Pike County Commissioners Matthew Osterberg (R), Christa Caceres (D), and Ronald Schmalzle (R). Photo: WVIA.
MILFORD, PIKE COUNTY — Five days after Pike County commissioners passed a secret resolution restricting protest zones near the county jail and courthouse, they converted it into a permanent ordinance. Commissioner Christa Caceres abstained both times. At the second meeting she cited the county code standard for emergency sessions on the record — “clear and present danger to life or property” — and said she never received information meeting that threshold.
This is the second in a series. Read the first report: Pike County Passed a Protest Zone Resolution. They Didn’t Tell Anyone.
Commissioner Matthew Osterberg’s explanation: the Warden was concerned.
Commissioner Ronald Schmalzle’s confirmation, when pressed by reporter Dakota Hendricks on whether anything came of it: “He received notice from the Federal government of a nationwide type of protest at all facilities throughout the United States and, fortunately, we didn’t see anything.”
They passed an emergency resolution — and then a permanent ordinance — on the basis of a federal bulletin about a nationwide protest that never happened.
From resolution to ordinance
Resolution 26-10, passed April 10, 2026 in a Friday afternoon special meeting with no public notice, restricted where citizens may protest near the county jail and courthouse. Five days later, at the April 15 regular meeting, Osterberg and Schmalzle moved to adopt the identical language as Ordinance No. 36-2026 — permanent county law, not subject to automatic expiration, with no stated penalties and no defined enforcement authority.
Caceres abstained from the resolution without public explanation. At the April 15 meeting she put her reason on the record.
The April 15 vote gave the ordinance the veneer of public process — it appeared on an agenda, it was voted on at a regular meeting, Caceres stated her objection for the record. But the substance had already been decided in a room with no public, no press, and no notice. The April 15 vote didn’t create an opportunity for challenge. It closed one.
The emergency that wasn’t
Caceres’ full statement:
“According to the County Code, emergency meetings are called to address a ‘clear and present danger to life or property.’ I did not receive any information that led me to believe that anything that was going on between then and now warranted an emergency meeting, but my colleagues did and I respect their opinion to do that. That is the only reason why I am abstaining — I would have approved of it otherwise.”
Osterberg’s response:
“The urgency to do this came from our Warden and I think we need to adhere to and believe what our Warden is telling us; he was very concerned.”
Hendricks then asked whether anything actually materialized from the Warden’s concern. Schmalzle answered that the Warden received federal notice of a nationwide protest at detention facilities. “Fortunately, we didn’t see anything.”
Caceres said had the ordinance been on a regular agenda, she would have voted yes. Her objection was procedural, not substantive. But her own words established that the legal standard for the emergency meeting was not met — and Schmalzle’s admission that nothing materialized confirmed it. The county used an emergency mechanism, without meeting its own legal threshold by a sitting commissioner’s account, to pass a protest restriction and lock it into permanent law before the public knew it existed.
What it means legally
At the May 6, 2026 regular meeting — three weeks after the ordinance passed — resident Belle Smith stood at the podium and called the ICE contract “blood money,” accused the county of addiction to “the suffering of others,” and said forty percent of Pike County’s budget depends on detaining immigrants. The ordinance restricting where that opposition could physically stand was already permanent law. Nobody at the dais mentioned it.
A resolution can be rescinded. An ordinance requires formal action to undo. By converting Resolution 26-10 into Ordinance No. 36-2026 at the very next public meeting, Osterberg and Schmalzle made the protest zones significantly harder to challenge administratively and ensured they survive any future change in the board’s composition.
The First Amendment question the ordinance raises — whether confining protesters to a designated cordon away from the facility they’re protesting satisfies the constitutional requirement for alternative channels of communication — was never publicly debated before the ordinance passed. It still hasn’t been.
No legal challenge has been filed as of publication.
Pocono Review covers Pike, Monroe, Wayne, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties.
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