Delco re:View Winter 2020 - 5

www.DelcoBar.org

I Do Solemnly Swear!
D

elaware County Council consists of a five-member
body elected to staggered four-year terms of office. The
powers and duties of Council are many and varied due to
the Home Rule Charter. Delaware County has the distinction of
being the first County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to
become a Home Rule County thanks to a successful county wide
referendum in 1975.

It was standing room only on Friday morning, January 3,
2020, in the John V. Diggins Ceremonial Courtroom, where
four new faces joined the Delaware County Court of Common
Pleas at the swearing-in ceremony ... Nusrat Rashid, Chester
Township; Kelly Eckel, Upper Providence; Stephanie Klein,
Wallingford; and Rick Lowe, Middletown.
The Honorable Linda Cartisano of Chester, also in
attendance, was overwhelmingly retained for a second 10-year
term by voters in November. To her new colleagues, Judge
Cartisano urged that they seek any help or guidance from their
fellow judges that they feel they might need, adding it is one of
the most collegiate benches in Pennsylvania.

Joining incumbents Brian Zidek, Chair, and Kevin
Madden, Democratic Delaware County Council members
sworn into office on January 6, 2020, included: Christine
A. Reuther, a tax attorney and former Nether Providence
commissioner; Elaine Paul Schaefer, an environmental activist
and former Radnor Township commissioner; and Dr. Monica
Taylor, a kinesiology professor and program director at the
University of the Sciences and a member of the Upper Darby
School Board.
Jack Stollsteimer was
sworn in on January 6,
2020, as Delaware County
District Attorney and
immediately implemented
reforms designed to
make Delaware County
residents and communities
safer by creating new
proactive investigative and
prosecution units focused
on combating gun violence,
protecting communities from
environmental hazards, and protecting the rights of workers from
unscrupulous employers.
"As I promised during my campaign, my priority is to use the
resources of the DA's office, working collaboratively with our
partners in law enforcement, to protect residents while ensuring
fair and equal justice for all in the diverse community that we
call Delco," said Stollsteimer.

Each of the judges sworn in attributed their success primarily
to their families and vowed to uphold the ideals of truth and
justice incumbent upon their roles, as is tradition.
President Judge Kevin F. Kelly closed the ceremony by
welcoming the new and retained judges to the bench, urging
them to discharge their responsibilities by deciding each case
with integrity while upholding the cherished constitutionally
protected rights afforded the citizenry.
"With the unqualified spirit of cordial collegiality which has
been its decades-long hallmark," he said, "this bench warmly
welcomes its newest colleagues and friends, and extends to
Judges Rashid, Lowe, Klein and Eckel - as well as their families
and other loved ones - its heartfelt congratulations and sincere
best wishes for long and reported careers on this, the beginning
of their respective journeys as Delaware County Court of
Common Pleas judges." *

Winter 2020

|5
http://www.DelcoBar.org
Delco re:View Winter 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Delco re:View Winter 2020
