A new slate of Chester County elected officials are taking office after they were officially sworn in at a ceremony over the weekend surrounded by friends and family.
Four officials in the county’s row offices — clerk of courts, controller, coroner, prothonotary — and three magisterial district justices took their oath of office Saturday at the Chester County Justice Center.
“I’ve found, in this line of work, when you’re finding people to run for office, it’s quite difficult to get the good people to do it,” county commissioner Josh Maxwell told the incoming officials. “It sometimes attracts maybe the wrong people. I’m so excited to be here today because we have a lot of good people who rose their hands — maybe a higher bar than we typically have in the county.”
Sophia Garcia-Jackson (facing camera) hugs the Honorable Alita Rovito after being sworn in as the coroner during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.
The row offices oversee essential government services residents regularly interface with — from maintaining criminal and civil court records, to monitoring the county’s financial contracts, to investigating the circumstances of sudden deaths — andoperate under four-year terms. Magisterial district judges handle traffic cases, and minor criminal and civil cases, for six-year terms.
The slate of row officials includes:
Clerk of Courts: Caroline Bradley
Controller: Nick Cherubino
Coroner: Sophia Garcia-Jackson
Prothonotary: Alex Christy
And the county’s new magisterial judges are:
Anthony diFrancesca
Joe Heffern
James C. Kovaleski
James C. Kovalski’s family helps him don the judges robe after he was sworn in as a magisterial district judge during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.
“Those of you taking the oaths … are amongst the people who will help Chester County continue to be a place where so many want to live, work, and raise their family,” Moskowitz told the officials.
During the ceremony, the judges donned their robes and the row officers took their oaths with their partners, parents, and children nearby. Dozens of supporters lined the benches in the courtroom, and elected officials received a standing ovation when all the oaths had been administered. (Those supporters got a nod, too, with Maxwell noting that public service comes with long hours, personal sacrifice, and difficult decisions. “No one serves alone,” he said.)
The oaths of office were administered by Commonwealth Court Judge Stella Tsai, Court of Common Pleas Judge Alita Rovito, and Magisterial District Judge Nancy Gill.
Caroline Bradley (right) has just been sworn in as clerk of courts by the Honorable Stella Tsai (left) during the ceremonial administration of oaths, for elected officials and magisterial district judges, at the Chester County Justice Center on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.
“The oath you have taken is more than a formality, it is a promise to the people of Chester County, a promise to uphold the law, to treat every resident with fairness and dignity, and to carry out your duties with independence, integrity and care,” Maxwell said. “Those values matter deeply, especially at the local level, where government has its most direct impact on all our lives.”
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If she makes it on the ballot, Karen Dalton will be U.S. Rep. Scott Perry’s first primary opponent since 2012 – the year he first won the seat.
Dalton, a retired staff attorney for the Pennsylvania House Republicans, knows the odds are against her as she runs a solo campaign operation out of her living room. But she thinks she has a shot.
The 65-year-old Carlisle resident is irked byPresident Donald Trump’s policies both from a faith-based standpoint and a legal one.
She holds many views that align with Democrats, which may draw accusations that she’s a “RINO,” or Republican in name only. But she argues she’s a Republican at heart.
“I was talking to a senior citizen the other day, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘So you’re a RINO,” said Dalton, 65. “And my response to that was, well, if you mean ‘Respect for Individuals and Not Oligarchs,’ I’ll go along with that. He goes, ‘No, no, no, I’m a RINO too. I’m that old school Republican that believes in helping people.’ I’m like, ‘Yes, thank you. That’s what I’m talking about getting back to.’”
Perry, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump whosupported his unsuccessfulattempts to overturn the 2020 election, represents Dauphin County and parts of Cumberland and York Counties in Central Pennsylvania. He appears to be particularly vulnerable this yearas the district has shifted toward Democrats and Republican-turned-Democrat Janelle Stelson, a former local news anchor, had a razor-thin loss against him in the general election last year. She plans to run again in the Democratic primary.
Dalton, in a long-ranging interview with The Inquirer in her living room, called Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act the “Big, Brutal Betrayal of the American Dream Act,” because of its cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
She believes formerVice President Kamala Harris should have pushed back more on Trump’s claims about transgender people in the 2024 election, argued that the term “illegal alien” is factually incorrect, and says on her website that climate change is a real threat.
Karen Dalton, who plans to challenge Scott Perry in the Republican primary, holds materials from a bill she worked on in Harrisburg in her Carlisle home on Monday.
She supports a $15 federal minimum wage anda millionaire’s tax, and wants to raise the corporate tax rate. She supports abortion rightsand believes health care is a human right, though she’s fearful of what she views as over-regulation from Democrats.
Her walls are covered with Republican political memorabilia and a poster of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, a Democrat who was assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign.
She noted that she was a Republican when Donald Trump was a Democrat.
Her path to victory, she believes, is convincing enough independents and Democrats – particularly former Republicans – to change their registration to support her in the MayGOPprimary.
“You know, independents have been upset many years because Pennsylvania has a closed primary system … if they register as Republicans, they get to vote in a primary against Scott Perry and not wait until November,” she said.
