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By MARY CLAIRE DALE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DARBY— Feuds among communi ty power brokers are nothing new, but they reach new heights or depths — in one suburban Philadel phia borough. Darby police yesterday threat ened to arrest a school official they said fails to report crimes at the junior high school. Last month, the mayor allegedly tried to punch an opposing council woman during a meeting in the bor ough, which borders Southwest Philadelphia. There’s also a county probe into whether the mayor improperly used the money of a senior citizen man she took into her home, and a second probe into a councilman’s decades old manslaughter conviction. “In my estimation, there’s always been a lot of back-and-forth, but this past year has been the most hectic,” said Anna Marvel, a borough secre tary for 21 years. Most of the controversy seems to center on Mayor Paula Brown, a tough-talking 41-year-old cock turned-college student. As Brown tells it, her political activism started when, as a 21-year old mother-of-four, she caught the borough dumping chunks of old sidewalk concrete into Darby Creek. She made it onto council a few years later and became mayor four years ago. If nothing else, her reign has been eventful. Brown once barricaded herself in her office for three days in a feud with council members. She got hauled into federal court for parking al les her car on the CSX railroad tracks that run through the community to protest repeated derailments. “I'm not afraid of a fight,” Brown, who earns $250 a month, said yester day in the small office she has crammed with files, bawdy greeting cards, an admiring letter from a prison inmate and news clippings of the community's more infamous events. There's the police sergeant who pleaded guilty to indecent assault; the councilman bloodied in a scuf fle with the former council presi dent; and, just last week, the case of a 12-year-old special education stu dent allegedly forced to give three boys oral sex during a classroom movie. yl a of THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Mayor Paula Brown is seen dur ing an interview in her office in Darby, Delaware County.
Newspaper Details
Johnstown Tribune Democrat
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, US
Sat, Feb 09, 2002
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Paula B.
PA, USA 20 Jul 2026
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