Meetings: Generally held the second Wednesday of the month, via Zoom or hybrid (in-person and via Zoom) at 12 PM (Noon) Eastern time. Notifications, with the Zoom link, are sent to all Task Force members several days before each meeting.

Chair: Jeff Colvin
DFA Liaison: Jeff Colvin

Key Issues for 2023:

• Redistricting and Gerrymandering – These are nominally no longer active issues since redistricting has been completed in the aftermath of the 2020 Census. How redistricting is done in the future, however, may be affected by the proposed state constitutional amendments being pushed by Republicans in the State Legislature. These amendments are now rolled into one bill, Senate Bill 106. See next issue item below.

• Voting Rights and Election Laws – State Senate Bill 106 proposes to amend the Pennsylvania State Constitution to impose restrictive voter ID requirements and to take adjudication of election disputes out of the hands of the judiciary. This bill may still pass given the uncertainty in Pennsylvania Assembly leadership going into 2023, and its passage would put these constitutional amendments on the May primary election ballot. Accordingly, this remains a key issue for the Task Force in 2023. In addition, Republicans in the State Legislature are still pushing bills that would roll back access to mail-in ballots and other voter-suppression laws. The Task Force will continue to place a high priority on monitoring the State Legislature regarding voting rights and election laws.

• Affordable Housing in Adams County – The lack of affordable housing has been identified in many authoritative reports as a key issue putting a damper on economic development. Pennsylvania, unlike most other states, has no law mandating affordable housing as a fraction of any new housing development. Our Assembly Representative, Dan Moul, has proposed legislation to prohibit local governments from mandating affordable housing. The Task Force plans to put priority on highlighting this issue in 2023.

• Solar Farms – Another local government issue is the development of utility-scale solar farms on rural land in Adams County. In Pennsylvania, zoning rules and regulations are entirely in the hands of local government, and there is no uniformity of these rules in the County, let alone in the State. The Task Force plans to research this issue in more depth with an eye to perhaps providing local government with some reasonable guidelines to follow in deciding these complex zoning issues.

• Property Taxes, Land Conservation vs Development – This issue is like the previous one. The Task Force plans to fill an important educational role here on how good government practices can and should decide these issues.

Addressing the Key Issues:

• Op-Eds: For 2023 we plan to continue providing Op-Eds to the Gettysburg Times every month, alternating with the Education Task Force (4th Thursday) in January, March, May, July, September, and November, and alternating with the Health Care Task Force (2nd Thursday) in February, April, June, August, October, and December. The January Op-Ed will be by Tom DeLoe on the PA constitutional amendments. The February Op-Ed will be by Bill Gilmartin on affordable housing issues in Adams County. In subsequent months we will address the other key issues highlighted above.

• Other Communications: The Task Force plans to be ready to provide speaker(s) for the DFA Meet-Ups as scheduled by the Steering Committee. We also plan to continue thinking of other options for trying to publish letters to the editor and responses outside of Adams County (in our PA Congressional District 13, for example) and other local news outletslike the Gettysburg Connection.

• Candidate Recruitment and Training: This new project of the DFA Steering Committee is still in its early planning stages, and it is not yet clear what role the Task Force can or should play in this project. At a minimum, we plan to be prepared to educate candidates on our Task Force issues.

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