Primary challengers are rarely successful. Dalton reported under $3,000 in contributions – and an approximately $6,000 loan from herself — through September, which is pennies compared to themore than $1 million Perry reported.
But she only needs to gather 1,000 signatures and pay a $150 filing fee to appear alongside him on the primary ballot.
Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about Dalton as of Wednesday.
U.S. Scott Perry speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington in July 2023.
Rosy eyed about the old Republicans
Dalton grew up in New Jersey and was the first in her immediate family to go to college, attending Montclair State University before getting her politics graduate degree at New York University and later attending law school.
She lives in Carlisle near Dickinson Law — her “beloved alma mater” — in a home she bought just four years ago at age 61. With student loans hanging over her head for the vast majority of her career, she couldn’t afford a down payment until her state retirement payday.
She has no kids and she’s never been married — “I spent a lot of time reading and studying and going to school,” she said. These days, she takes piano lessons and plays pickleball, and does pro bono legal work when she’s not knocking on doors for her one-woman campaign.
Dalton is rosy-eyed about moderates of the Republican Party’s past. She managed former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood’s (R., Bucks) successful state Senate campaign in 1986 and worked for New JerseyRepublicanGov. Tom Kean,who wrote The Politics of Inclusion. She later worked as a staff attorney for Pennsylvania House Republicans for 25 years, where she focused on domestic violence and child sexual abuse legislation.
“I’m convinced that if the Republican Party wants to survive and thrive, we need to give up what Donald Trump believes in, and return to our roots,” she said.
Dalton, whose parents were both Democrats, changed her registration from independent to Republican in 1984 at the age of 24 after her first job working for Ralph J. Salerno’s unsuccessful state Senate campaign in New Jersey. When he lost, “amazingly, nobody took up arms,” she said.
“I mean, I cried in his lapel, but you know, it’s just like he conceded, and everybody moved on,” she said. “There was no insurrection, there was no battle, there was no violence, there was no ‘Oh, there was voter fraud.’ None of that stuff happened, because that’s the way things used to be before Donald Trump was president.”
Karen Dalton points to a photo of herself and her old boss Jim Greenwood in her Carlisle home on Monday. A message from Greenwood says: “Now I can prove that I knew you before you were a rock star.”
Tired of yelling at the television
Dalton said she didn’t think she’d become a candidate herself during her years working for politicians. But she said “steam started to come out of my ears” when Trump tried to end birthright citizenship, and again when House Speaker MikeJohnson mused about defunding the federal judiciary.
“I just couldn’t sit back anymore … I got tired of yelling at the television,” she said.
While Dalton argued that Trump’s rise in 2015 has soured the Republican Party, much of her criticism concentrated on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and what followed.
Dalton worked with Perry in Harrisburg when he was a state representative, and she described him as “an incredibly nice man” despite her misgivings about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and continued alignment with Trump. (She calls him “morally blind” on her website.)
When asked if she ever supported Perry, Dalton said she wasn’t comfortable talking about who she voted for in the past because “ballots are private.” She did say that she didn’t vote for Trump in 2024, and shevotedfor Stelson, Perry’s Democratic challenger.
“I can tell you that I don’t vote for insurrectionists,” she said.
Karen Dalton, who plans to challenge Scott Perry in the Republican primary, calls a table in her living room her “campaign headquarters.”
Policy informed by faith
Dalton was raised Catholic, confirmed Episcopalian, and has attended the Unitarian Universalist Church. Though she hasn’t converted, she now identifies as Jewish, and was moved to tears while talking about a late mentor who introduced her to the religion – noting that speaking about the subject made her“verklempt,” a Yiddish term for emotional.
“One of the things I love so much about Judaism, in addition to its focus on social justice, is the idea that you get to disagree,” she said, a handful of crumpled tissues in her lap.
Her faith informs her approach to public policy, from opposing cuts to healthcare subsidies to appreciating ideas across the political spectrum.
One of her flagship policy proposals is creating a way for people to borrow up to two years worth of their own Social Security benefits before they reach retirement age to help with things like a down payment, tuition, or medical expenses – one that would have helped her buy a home earlier.
Another is a scholarship program that would allow students in any field to borrow the full amount of their education from the federal government through loans that would be forgiven if they serve “the public good,” a rebuke of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill’s borrowing limit on federal student loans.
She also wants to create a program to pay for the education of students who want to pursue careers in science and guarantee employment at national health or science institutions, including a new foundation for scientific discovery.
Dalton has brought her neighbors into her home to discuss her ideas, and plans to do it again.
She also held a town hall at Central Penn College in Enola that she said drew 15 people.
“That’s 15 more people than Scott Perry looked in the eye and talked to over the past five years at his town halls that didn’t exist,” she said.
With the election behind him and the top law enforcement job in Bucks County ahead, Joe Khan says he’s ready for his next challenge.
In January, Khan, a former federal prosecutor and onetime Bucks County solicitor, will become the first Democrat to serve as district attorney in the county since the end of the Civil War. (That’s not counting Ward Clark, a Republican who switched parties to run as a Democrat in 1965 and immediately switched back to his GOP roots after he won.)
