The Bucks County Board of Commissioners recently reorganized, returning the gavel to Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia to begin the board’s second term.
In addition to Marseglia’s appointment by her fellow commissioners as board chair, the afternoon’s reorganization meeting saw the board appoint Commissioner Bob Harvie as vice president chair. Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo will remain the board’s secretary.
The three commissioners, all of whom won reelection in November, were sworn in alongside a slate of four county row officers, including returning Treasurer Kristian Ballerini and Register of Wills/Clerk of Orphan’s Court Linda Bobrin. Newly elected Coroner Patti Campi and Clerk of Courts Eileen Hartnett Albillar also took the oath of office.
Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, Marseglia outlined her priorities for the board’s second term.
“I first want to focus on making sure that we can sustain the changes we made in mental health, and the changes that we are going to make in treatment for both mental health and substance abuse,” she said. “I also want to make sure that our Co-Responder program and our community relationships with police officers is institutionalized.”
Marseglia said she also wants to see the board focus on environmental issues and climate change, as well as making housing in Bucks County attainable for middle- and working-class people.
Harvie echoed Marseglia’s priorities, adding that government should work toward solutions to those difficult problems, even if that work seems difficult or unpopular.
“This country was not built or sustained by people who shied away from those challenges,” he said. “We didn’t win a revolution with that attitude. We didn’t save this nation in the Civil War with that attitude.”
In a call for continued bipartisanship in the board’s second term, DiGirolamo said the way to tackle the difficult issues facing government is to work together.
“We’re not always all going to agree,” he said. “But when we don’t agree, we can do it respectfully and look for compromise, and look for solutions to the problem.”
