commission with two other council members. I also expect that the new members will be counseled by the solicitor on their duties and obligations related to their oath of office and take them seriously."

        Garner said he saw nothing in the letter that justified the scheduling of an executive session. He added that Lightcap could not be removed from the commission since a borough ordinance designates the municipality's mayor must serve on the police commission.

        "Your ethics make you unfit to serve on borough council," Mansfield said to Lightcap during the meeting.

        Following the meeting, Kirkwood said he did not agree with anything Mansfield said. According to Lightcap, Mansfield has no proof of anything he said, does not understand the borough's procedures and is being used.

        According to Mansfield, he was not directed by Sloyer to comment during the meeting.

        "This is about me," Mansfield said. "I do not represent Ryan. He tries to keep me from coming. I'm going to get a lot of grief for this."

        Mansfield's issues with Lightcap date back to last August, when he claims the Pennsburg mayor attempted to have falsified minutes from a commission meeting approved, according to the prepared remarks.

        He also objected to Pennsburg's members attempt to fire Phil Gazan as the police commission's solicitor.

        "Effectively, Pennsburg is attempting to make East Greenville voters into second class citizens," Mansfield wrote. "This is not how we do things in this country."

        Mansfield expressed his objecting to a previous comment by Kirkwood that Gazan represented Sloyer in a previous bankruptcy case.

        "I'll donate $2,500 to charity if anyone can prove that," Mansfield said during the meeting.

        Later, he confirmed that Gazan represented Ryan Sloyer's wife in civil case initially filed Dec. 31, 2008. According to Mansfield, the lawyer defended Aricia Sloyer in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas against a credit card company, listed on the county website as Capital One Bank USA NA trying to collect money from her over a card she never possessed.

        Mansfield said his daughter won the case. An award of arbitration findings for Aricia Sloyer, listed as the defendant, was mailed by the court on May 20, 2010, according to the same website.