Khan, 50, is also the first candidate from outside the district attorney’s office to win the top post after several decades in which voters routinely replaced outgoing district attorneys with successors from among inside the ranks of the office.
To claim that mantle, Khan decisively beat Jen Schorn, the Republican incumbent and a career prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, winning 54% of the vote in the November election, which broke a 20-year record for voter turnout.
County political leaders say Khan’s victory signals voters’ desire for regime change in the once GOP-dominated suburb.
“Democrats came out because they felt like it was necessary to push back on what Trump was doing,” said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party. “And in the case of Joe, they recognized him as someone who is going to stand up to an administration that has shown it’s willing to flout the law.”
Khan, for his part, says politics is in the rearview mirror as he prepares for his new job.
“I don’t care what political party you’re from, I don’t care who you voted for president or for district attorney,” he said in a recent interview. “What I care about is that you’re here to support the mission of keeping Bucks County safe and seeking justice every day.”
Joe Khan greets and signs a poster for supporter Phyllis Rubin-Arnold as he waits for a meeting with the Buckingham Township Police chief. Khan says that politics has no role in his plans for the district attorney’s office.
And he said he would expand that work — Khan tapped Kristin McElroy, one of Schorn’s top deputies, to serve as his first assistant.
Drawing on his experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, Khan said he would pursue environmental crimes and prosecute cases involving violations of workers’ rights.
“We have seen all kinds of advances in terms of the powers that DAs have in Pennsylvania, so I think it’s great to have an opportunity to look at things with fresh eyes,” he said.
Khan grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, where his father settled after emigrating from Pakistan. Like his brother, State Rep. Tarik Khan (D, Philadelphia), he took an early interest in public service. He followed those aspirations to Swarthmore College and, later, the University of Chicago Law School.
Khan said he was drawn to Bucks County later in his career, and has made it his home in the 14 years he has lived with his sons, Sam, 14 and Nathan, 11, in Doylestown Township. He and the boys’ mother are divorced but co-parent amicably, he said, and live a few doors down from each other.
After stints in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office — where he specialized in prosecuting gun crimes and locking up child predators — Khan ran for the top prosecutor’s job in Philadelphia in 2017, losing the race to Larry Krasner.
Joe Khan (center) is seen here in March 2023 alongside County Commissioners Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia and Robert J. Harvie Jr. as they announced a lawsuit filed against multiple social media companies for “fueling a mental health crisis among young people.”
Three years later, Khan took over as Bucks County solicitor. He developed an interest in local politics, he said, after watching the culture-war debates over library books and allegations of abuse that embroiled the Central Bucks School District, where his kids are enrolled.
“It’s really central to my view of what parents need from their government,” he said. “They need people in roles like this that are going to make life easier, not harder, and that are going to help them with the challenges that they’re facing.”
Not long after taking over the office, Khan challenged Trump’s efforts to dismiss mail-in ballots during the 2020 election. He also waged legal battles, taking on companies including 3M, DuPont, and Tyco by filing lawsuits over the “forever chemicals” that had leached their way into residents’ water supplies.
And he made headlines for joining a national lawsuit against social media giants like TikTok, bidding them to address the mental health of their young users.
When now-Gov. Josh Shapiro left the state attorney general’s office, Khan stepped down to join a crowded primary to replace him, running in 2023 on a platform to “continue what has been a lifelong fight to keep people safe.”
After losing that race, Khan set his sights on the top law enforcement job in his new home, challenging the long-standing Republican machine that had controlled it for decades.
“I think that if you do a good job and you let people know why you’re doing the things that you’re doing, whether or not they agree with you on every political position, if they know that you’re honest, you got a pretty good shot at earning their vote,” he said.
“And I think that’s a big part of how we won this election.”
A voter walks past the election lawn signs, including one for Joe Khan and his running mate, Danny Ceisler, outside the Bucks County Senior Citizens polling location in Doylestown on Nov. 4.
Santarsiero, the county Democratic Party chair, said he was confident that Khan would make a fine district attorney.
Winning the post required political prowess, of course, but he said that is a dichotomy unique to the office: Politics are required every four years to secure a position that is apolitical.
Party affiliation aside, he said, Khan would work for the good of the county.
Khan, for his part, says he is ready to give it his all.
“We are here to keep people safe, and we’re going to do that in new and exciting ways,” he said. “I have my values, I wear them on my sleeve, and I’m very clear about the direction that we’re going to go to make sure that people who deserve a healthy environment for their families are getting a higher level of service than they’re used to.”
Former U.S. Rep. Richard “Dick” Schulze, a Republican who represented the Philadelphia suburbs from 1975 until 1993, died last week at the age of 96.
Mr. Schulze, who served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly before running for Congress, died of heart failure in his home in the Washington, D.C., area on Dec. 23, according to a news release from his wife, Nancy Shulze, and former chief of staff Rob Hartwell.
During his first term in the U.S. House, Mr. Schulze led the charge to make Valley Forge, seven miles from his home at the time, a national historical park. President Gerald Ford signed the legislation Mr. Shulze authored into law on July 4, 1976, the nation’s bicentennial.
