A normally quiet upper Bucks County township is roiling from a threat against a township supervisor and growing mistrust from residents over its governing body.
The threat was made against Haycock Township Supervisor Linda Levinski on Sept. 8 and is under investigation by state police. No details of the threat were available.
The threat prompted township supervisors to cancel their scheduled meeting shortly before it started. About 50 people already had gathered at the township building.
When told of the cancellation and that they should leave, the crowd instead conducted its own meeting over objections of a township supervisor who was in the building attending another meeting.
During the impromptu meeting, residents discussed ongoing concerns that have rocked the bucolic township, home to roughly 2,225 people and Nockamixon State Park. Among them are allegations against the township’s secretary/treasurer and tax collector, poor financial record keeping and unresponsive elected officials, according to interviews and coverage of meetings in the Bucks County Herald.
Township Supervisor Henry DePue confirmed the meeting was canceled because of the threat but would not provide any information regarding the nature of the threat. He said the meeting has been rescheduled for 1 p.m. Sept. 18.
Levinski could not be reached for comment.
DePue said he was in an adjoining room attending a planning commission meeting when he was alerted to the residents’ entering the supervisors’ meeting room. Township meetings are held at the township’s community center, which was once Haycock Elementary School, on Old Bethlehem Road.
“When I found out they were in the main meeting room I went in there and told them to vacate,’’ he said. “I told them there was no meeting tonight, to leave and go home.”
The crowd dismissed DePue’s insistence they leave, saying it is a public place from which they don’t have to leave, he said.
Realizing it was futile, DePue said he left, and the crowd remained for about 45 minutes.
Stephen Ripper, who led the residents’ meeting, said Thursday that among the topics discussed were allegations that township Secretary/Treasurer Christopher Bauer improperly enrolled his then-girlfriend on the township’s health insurance plan for nine years, costing the township $75,000 in premiums.
DePue said supervisors had not approved the woman’s enrollment, and the matter was referred to the Bucks County district attorney.
District attorney’s office spokesperson Manuel Gamiz Jr. said the office investigated the allegations against Bauer, no wrongdoing was found and no charges were filed. The investigation was completed in July 2024.
DePue said Bauer’s girlfriend, now wife, was enrolled under the authority of then-township insurance administrator and secretary/treasurer, Nancy Yodis. Yodis, who died in 2016 of cancer, was Bauer’s aunt.
Bauer said he asked Yodis if it was possible to enroll his girlfriend onto the township plan in 2015, and after checking, she said it was.
Bauer said his girlfriend was on the plan until they married in 2023. He said never in that time was he told the arrangement was inappropriate.
“If the investigation found I did something wrong, I would pay it back … I went to Nancy and she approved it. Why would she do something like that if she thought it wrong?’’ he said.
“I don’t blame the supervisors but they are given the bills every month and could have seen the premium increase immediately,” he said. “Whether they did or not I cannot say.’’
In addition to questioning the insurance arrangement, Ripper and other residents also have been critical of Bauer’s appointment to township secretary following Yodis’ death without what they feel was sufficient experience, and without publicly posting the job.
Bauer, who began working with the township in 2002 as a road maintenance worked, said he was named assistant secretary a few years later. He said he was promoted to the secretary position after his aunt died because he had worked alongside her.
“I got the position because I had been helping Nancy through the years and even more so when she was getting sicker in the months prior to her passing,’’ he said.
Bauer said he graduated in 2022 from the Pennsylvania Municipal Government Academy, an arm of the Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors that trains municipal workers in various government tasks.
Ripper, however, called Bauer’s hiring a case of “nepotism” and said he “was never trained and his bookkeeping is a subject to be questioned … we need an outside auditor to review all the records.”
Ripper, who was a member of the township planning commission for 22 years and the zoning hearing board for seven, said residents’ concerns are being ignored by township officials.
“We’re frustrated,” he said. “They won’t listen and they don’t care. We just want answers and solutions. That’s all we’re asking.”
Ripper said there are plans to hold more public meetings without supervisors. He said they would be held in the township community center as soon as next week.
Ripper said residents also seek a citizens advisory committee that would help in making government affairs more open and a more substantial method to address resident concerns.
Meanwhile Bauer, a Republican who is also running for reelection as tax collector, said his character has been damaged by the allegations.
“I firmly believe it is a personal vendetta,” he said. “It just seems that way or it could be politically motivated. It definitely hurts because I always felt I am a trustworthy person and this hurts my reputation and my reputation is everything.”
Charles Malinchak is a freelance writer.
