HONESDALE, PA — Former Honesdale Department of Public Works (DPW) employees say they were unnerved when, soon after quitting, they all got a visit from the borough police about vandalism at the public pool.

The workers said they were asked to report to the police station for a three-hour polygraph test, otherwise known as a lie detector test.

The borough police chief, Richard Southerton, said damage at the pool became apparent when the water was turned on this spring. He told the River Reporter he could not comment because the investigation is ongoing.

The police interviewed people with access to the area. The former DPW workers would not in that case be the only people interviewed, since numerous contractors and other individuals have access to the pool. A $500 reward has been offered for information leading to the vandals.

‘Why us?’

The former DPW workers say this latest treatment fits the pattern of intimidation and harassment they endured before their entire group of eight resigned in April. Borough officials say the work that used to be done by the former employees is now being done by contractors.

“Why us?” Mark Daniels Jr., a former DPW worker, told the River Reporter. “They are treating us like crap.”

His father, Mark Daniels Sr., 64, a former longtime Honesdale DPW worker, said he had already spoken to the police once and had no intention of going into the police station for a polygraph without an attorney.

Mayor Derek Williams acknowledged that the timing of the invitation to take a polygraph is “a weird look.”

Daniels Sr. said he was shown a piece of pipe and asked by the police chief, “Do you know what this is?”

He said he picked it up and told the chief he had not seen it before. “It is a piece of pipe from the pool, now your fingerprints are on it,” he said the chief told him.

Daniels Sr. said he and another DPW worker were inside the pipe waterworks house one time in March or early April, before the water was turned on. He said the director was with them during this one and only time they were in there. In another recent incident with the director, the crew was asked to scrub down the pool with “acid.” They were getting sick from the fumes, but they were yelled at and told to keep working.

He said he had tried for a number of years to get a job with the borough, and it was only after Rulis became director that he got a call back and was considered.

Daniels Sr. said Dan Brown and Joe Rulis were both good DPW supervisors.

“Dan and Joe are gone now, and the zoning guy just quit the other day,” he said.

With regard to the harassment, borough secretary Judith Poltanis is the problem, he said. Brown “had to sit with her all day,” he said. He’s gone now.

Poltanis did not return messages requesting comment.

After Rulis quit, Poltanis “came at me,” Daniels Sr. said, pointing her finger at him and demanding that he do the Apple Grove job. “Gotta do the stage, do the park, always demanding,” he said.

Daniels Jr. said Poltanis told them sometime in March to check on the poolhouse pump. He went as instructed with a few other guys and found the door unlocked and the cord running out the window. The last time he was at the poolhouse was also with the others, to unload benches, he said.

Daniels Sr. said he believed some of the former workers would go back if they got a raise, but he will not go back. He talked about selling his apartment and moving to another town.  He’s had enough, he said.

The interim borough president, Kevin Kundratic, replaced another interim that lasted fewer than two weeks. Kundratic did not comment on the alleged harassment of the DPW workers but did confirm that the workers sought union representation through the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM/IAMAW). “Following the filing of their Petition for Representation, the borough worked with IAMAW legal counsel to define the scope of the union’s representation and that was jointly agreed to in 2023,” he wrote in an email to the River Reporter. “In addition, there was a subsequent election, supervised by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, resulting in the certification of a union covering the positions agreed to by the IAMAW’s legal counsel and the borough.

Mayor Williams said the borough council met with the employees to “work through their issues” before they resigned, which he said is their right. “The borough accepted their resignations and will endeavor, in the future, to find individuals who wish to work for the borough,” he said.