By the time he retired from the House in 1993, Mr. Schulze was a member of the powerfulHouse Ways and Means Committee. He spent his whole congressional career in the political minority, retiring shortly before Republicans retook the chamber in 1994 for the first time since the mid-50s.
“He knew what he believed and he stood for what he believed but he was not, he was not partisan,” Nancy Schulze said in an interview withTheInquirer Tuesday.
Mr. Schulze’s former employees described him as tough but fair, demanding a lot of his staff but offering them the space to achieve it.
“You really had to be at the top of your game,” said Tim Haake, a former attorney in Mr. Schulze’s congressional office who had reconnected with him in recent years. “Overall he was a very nice man, very polite, very cordial.”
Mr. Schulze,Hartwell said, “probably taught me more in my life than anybody.”
Hartwell remembered his former boss as a man willing to work across the aisle in a way that is less common in today’s politics. Mr. Schulze founded the Congressional Sportsman Caucus and served on the National Fish and Wildlife Board among other posts focused on wildlife.
Serving in the minority throughout his career, Hartwell said,Mr.Schulze was willing to make deals and work for the benefit of his district, which included portions of Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester Counties.
“He was a man of his word and he was a man who wanted to accomplish things for his district and his constituents,” Hartwell said. “Unlike today he would reach across the aisle to get those things done.”
Mr. Schulze unsuccessfully proposed a constitutional amendment imposing term limits of 18 years for members of the House of Representatives. Although the proposal did not advance, Mr. Schulze himself chose not to seek reelection in 1992 after serving 18 years in office. He went on to work as a lobbyist for a conservative firm.
“He did not cling to his role as a congressman and he did not go to occupy a seat,” Nancy Schulze said.
Nancy Schulze and Dick Schulze were married following the 1990 death of his first wife, Nancy Lockwood Schulze, after a battle with cancer, and the death of her first husband, Montana Secretary of State Jim Waltermire.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Schulze is survived by four children, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Nancy Schulze remembered her husband as a gentleman, an Eagle Scout who lived by the scouting oath and was dedicated to loving and serving his country, state, district and family.
“He was a man of dignity,” she said.
Services to honor Mr. Schulze are scheduled for Saturday Jan. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Great Valley Presbyterian Church in Malvern.
Right after Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday was sworn into office in January, he received a lunch invitation from across the Delaware River.
It didn’t matter that they came from different political parties, said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat appointed to his post by outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy.
Platkin wanted to get to know his neighbor, and invited Sunday out to lunch in Philadelphia.
The two men could not have more different approaches to their jobs. In a hyperpolarized political era, where attorneys general play an increasingly important role in national politics, Platkin has become a face of Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump’s administration. He has led or joined dozens of lawsuits by blue-state attorneys general and governors in arguing that the executive branch is acting unconstitutionally on issues like birthright citizenship, withholding congressionally approved funds, and more.
In contrast, Sunday, a Republican elected last year, has largely avoided suing Trump and has said he strives to be “boring,” focusing his efforts on oversight of his own office.
Even their jobs are different, despite sharing a title. New Jersey’s attorney general is in charge of the state’s 21 county prosecutors, oversight of state police, and protecting consumers, among other duties; Pennsylvania’s attorney general has wide-ranging powers to investigate corruption, enforce the state’s laws, represent the state’s agencies and interests in lawsuits, and more.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin on Monday, June 17, 2024, at the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton, N.J.
Platkin, 39, is an ambitious lawyer who grew up in northern New Jersey and attended one of the best high schools in the state before attending Stanford University and Stanford Law School. He went on to work in private practice in New York and New Jersey before being appointed as chief general counsel to Murphy at 35 — the youngest person to ever hold the office.
Sunday, 50, grew up in a suburb of Harrisburg and has described his high school years as lacking direction. He joined the U.S. Navy after high school before attending Pennsylvania State University for undergraduate and Widener University Law School for his law degree, working at UPS to help put himself through school. He returned to south-central Pennsylvania for his clerkship, and was a career prosecutor in York County until his election to attorney general.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday stands to be recognized by Council President Kenyatta Johnson before Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker gives her budget address to City Council, City Hall, Thursday, March 13, 2025.
But over salads at the Mulberry, Platkin and Sunday found common ground. And ever since, the two said in a joint interview this month, they have worked closely on issues affecting residents in their neighboring states.
“Just because you may not see eye-to-eye on [Trump] doesn’t mean you can’t see or don’t see eye-to-eye on many, many other issues,” Sunday said.
“When we have an auto theft problem, [residents] don’t care if there’s a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name,” Platkin added. “They just want to see us working to solve it.”
The two have since worked together on issues that stretch from criminal investigations and human trafficking cases to challenging Big Tech companies as artificial intelligence rapidly advances, Sunday said.
Earlier this month, Sunday and Platkin led national efforts of coalescing approximately 40 attorneys general across party lines on the issues they say are most pressing for residents. The group wrote a letter to Big Tech companies in mid-December, detailing concerns about the lack of guardrails for AI chatbots like those available from ChatGPT or Meta’s Instagram AI chats, and the potential harm they could cause people in crisis or children who use them.
