Municipal governments often have the largest say — out of any level of government — regarding your day-to-day life. It is because of that influence held by local officials that makes local politics so imperative in all of our lives. A way to participate in local politics is to talk to your officials and those that represent you and your surrounding community. So, with there being local primaries on the horizon in West Chester Borough, The Quad took the opportunity to talk with the current Interim Mayor and Mayoral Candidate Jordan Norley.
The following is an edited transcript of the questions asked by either Evan Brooks or Cheyanne Fleming, followed by Jordan Norley’s answers. The questions are bolded, and are followed by the unbolded answers received. The interview took place on Thursday, April 8 around 5:00 p.m. via Skype.
Q1 – What made you pursue a life in politics?
Public service has always been a calling. I grew up in a single-parent household with my brother and my dad. We were financially insecure. Growing up, I didn’t want that for me and my family, or anyone else. My father was active in the community. Before office, I was a member of my neighborhood patrol. I wanted to make my dad proud. I get a lot of fulfillment out of helping my community. Some people think that the mayor’s office is a full-time political position; I don’t identify that way. You make 4,000 dollars a year as mayor. I have a small financial office as a firm, but I’ve achieved a lot of things that I’ve wanted to achieve in my personal life, and it’s always time to give back. It’s been an essential drive of mine.
Q2 – Career prior to entering politics?
I got into the financial field of being a business consultant.
Q3 – Educational background?
I went to Penn State for my undergrad. My degree was management science and information systems. I didn’t really have too much direction in college; I started off with the Vision of Undergraduate Studies, which is a Penn State term for “undecided.” The way I ended up picking my major was wondering which job made the most money in college. This ties back to before, of growing up financially insecure. It was great, with my degree, because it’s an elliptical side of business and things. But ultimately, I found that I was mostly a people person. I like to get out there and help. That’s why I switched over from that major and finished my undergrad, but switched out of college into the financial side of things.
Q4 – What made you want to pursue your campaign of becoming the interim mayor and fulfill the rest of Diane Herrin’s term?
In terms of history, I was elected to be on borough council in 2011. Then I started my term in 2012. I was the chair of Public Safety and Quality of Life for a couple years. Next, I was the president of borough council from 2014 through 2016. And I was the vice president of the chair of finance and revenue, until I resigned from council to be appointed interim mayor in 2017, which entailed a competitive process. I have a long history of service and experience in my community that relates directly to the finances of the borough, as well as the police department, and public safety and quality of life. That’s why I initially decided to pursue the interim position after Carolyn Comitta won the house race and designed in 2017. I was lucky enough to be appointed at that time.
When the former mayor Diane Herrin won that state representative seat that was formerly Carolyn Comitta’s seat, Diane Herrin resigned and the position for mayor became open again. After six or seven years on council and as mayor, and after having children, I was ready for a break. It was time for me to unwind and feel out the last couple of years, and I did that. It was interesting because it started creeping back in — that desire to be of service again, that desire to serve my community again. With the experience that I have, the relationships that I have, and the ability to get things done, as well as the unfinished business such as restoring rail service to WC, I thought it was an opportunity to be mayor again for a year, and get back in the roll. To take care of the police department and pursue some projects I’d like to continue to move forward.
Q5 – Compared to your political aspirations when you were on the borough council, what are your political aspirations/goals while mayor in office? As in, how have they evolved and what are they currently?
From my days in borough council, I haven’t had any political ambitions except to be as effective as I can at my job and be beneficial to my community. By being on borough council, I achieved that. I didn’t know I had political aspirations to be mayor until I realized I would be a good fit and decided to pursue it in 2017. Borough council is very much the legislative branch of local borough government, and the mayor is very much the executive branch of borough government. They’re both excellent opportunities to help your community very differently, I’d say. With borough council, you need four votes in order to make anything happen — four out of seven because there are seven council members. Majority rules. It’s really nitty gritty with the policies and the rules, those sorts of things.
While in the mayor’s role, it’s the civilian head of the police department who has administrative duties. You’re directly working with the chief of police, of all the officers, and helping to provide leadership in that role. Secondarily, you are the head of the government from a ceremonial standpoint. You get to do all the fun stuff. You get to do the proclamations. Someone does something great, you get to do a citation. You get to celebrate our citizens. You get to go in the parades. You really celebrate everything that we are as a community. Once I’ve been in both roles as both borough council and mayor, I’d say I prefer the role of mayor, and I do really enjoy the opportunity to engage with our citizens on a level of listening and help[ing] problem-solve. As well as work[ing] with our police and our police department, which is obviously a big role.
Q6 – How do you plan on impacting West Chester’s police force?
One of the main issues, or underlying issues, is a lack of diversity. A lack of diversity in police departments leads to, potentially, not the sort of relationship that a police force should necessarily have with its citizens. I think having a police force that is racially representative of its population is paramount. And we have that issue here. About a month ago now, we’ve had a meeting so far, I created the WC police department diversity task force, whose mission is to — organically, which will take time — to help to achieve the mission of having, ultimately, a police force that is proportional from a racial and gender standpoint to the WC population. That is near and dear to my heart, and [I’m] working towards that end right now.
Another big job right now is planning. Every five years, a police department is required to have a strategic plan, so we have a five-year strategic plan, which is due this year. Trying to get everybody together, and the Public Safety committee, [to] work through exactly what we’re trying to accomplish, besides the normal policing aspect, over the next five years. This is the important accreditation for the next few years. We plan for our police [department] to be accredited by the end of the year. This means about a hundred and thirty practices of policies, infrastructure, training and such are to be aligned with those accreditation opportunities. Accreditation by the end of the year is the top priority.
