“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” Maya Angelou once remarked. She is telling us that people show their true colors through their actions, not their promises. Buckingham Township Supervisor Jon Forest has shown us who he is time and again, now he was legally required to apologize for it.
Last month, Forest issued a public apology to Froehlich’s Farm, a longtime local family farming business. As part of a legal settlement, he agreed to pay Froehlich’s Farm $65,000 and to publicly admit that he’d “erroneously accused Froehlich’s Farm of engaging in corruption and quid pro quo behavior.” He also admitted he’d falsely claimed I attended an August 31, 2023, hearing to support Froehlich’s Farm. He claimed that I offered to defend them in exchange for their electoral support. I knew that never happened, Froelich’s knew that never happened and now we know Jon Forest made up this story to discredit his political opponent.
That flyer went out on October 30, 2023, a week before election day. I lost that race by 376 votes, just over 3% of the vote.
I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but it fits a pattern we have seen play out in Buckingham for years: made-up, scandalous, last-minute claims distributed by local republican leadership and candidates right before Election Day.
Back in 2011, the weekend before election day, a flyer labeled “Occupy Buckingham” was distributed in some Buckingham neighborhoods suggesting Jon Forest’s opponent Kathy Sugarman, and then board supervisor and Democrat Henry Rowan, were engaging in collusion, a play on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Sugarman and others called these tactics underhanded and dirty, saying Forest “won the election, but it wasn’t done honorably”. Forest then suggested Henry Rowen ought to resign if he wasn’t able to work across the aisle, issuing a social media statement soon after stating, “When a campaign is run with lies and deception, that candidate will govern in lies and deception.”
In 2019, again the weekend before election day, claims circulated via text message and mailbox flyer that supervisor candidate Shannon Sticker and local Democrats supported expanding the Doylestown Airport, located in Buckingham Township. Yet another false claim. Sticker lost that race by 367 votes.
Then in 2023, while I was part of a nonpartisan group of residents trying to get answers about a proposed warehouse project, Forest told people I was spreading a lie about an Amazon warehouse coming to Buckingham. In my questioning about the proposed warehouse, I had used a social media graphic with Amazon on it as an example. Within 45 minutes of posting, I realized the graphic was creating a false narrative. I immediately edited the graphic, apologized for the confusion, and clarified the post. I owned my error, but that meant nothing to Forest. He spent the remainder of the campaign calling me a liar, while never addressing the real concern that residents had regarding a warehouse, Amazon or otherwise, coming to Buckingham.
Finally, in October 2025, to garner last-minute support for my opponent, Jon wrote an op-ed that ran in the right-wing media outlet The Bucks Independence, followed by a text blast to thousands of Buckingham residents, with a ridiculous false claim that I wanted to raise taxes by 30%. This time, it didn’t work, I won that election by 709 votes.
We deserve leaders who can disagree without dishonesty, compete without tearing down their neighbors, and accept responsibility when they get it wrong.
In isolation, any one of these “election lies” might be written off as poor judgement by an inexperienced local campaign or candidate. Put them together, and you start to see a pattern: false claims designed to scare voters, showing up right when they’ll do the most damage, with zero concern for the truth or the impact on residents and neighbors.
We all know the apology to Froehlich’s Farm wasn’t the result of a sudden conversion, delayed self-reflection, or appreciation for the truth. This took nearly three years and legal action from a local business. Most notably, Forest hasn’t apologized to Buckingham residents or to me. In fact, when a resident asked him directly at the August 26, 2026, Board of Supervisors meeting whether he would apologize to me, Jon Forest sat in silence.
Accountability shouldn’t require a lawsuit, and Buckingham residents deserve leaders who value ideas, honesty, and collaboration. Not all people in positions of authority are willing to take out local businesses and residents to win an election. I believe Jon Forest has betrayed our community and needs to resign. I don’t think Jon will resign but over the next 5 years I will continue to work with my colleagues on the board, and most importantly, the residents of Buckingham.
Jon Forest has shown us who he is through his own words and actions. This is no longer about one campaign, one flyer, or one false accusation. It is about a pattern that has damaged trust in our local government and, in this case, required legal action before the truth was finally acknowledged. Buckingham deserves better than politics built on manufactured controversies and last-minute misinformation. We deserve leaders who can disagree without dishonesty, compete without tearing down their neighbors, and accept responsibility when they get it wrong. For years, Jon has asked this community to judge others by that standard. It is only fair that we now judge him by it as well.