In two more letters sent this month, the attorneys general also voiced support for a workforce reentry bill before a U.S. House committee and requested that Congress approve additional funding for courtroom and judicialsecurity to protect the nation’s judges from safety threats. Platkin and Sunday said they were some of the first attorneys general to sign on to the letters.
“While the undersigned hold differing views on many legal issues, we all agree that the legal system cannot function if judges are unsafe in their homes and courthouses,” the group of 47 attorneys general wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to top leaders of Congress.
When it comes to lawsuits against the Trump administration and other litigation authored by partisan attorneys general associations, Sunday has largely avoided the fray. Earlier this month, he was elected Eastern Region chair of the National Association of Attorneys General, a nonpartisan group composed of the 56 state and territory attorneys general.
Platkin, on the other hand, has led the charge in pushing back against the administration’s policies in New Jersey, signing onto dozens of lawsuits such as ones challenging Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship and to withhold SNAP funding if a state does not turn over personal information about its residents.
Still, Pennsylvania has joined many lawsuits, including several challenging the federal government for withholding congressionally approved funds for electric vehicles and more, as Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, formerly the state’s attorney general, has signed on in his capacity as governor.
Platkin, who has served as New Jersey’s attorney general since 2022, will leave office when Murphy’s term ends next month, and Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill will appoint someone new to the post. Sherrill, a Democrat, earlier this month nominated Jen Davenport, a former prosecutor and current attorney at PSE&G, New Jersey’s largest electric and gas company, to be Platkin’s successor.
Sunday’s team has already been in touch with Davenport to forge a similar cross-state working relationship.
What’s next for Platkin? He said he’s a “Jersey boy” and will remain in the state but declined to say what his next move might entail.
And both Platkin and Sunday say they will maintain their bipartisan friendship going forward.
“It’s OK to say we don’t agree on everything. We shouldn’t hate each other,” Platkin said. “We should be open about the fact that we like each other. … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
When U.S. Steel opted to build a new mill in Arkansas that had originally been planned for Allegheny County, then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson jokedin 2022 that his state could have the mill built faster than Pennsylvania could have it permitted.
Three years later, Pennsylvania politicians and business leaders are hopeful that a series of permitting reforms — the latest of which were approved as part of the state’s $50.1 billion budget — have finally flippedthatdynamic.
The reforms, which are designed to expedite Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s permitting process to allow for quicker development, mark a major step forward in a project that has long been a goal for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican leaders in the General Assembly.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is responsible for issuing a variety of permits for building plans to ensure they comply with state law and are environmentally safe. The latest reforms will force the agency to automatically approve certain permits relating to stormwater and groundwater within 60 days if it has not completed its review in that time period or sought an extension. For certain permits related to air quality, the changes allow for the permits to be automatically approved 30 days after submission if the DEP has not acted.
The budget, which Shapiro signed into law last month, also expanded an existing program, called SPEED, that allows companies to hire third-party inspectors for certain permits to expedite the process. And lawmakers required the state to create and maintain a database where companies can easily track the progress of their permit applications.
For Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), the change represents a paradigm shift in the state. He recalled the 2022 loss of the U.S. Steel mill at a news conference last month.
“You cannot have economic development without shovels in the ground, and you can’t put shovels in the ground without permits,” Pittman said.
The reforms, he said, will “provide certainty,” which he called, “critical to economic development.”
A longtime goal
Amy Brinton, director of government affairs at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said it has long been common for businesses to choose other states because of Pennsylvania’s arduous permitting process, and at times begin the process of building in Pennsylvania only to move out of state when permitting becomes a hurdle.
“We lose a lot of projects to Texas and Ohio because of our complicated permitting process,” Brinton said.
Remedying this through permitting reforms, as well as expedited certifications, have been among Shapiro’s top priorities as governor.
“When he took office in January 2023, Governor Shapiro promised to make state government work more efficiently and effectively for Pennsylvanians. Since then, the Shapiro Administration has delivered on that promise to get stuff done — streamlining permitting processes, reducing wait times for licenses, and cutting red tape to attract more businesses to the Commonwealth,“ Kayla Anderson, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement. ”This budget builds on the Governor’s success.”
Shapiro signed several executive orders aimed at that goal including developing a “Fast Track” program for high-priority projects. DEP has eliminated the 2,400 permit backlog that existed when Shapiro took officein 2023. Additionally, Shapiro’s office said, the average processing time for all permits dropped to 38 days in 2025 from 53 days in 2022.
Lawmakers first approved the SPEED program allowing for third-party inspectors in the 2024 budget. Shapiro’s office said the program has alreadyproduced results, cutting permit wait times in half in some cases.
These projects are a key part of Shapiro’s business-friendly approach, which he’s promoted as he bolsters his resume and bipartisan appeal ahead of a 2026 reelection campaign and a potential future presidential run.
“The permitting was awful,” Ward said in an interview last month. “Permitting now, instead of 300 days, we’re at 30 days. It’s amazing that we were able to come together and get that done.”
Brinton said she is hopeful that the combination of reforms will make it easier for businesses to choose to build in Pennsylvania because the timeline will be more predictable.
“Improved accountability, greater predictability, faster timelines — those are the key kind of drivers that we’re hoping this will continue to provide to our businesses in the hopes that when they look at Pennsylvania they won’t wince at the fact that this is going to take forever,” Brinton said.
