Chester Officials’ Remarks at CWA Board Meetings

Sept 2, 2026 Board Meeting

Ratepayers push back!
Thank you to the dozens of ratepayers who sent in comments to the board. And thank you for Peter Mrozinski for coming and speaking up for ratepayers. He could not have put it more perfectly than he did. Ratepayers appreciate what the CWA Board has done to keep our water affordable, and we don’t appreciate the Receiver’s attempts to monetize the Authority.

August 20, 2026 Board Meeting

Former Mayor exposes the Receiver’s lies!
First, the Receiver showed up again. He emphatically insisted that he never tried to privatize CWA. Former Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland, who was also in the audience, corrected the record, noting he was in meetings where privatization was discussed and directly challenged the Receiver’s claim.

At the same meeting, current Chester Mayor Stefan Roots attacked the qualifications of CWA board members and threatened their reappointments next year. He is trying to smear the board for doing their jobs and protecting ratepayers.

CWA Board president Noël Brandon and Board member Nicole Whitaker pushed back hard! Their message was simple: CWA Board members know what their job is—protecting CWA and its ratepayers. And they know ratepayers do not want this public asset monetized/privatized.

June 18, 2026 Board Meeting

During the June 18 meeting, Receiver Vijay Kapoor indicated that he was filing a Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) request to CWA while simultaneously criticizing CWA for filing numerous RTKL requests. In reality, CWA has repeatedly been forced to use Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law to obtain records that should have been produced under the law. In many instances, CWA has prevailed on appeal to higher courts and secured access to records only after lengthy legal proceedings.
 
CWA has also sought information regarding the Receiver’s actions because, despite exercising broad authority over the City of Chester’s finances, the Receiver has not publicly provided a comprehensive fiduciary accounting of his actions since 2022. As a result, Right-to-Know requests have become one of the few available tools for obtaining information relevant to the future of both the City of Chester, CWA and its ratepayers.
The Commonwealth Court found that the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) did not act in good faith in responding to certain Right-to-Know requests filed by CWA attorneys. Those rulings reinforce why continued transparency efforts remain necessary. If public agencies comply with Pennsylvania’s RTKL and produce records as required, there is no need for prolonged litigation.

Rather than criticizing CWA for seeking public records, the focus should be on ensuring that public officials and agencies fully comply with Pennsylvania’s transparency laws so ratepayers and residents have access to information that affects the future of their water system and their community

March 31, 2026 Board Meeting

Just two weeks before this CWA Board Meeting, Chester Receiver Vijay Kapoor filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court challenging the constitutionality of the law that created CWA’s current board structure. The law provides for a nine-member board representing CWA’s ratepayers: three members appointed by Chester City Council, three by Delaware County Council, and three by the Chester County Commissioners. It should be noted that approximately 20% of CWA’s ratepayers are from Chester City, with the remaining 80% residing in greater Delaware County and Chester County. The CWA board is a fair representation of all ratepayers.

During public comment, Chester City Councilman Fred Green revealed that he first learned about the Receiver’s lawsuit by reading about it in the newspaper. He stated that he is often neither briefed on nor consulted about significant legal actions taken by the Receiver on behalf of the City, learning about them only after they have already been filed.

Meanwhile, the CWA Board was mourning the loss of longtime board member and Chester community leader John Shelton Sr., whose decades of service left an enduring legacy. Following Mr. Shelton’s passing, Chester City Council appointed City Manager Tom Moore to fill the vacant seat.

During his public comments, Moore openly discussed the potential “monetization” of CWA for the benefit of the City of Chester and the need to negotiate a settlement regarding the utility’s future. For many ratepayers both inside and outside the City, those remarks raised serious concerns about whether a newly appointed CWA board member could impartially fulfill his fiduciary duty to the utility and its customers while publicly advocating for monetization. Being a CWA board member means putting the interests of CWA and its ratepayers first. Every decision should be based on what’s best for the water system and the people who rely on it not what’s best for the City’s government or any other organization.

Although CWA objected to the appointment, Mr. Moore ultimately took his position on the Board. CWA has since filed litigation challenging his eligibility to serve.

Meanwhile, here is how long the Chester Receiver has failed to solve the City’s financial crisis…

Number of Days Chester has been in Receivership:

Number of Days Chester has been in Bankruptcy:

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from the Pennsylvania Constitution,
Article I, Section 27:
"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."