Community policing is extremely important and we’ve done an excellent job with that over the years. We’ve been on a progressive forefront of the year. Such as: no chokehold, no high-speed car chases — different things like that — that are long-standing policies. Borough council has been talking about creating a standing pension committee, as authorized by borough council, which appoints various members to the committee, whose goal would be to oversee the pensions. We have two pensions. We have the uniformed, which is police, and non-uniformed, which is public works. So, yes, the pension liability is a public work. There’s a huge cost associated, so there needs to be careful planning. The pensions or investments are near and dear to my heart. In the third or fourth quarter, you can expect a pension advisory committee being formed to further dig into any opportunities that may be available to do better on that side of things.
Q7 – The university population of students is ever-growing, with not enough university housing — how will the borough work with the university and the student population to tackle the housing situation?
We’ve worked with the university for a few years, along with West Goshen, for an overlaid district to look at some of the student housing. We, as the borough, do not have a lot of room left for dorms, or that sort of thing. We work with the leadership of West Chester University, to address things all town and gown. We are working to put in a dorm/housing off of Matlack and Rosedale Avenue. The border between West Chester: from a municipality standpoint, anything north is WC; anything south is West Goshen. They’re working on major student home projects there to help fulfill those needs off-campus.
Q8 – The university is a strong economic driver within the area. How do you want relations to progress between the borough and the university and the students?
The more we work together as a community with WCU, it benefits us all the way around. I think some students with landlords get the deal a bit — there can be some additional efforts, such as a “renters’ bill of rights” with landlords. Working with leadership within the borough’s official groups.
There are many opportunities to work with the university. The university has tremendous resources. They have the Center for Community Solutions. Whether it’s working on traffic-related things, or mutually beneficial projects or rail service; whether it’s public safety or quality of life, communication is obviously huge. I think we’ve gotten a lot better at communication over the last several years. With an open mind and collaboration.
The campus community coalition is something I was a part of for years, and that now is under Mayor Comitta. Mayor Herrin discontinued that, but I think there’s opportunities to reopen that sort of group. Everyone here is a neighbor. We all belong to the community, together. Our relationships should be good. There are bad actors every once in a while in a community, but we should be focusing on the positive aspects of our relationship. The number of volunteer and community service hours WCU provides is incredible, and the engagement that we have could use some improvement, but has been better. The more students feel a part of the community, the more they’ll engage with local politics and voting. If students were, in mass, to engage with local politics, they could run this town. Literally, with the amount of students that we have. It’s unfortunate that it’s a little challenging to get that engagement. But personally, I am open to everything and anything we can do to help push that.
Q9 – Can you elaborate on the Rail Service project between Philadelphia and West Chester Borough?
We used to have a rail service from Philadelphia to West Chester through Media, called the R3 Line. For financial reasons, in 1987, the line was abandoned. As soon as I became president of council in 2014, my first order of business was to create the restoration of the railroad committee, whose role and mission was to bring back rail service to WC as soon as possible. It’s a mighty fine group who’s done important things over the years. Some say it’s impossible, but I think anything is possible as long as you put your mind towards it. And that’s what’s been happening with the project since 2014.
For a study project in 2018, we paid the state for a feasibility analysis, a $400,000 expense. The feasibility study came back in 2018, and the line and restoration service is feasible. Which concludes two major issues. Is it feasible, and what are the costs associated with it? That was hugely important. Another subsequent and small study was that the cost per passenger was aligned with the region as well.
Moving step by step, most recently we put in an application to Congresswoman Houlahan’s office. The earmark process has come back federally, which allows congressmen and women to make their pet projects added to bills. She put out the requests for projects all over her constituent area. Then we applied, recently, for that grant — an appropriation to pay for the project. It is a project that has many implications.
I went on a walk with Chris Fiorentino about a week ago, or two weeks ago now, and he was happy to provide a letter of support from the university for the project, as well as a bunch of different shareholders, or stakeholders. We put in the project, and it’s all around. We’re focused on pushing the project forward so when the funding becomes ready, we’ll be ready.
I don’t know if you’ve seen or heard of Biden’s infrastructure plan and the $2 trillion range, but he emphasized the importance of rail service. I think that’s a $200 billion care package allocated towards rail service. Our service is cost effective; there is a huge equity argument. Students, or those with lower socioeconomic means, should be able to move anywhere in the greater region without having to own a vehicle in an efficient manner. From an equity standpoint, obviously from an environmentally friendly standpoint, immediate jobs and the economic impact will be immense. There are all sorts of studies that show the increase in property value, SEPTA with rail service is a huge economic driver, wherever that rail service goes. We’re in a stage right now where we’re trying to solve for the money. Where that money seems to be forthcoming.
Final Notes:
Overall, if there was a statement that Jordan Norley said during the interview that stood out the most, it would be his comment on student involvement in elections. Norley said that “If students were, in mass, to engage with local politics, they could run this town [West Chester]. Literally, with the amount of students that we have.” In terms of visited organizations at WCU, Norley has spoken to the Student Government Association. If you are interested in aiding in a local election, feel free to reach out to Norley via the information below:
Website: https://www.jordannorley.com/
Cheyanne Fleming is a first-year Political Science major with a minor in Spanish. CF965752@wcupa.edu
Evan Brooks is a third-year Business Management major with minors in Economics and Civic & Professional Leadership. EB916132@wcupa.edu