Allegheny County Council moves to censure member for comments following March meeting

Allegheny County Council President Pat Catena, D-Carnegie, has proposed a motion to censure a fellow councilman because of comments made during a contentious meeting last month.

Catena’s motion said Councilman Thomas Duerr, D-Bethel Park, approached council Vice President John Palmiere, D-Pleasant Hills, after the March 22 meeting and “in a hostile tone of voice” said to him, “‘I always knew you were a (expletive) coward.’ ”

Duerr did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday afternoon.

The comments followed a meeting at which a majority of council rejected three board appointments submitted by county Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

The appointments included two seats on the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority board and one on the Jail Oversight Board.

During the meeting, some council members appeared to be baffled when “nay” votes were cast for state Rep. Nick Piciottano, D-West Mifflin, and Sylvia Wilson, for the Alcosan board.

Also voted down was William Stickman III to serve as a citizen member of the Jail Oversight Board.

Stickman, who retired from a career with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, also once served as an interim warden at the jail.

Duerr was vocal about his disappointment in the votes, particularly because all three nominees had moved smoothly through the appointment review committee just five days earlier.

Councilwoman Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis, D-Plum, who chairs the review committee, said that after the committee meeting, she had heard from constituents who were concerned about the appointments.

According to the motion to censure, which is included in the council’s meeting agenda for Tuesday, “Mr. Duerr’s public behavior served to undermine the respect and confidence of his fellow council members.”

Allegheny County Council

The motion said it appeared to those who witnessed the exchange that “this verbal attack was unmistakably based upon one or more votes that Mr. Palmiere had validly cast during the course of the March 22 regular meeting.”

The motion also said the exchange occurred in front of the majority of council members, as well as county employees and members of the public.

“It is further the judgment of council that Mr. Duerr’s utterance specifically and unambiguously attacked, impugned and made allusions to the motives of Vice President Palmiere, also in a public rather than private setting,” the motion added.

The motion goes on to say Duerr’s words were “implicitly … both threatening and coercive” to all council members “to the extent that it raised the possibility of similar confrontations based on differences of opinion in the future.”

In a statement issued Friday, Catena said the motion is scheduled for discussion at Tuesday’s regular meeting.

“Vice President Palmiere didn’t deserve the attack, and as president, I will not tolerate this type of rude and disrespectful behavior from member to member,” Catena wrote. “It is my sincere hope that this motion will instill in member Duerr that he cannot treat his colleagues with anything less than respect.”