Yardley Councilwoman Resigns, Citing Racist Facebook Posts

YARDLEY, PA — Yardley Borough Councilwoman Sandi Brady resigned Wednesday night, after claiming a newly elected candidate for the council used racist and homophobic language on a fake Facebook account.

Brady, a Republican, claimed in a resignation letter that Patrick McGovern, one of three Democrats elected to the council in Tuesday's voting, admitted to creating the fake account during a confrontation between the two Tuesday at the polls.

"This position on Yardley Borough Council is simply too much to bear," Brady wrote in the letter, which was read to council members Tuesday by Mayor Chris Harding.

"In my adult life, I have not encountered any blatant racism until I joined council and it has been certain council members who continue to enable this behavior. It is clear to me that the toxic, bullying culture that I spoke out against last year is here to stay. I therefore resign my position on council effective immediately."

Neither Brady nor McGovern was present at Wednesday's meeting. McGovern did not immediately respond to a message from Patch Thursday morning requesting comment.

In her letter, Brady, who is Korean-American, claimed that McGovern "acknowledged the racist nature of his posts," and called them parody, saying the owner of the fake account was supposed to be a Republican. No account bearing the fake name Brady mentioned in her letter was able to be found by a Facebook search Thursday morning.

In a message Thursday to Patch, Brady said that the account was deleted Oct. 30 after someone revealed that it belonged to McGovern. She also said that she decided to resign from council before she knew the outcome of Tuesday's elections.

Screenshots shared with Patch showed posts from the account using offensive language toward Asians and making jokes about gays and lesbians. Brady was not specifically targeted in the posts.

In her resignation letter, Brady singled out Democratic council member David Bria, saying that Bria was present for the polling-place confrontation on Tuesday but did not act in her defense.

Bria, who as council's vice-president was presiding over Wednesday night's meeting, said that he didn't know about the language used in the Facebook posts until Tuesday and that he was asked "to essentially disavow one of our candidates on the spot."

"What I explained to Mrs. Brady was that I believe in due process," Bria said. "If I'm being given information right there on the spot without much proof ... something I can't do is say, 'Well, we're going to completely change directions now.' It was election day. There was nothing we could do. The election had to move forward."

Bria said he "thought Pat McGovern deserved to tell his side of this story" and that "we are having conversations with him to establish what the nature of these Facebook posts truly was."

It was unclear whether Bria meant council or Yardley Democrats were looking into the posts.

Harding, a Republican, responded to Bria, saying the councilman could have done more.

"I'm just disappointed in some of your statements," Harding said. "I admire you for being the leader in anti-discrimination, anti-bullying. I think all of that is very admirable. I wish that leadership had taken control yesterday morning because I think there are things that could have been done."

Without drawing conclusions to their origin, members of both parties on Yardley council condemned the posts Wednesday after Brady's letter was read into the record. Council then voted unanimously to accept her resignation.

This is not the first time Brady has spoken out against what she called bullying and abusive language from fellow council members. Last year, during her first year in office, Brady singled out council member Mike Ruttle for bullying and insulting her, saying at the time that Ruttle called her "a viper, the enemy, corrupt, poison, the worst thing that has happened to this town."

Ruttle, the council's longest-serving member, did not seek re-election this year.