Millions of dollars in federal funding for homeless services are at risk after the Trump administration on Friday moved forward with a plan to cut support for most long-term housing programs that serve people otherwise without stable shelter, according to officials in Bucks and Montgomery Counties.
The plan, which is still being fought in court after the Department of Housing and Urban Development released an earlier iteration of the policy shift in November, seeks to upend the way communities across the nation, including Philadelphia, treat people experiencing homelessness and would reroute the spending of $3.9 billion in grants for a program called Continuum of Care that localities rely on to fund housing programs.
The latestdevelopment came Friday night, when HUD appeared to respond to a judge’s ruling in the legal battle by issuing a new set of rules to apply for the federal awards. The new HUD document reduced the amount of funding available for permanent housing by two-thirds, a drastic decrease, said Kayleigh Silver, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Housing and Community Development.
The new plan “we believe will worsen homelessness and destabilize communities, not improve them,” said Kristyn DiDominick, executive director of the Bucks-Mont Collaborative, at a news conference Monday in Warminster. The nonprofit fosters resource sharing between the two counties.
Officials said hundreds of people in the counties, including families, veterans, and people with disabilities, could lose access to housing as a result of the funding shift. Nationwide, the HUD plan could displace 170,000 people by cutting two-thirds of the aid designated for permanent housing, advocates say. In Philadelphia, tens of millions of dollars used to fund the city’s 2,330 units of permanent supportive housing are at risk, city officials said in November
Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, a social worker by trade, said HUD broke its “promise” to continue providing support to programs.
“If we can’t trust HUD, how are we supposed to get the people we work with to trust us?” said Ellis-Marseglia, a Democrat.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner in the Oval Office on May 5.
The HUD announcement followed two lawsuits, including one from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and 20 other states’ attorneys general and governors, against President Donald Trump’s administration over the cuts included in the November draft of the plan.
The earlier plan gave HUD the authority to restrict funding for groups that recognize the existence of transgender and nonbinary people, populations that face greater risks for homelessness. County officials are still seeking clarification on whether that provision remains in the new plan.
HUD temporarily rescinded the controversial plan on Dec. 8, just hours before a hearing on the lawsuits, citing an intent to revise it. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy, who presided over the hearing, issued a preliminary injunction blocking HUD’s efforts until a new funding notice is issued. It remained unclear to local advocates and service providers the differences between the new plan posted later that night and the original.
“HUD will continue working to provide homelessness assistance funding to grantees nationwide. The Department remains committed to program reforms intended to assist our nation’s most vulnerable citizens and will continue to do so in accordance with court orders,” a spokesperson for the department said in a statement to The Inquirer.
The confusing standoff marks the latest obstacle that nonprofits have had to endure after a lengthy federal government shutdown and Pennsylvania’s state budget impasse, both of which contributed to funding delays and instability.
Bucks and Montgomery County service providers and advocates at Monday’s news conference handed out literature that said“Chaos isn’t a strategy” and called on Congress to step in, noting that the funding process is months behind.
The impacts “land on real people,” DiDominick said.
Housing is also an important resource for survivors of domestic violence, said Stacy Dougherty, executive director of Laurel House, a domestic violence organization in Montgomery County.
“For victims of domestic violence, access to safe housing can be the difference between staying in an abusive relationship and being able to leave, and sometimes even the difference between life and death,” Dougherty said.
Erin Lukoss, CEO of the Bucks County Opportunity Council, added that “housing is the foundation,” a backbone for the entire system that tries to address poverty and food insecurity. A lack of clarity on this funding is another stressor for service providers and those who benefit from the resources
“What makes this moment especially concerning is not just the potential reduction in funding, it’s the instability of the rules themselves,” Lukoss said.
Days before his memoir is set to hit shelves Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will kick off his book tour at Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library on Jan. 24.
Shapiro will swing through Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., in the final week of January to promote his book Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service, according to events posted online.
The tour and the book, set for release Jan. 27, will fuel speculation about a potential presidential run in 2028 as Shapiro works to expand his national profile as he also seeks reelection in Pennsylvania next year.
The forthcomingmemoir is expected to detail his life and political career, including the attempted arson attack on the governor’s mansion while he, and his family, slept inside earlier this year on Passover.
Shapiro, who grew up in Montgomery County and first forged his political brand there, has become a leading figure in the national Democratic Party. The memoir will delve into his vetting to serve as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate last year, according to the publicized summary.
The Pennsylvania governor, Harris wrote, would be unable to “settle for a role as number two” and questioned her about whether he could get Pennsylvanian’s artwork in the vice president’s residence.
The Democratic senator, who has publicly feuded with the governor, described the tension between Pennsylvania’s two top Democrats, which traces back to their time together on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons when Fetterman was lieutenant governor and Shapiro was state attorney general.
It’s unclear whether Shapiro will discuss his relationship with Fetterman in the memoir.
Shapiro’s book tour will kick off at a 3 p.m. event at the Parkway Central Library on Jan. 24. He will also speak at the Kauffman Concert Hall in New York on Jan. 27 and Sixth and I, a historic synagogue and Jewish cultural center in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29.
