As you know, we recently went in front of the Millville City Commissioners for the appeal against the zoning against Reese’s House. As I am sure you also know, they decided to hear the late appeal and used that as an opportunity to revoke our zoning and send it back to the zoning board, in spite of widespread community support.
What you may not know, is that Commissioner Ben Romanik requested an armed police presence at that meeting on behalf of Mayor Lisa Orndorf and himself. In an email to Millville Police Captain Carl Heger (obtained via OPRA request), he said “we expect a large and possibly unruly crowd”. He went on to say that “the presence of an officer or two will help if there does come of an unruliness from those that will be attending the meeting”. We have no clue what unruliness Commissioner Romanik and Mayor Orndorf feared, but we know that every event we have hosted and attended, including Millville Commission meetings, has never needed an armed police presence.
Millville does not typically have a police presence at their meetings. In fact, in years of going to public city meetings, I have never seen an armed police presence at the meeting. So why now and why now specifically for us? We have our suspicions, but ultimately, that is a question Mayor Orndorf and Commissioner Romanik must answer.
We are asking every one of our supporters to please read our official press release regarding the explicit bias shown against our supporters, volunteers, Board of Directors, and community by clicking here. We will NOT be bullied and intimidated by these tactics. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and Facebook to ensure you don’t miss what is going on. To help support our fight, please make a donation to our legal defense fund. After these events, we are more emboldened than ever to continue our fight to operate Reese’s House!