“Do you realize you are going to end my life by doing this?”
Eliana Chernyakhovsky said she asked the question through an interpreter over and over again to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services last week, after her 24-hour, state-funded care was cut off without warning. Her meal provider was also cut off. How would she feed herself? What if her oxygen tank ran out?
“Fear had risen in my heart,” Chernyakhovsky said in Russian during an interview through an interpreter on Wednesday. “I was genuinely afraid.”
Chernyakhovsky, 73, of Northeast Philadelphia, was born with spina bifida and has a number of physical disabilities associated with the condition, and uses a wheelchair to get around. She is among the Pennsylvania residents who say they have lost their government-funded services because a state-contracted mail vendor failed to deliver a month’s worth of agency mail.
That breakdown resulted in 3.4 million letters never getting sent, 1.7 million of which were from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services — the agency that oversees SNAP food assistance and Medicaid and is tasked with serving the state’s most vulnerable populations.
Millions of letters from state agencies — including notices of health and SNAP benefit renewal, driver’s license and vehicle registration renewal invitations, vehicle registration cards, and more — were never sent by a mail presort vendor, who was contracted by the state to tray and sort agency mail in order to save money on postage. The failure went undetected for a month until early December, when Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration fired Harrisburg-based Capitol Presort Services and hired another vendor on a $1 million emergency contract to work through the backlog.
In Chernyakhovsky’s case, a letter dated Nov. 6 said she had failed to submit a renewal packet to continue receiving in-home care, said her attorney, Louise Hayes of Community Legal Services. Chernyakhovsky had 15 days to appeal to continue receiving services, or else her services would be shut off on Nov. 21.
But due to the monthlong lapse in state agency mail, Chernyakhovsky did not receive the letter until last week, after funding for her in-home nurses and foodservices had already been cut off, she said.
Chernyakhovsky’s home health aides opted to continue her care without pay, and with no assurance they would get paid for the time when her care was restored, because her needs are so great.
Her services restarted last week thanks to efforts by Community Legal Services while her appeal works its way through the system. As of this week, one of her home health agencies has still not received payment from her insurance company.
Alexander Aybinder, her day-shift nurse, said Wednesday it was still unclear when he would get paid. But he said he would still come to Chernyakhovsky’s home, no matter what.
“I will come tomorrow, because she cannot stay without service. I will work,” he said. “She’s absolutely helpless.”
DHS: Extended deadlines and ‘additional flexibility’
DHS spokesperson Brandon Cwalina said in a statement Thursday the agency will extend deadlines for appeals and provide “additional flexibility for affected Pennsylvanians.” Residents affected by the mail issue will receive notice of their appeal options and deadline extensions, Cwalina said.
Medicaid, CHIP, and TANF cash assistance recipients whose benefits were reduced or cut off during the mail delay will have their cases reopened, he added. These cases will be again reviewed to determine if the recipients received the necessary notification of a change in benefits. Renewals for the programs, originally due in December, are now due in January.
DHS cannot extend renewal deadlines for SNAP benefits due to federal guidelines, but affected SNAP recipients who submit the necessary documentation within 30 days of losing their benefits will be able to have them reopened and backdated, Cwalina said.
At least two dozen affected so far, with more expected
At least two dozen Community Legal Services clients have had problems with receiving their benefits because of the mail delay, said Maripat Pileggi, a supervising attorney at CLS. The delay affected state agency letters dated Nov. 3 through Dec. 3, officials have said, and all unsent mail should be received by residents in a few days.
And as the nonprofit legal agency has tried to help restore critical services to some of its most vulnerable clients, CLS attorney Lydia Gottesfeld said, legal advocates have struggled to reach the departments in DHS that could help them, with phone lines going unanswered or hour-long wait times.
“It’s been very difficult to get information about these delays,” she added.
Cwalina said Thursday that any DHS appeal hearings that were missed due to the mail disruption are being reopened and rescheduled, and the agency maintains that its callback system is accessible to recipients.
Cases like Chernyakhovsky’s are among the first and most urgent that CLS has identified since the state said that a month’s worth of agency mail to residents from DHS and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was never sent. Residents like Chernyakhovsky who receive care through the Medicaid-funded home and community-based services program often have the most acute health issues and significant needs, meaning a loss in healthcare services can be catastrophic.
Gottesfeld expects that more residents will realize in the coming weeks that they lost services — such as food assistance or health insurance — because of missed hearings or deadlines the next time they visit the doctor or grocery store.
When people lose state-funded services, it is not usually because they suddenly no longer need them, Gottesfeld said. Rather, it is usually due to failing to submit paperwork properly, resulting in a loss of food assistance, healthcare, or other services.
Questions remain
It remains unclear how the state agency mail piled up for more than a month before officials noticed, how the backlog was discovered, or where the millions of agency letters were located after the vendor stopped sorting them.
The reported loss of benefits stemming from the mail delay also comes after several tumultuous months for people who receive public benefits, following a federal government shutdown that cut food assistance, new work requirements to maintain benefits, and future uncertainty under federal cuts passed earlier this year. Shapiro was at the forefront of Democratic opposition to federal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, and was a vocal critic when the department withheld benefits during the federal shutdown.
On Thursday, a group of 15 state Senate Republicans, including top legislative leaders, sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of General Services citing The Inquirer’s reporting and requesting more information about how the mail delivery failure was discovered, why it took a month to find the backlog, and more.
“Given the broad scope of this mail delivery failure, it is critical to ensure every effort is made to minimize the impact on our constituents and the disruption it may cause in their lives,” the senators wrote.
Shapiro’s administration is “exploring all legal options” against the fired vendor, Capitol Presort Services, Cwalina said.
Radnor school board officials are now considering a plan for a charter school seeking to open in the fall of 2026on the Valley Forge Military Academy campus.
A group seeking to openValley Forge Public Service Academy Charter School on the site of the closing military school is already equipped with a leadership team and board, but it cannot open as a publicly funded charter school without approval from the local school board.
The group began the formal charter approval process Tuesdayat a Radnor school board meeting with a presentation pitching a nontraditional high school experience that could prepare studentsfor public service jobs.
Liz Duffy, the board president, said the board entered the hearing “with an open mind toward gathering information.”
“And no decisions have been made or will be made on the application today,” she added.
At least one more hearing will follow before the board votes on the proposal. Radnor has never approved a charter school, despite receiving earlier proposals.
The Radnor school board has voted down two previous proposals to add a military-themed charter school to the campus, which the board had argued would serve as a way to subsidize the military academy. The current proposal, The Inquirer has reported, has been in the works since March — months before the private military academy announced it would shut down.
Chris Massaro, a Radnor native who runs a firm that advises educational institutions, had begun working to help the military academy in January and thought a new charter school could be a way to preserve the institution’s legacy.
Massaro said at the hearing Tuesday that he introduced charter school consultant Alan Wohlstetter to the Valley Forge Military Academy Foundation in April and “they got to work” on the plan. Massaro and Wohlstetter are both listed as founders of the potential new school.
The applicants and the foundation are presenting themselves as separate entities that would simply have a landlord-tenant relationship.
“This proposal is entirely new,” said Stephen Flavell, the prospective charter school’s founding CEO. “It has a new mission, new leadership, and a new board.”
He said the school would provide a “uniquely different” experience for students who might not be a good fit for a regular public school.
“This is an ‘and’ for Radnor, not an ‘or,’” he added.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run, and receive per-pupil funding from school districts.
What would the charter school offer?
Organizers said the school would prepare students in grades six through 12 for public service jobs, such as law enforcement, emergency response services, and the military. The entity’s website says its mission is “to provide a rigorous, service-oriented education that emphasizes character, discipline, academic excellence and career readiness.” Applicant spokespeople emphasized providing students with career-path alternatives to four-year college degrees.
The school would cap the number of Radnor School Districtattendees at 25%, andwould alsocater to students from nine other localschool districts, according to the applicant team. “Every student graduates with a diploma plus,” said Deborah Stern, a board adviser for the prospective school. She said the school would give students opportunities to secure college credits or industry-recognized credentials in addition to their high school diploma, alongside connections in the field of their choice.
Would there be any construction?
Dave Barbalace of BSI Construction said the applicant team would pursue a $2.4 million renovation that would take six to seven months to “repair, refresh, and modernize” the building.
The renovation would include making the restrooms on the first floor bigger, a new roof, walkway repairs, and an Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible ramp, he said.
When would the charter school open?
The applicant team said the school would be readyto open in September 2026 if it is approved by the Radnor School District.
The school would have 50 students per grade, starting with just sixth through eighth grades in the fall and adding another grade each year through 12th grade..
A few students have already pre-enrolled, according to the applicant team.
What feedback has the proposal gotten?
Jim Higgins, a lifelong Radnor resident who grew up across the street from the military academy, told the school boardhe did not support the prior two charter school proposals but is supportive of this one.
“I care personally about what happens to the property, so I’ve been watching it,” said Higgins, who previously worked as a CEO and principal of a North Philadelphia charter school and has two kids in the Radnor school system.
“I did not support the other charter applications. I thought they were the wrong people. There wasn’t a community investment. I’m excited by this one,” he added.
Jibri Trawick, a member of the applicant team, said the team has done over 35 outreach events and collected 115 petition signatures, though not all are from Radnor residents since the school would serve the region. The applicants also have 18 letters of support from local businesses and organizations, Trawick said.
One person at the hearing expressed concern about young students sharing a campus with college students, and another questioned what was different between the proposed school’s programming and the existing options for students at Radnor’s district schools and the Delaware County Technical School.
Michael Kearney, a Wayne resident, expressed concern over whether the applicant team was planning for the unexpected expenses that come with using an aged building.
“I caution you that we don’t get too excited about what is a great idea and ignore the uncertainty and risk that are inherent in the proposal,” he said.
What comes next?
This hearing was designed for the charter school team to present its project, and a second hearing set for Jan. 20 is designed for the board, the school district’s administration, and its solicitor to question the applicant team.
The school board has to make a decision byMarch 1.
If Radnor rejects the application, the groupcould reapply, and ultimately could appeal to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
