Honesdale Mayor Derek Frey Williams attended three task force meetings where a $22 million apartment project was discussed. Then he asked county commissioners to fund a study supporting it — representing WCCF, a private foundation, not the borough. He never told Borough Council. The Pocono Review pulled the minutes.
HONESDALE, WAYNE COUNTY — On November 20, 2025, Honesdale Mayor Derek Frey Williams sat in a Wayne County Court House meeting and listened to Joy Hubshman, housing development director for United Neighborhood Centers, tell the room her organization planned to apply for federal tax credits in February 2026 for a proposed $22 million apartment complex on Commercial Drive.
He said nothing publicly.
Three months later, Williams stood before the Wayne County Commissioners in that same building and asked them to approve a $25,000 housing study. The commissioners’ own minutes identify him not as the mayor of Honesdale, but as a representative of the Wayne County Community Foundation (WCCF). He didn’t mention Timber Mill Commons. He didn’t mention United Neighborhood Centers (UHC). He didn’t mention the February application timeline he’d heard in November.
The commissioners approved the study unanimously. A housing study produces exactly the kind of data developers cite in tax credit applications. Williams knew both things were happening. The public knew neither. Borough Council was never told.
When the Pocono Review sent Williams specific written questions, he did not answer any of them. Instead, he replied with this:
What Williams heard, and when
Williams attended Housing Task Force meetings on March 20, August 21, and November 20, 2025. These aren’t community forums. The task force operates out of the 3rd Floor Commissioners’ Meeting Room at 925 Court Street, shares the Commissioners’ Office phone extension, uses the email WTHousingTaskForce@waynecountypa.gov, and the county’s own website calls it a “county-sponsored, community-based collaboration.”
At the November 20 meeting, UNC’s Hubshman told the group her organization was “working on securing the last bit of funding” for the land and planned to “apply for LIHTC in February 2026, in hopes that securing part of the land will aid in being approved.” Commissioner Jocelyn Cramer was in the room — she attended at least two of the three meetings Williams did. Three months later, Cramer voted to approve the $25,000 study while Williams presented it. Neither mentioned UNC, Timber Mill Commons, or the timeline.
We asked whether Cramer informed her fellow commissioners of the November disclosure before the February vote. Chief Clerk Andrew Seder responded on behalf of the office, offering an interview instead of written answers. No written response came.
One detail about Cramer: her husband, Michael Rollison, is a Senior Vice President and Commercial Loan Officer at Wayne Bank. Wayne Bank is listed as a representative client of Kreder Brooks Hailstone LLP — the Scranton law firm that represents both UNC and UNCDC. We asked whether Wayne Bank has any financing role in Timber Mill Commons. No response.
Derek William’s Two Hats
Williams didn’t go to the commissioners as the mayor. He went as a representative of the Wayne County Community Foundation. Two roles. One room. One project. Neither disclosed.
The Foundation’s board includes Kate Bryant, President and CEO of Honesdale National Bank. Her bank’s board is where the story gets tangled.
Sitting on that HNB board: Roger Dirlam, Vice Chairman, who is selling the six-acre Commercial Drive property to UNCDC. Also on the board: Robert C. Grimm, whose construction firm built UNCDC’s Bucktown Center in Dunmore and was publicly honored for “longstanding support” of the developer at its 2024 groundbreaking. The property seller and a possible builder sit on the board of the bank whose CEO sits on the Foundation that Williams represents.
If Grimm Construction builds Timber Mill Commons on land Dirlam sold, two men from the same bank boardroom profit from opposite ends of the same deal.
The August task force minutes — from a meeting Williams attended — show Justin Taylor, who presides over the meetings as Executive Director of the Wayne Economic Development Corporation, was personally recruiting Kelly Sheard, identified in those minutes as Grimm’s daughter, and Mike Cavage, a current HNB board member, to join the task force overseeing a project connected to their own business and family interests.
We asked Grimm and Dirlam about the bank board overlap. Neither responded.
The people Williams sat beside
Williams wasn’t the only person in that room with undisclosed interests.
Taylor, the man presiding over the meetings, spent approximately 20 years as mayor of Carbondale before coming to Wayne County. In August 2019, he stood at a UNCDC groundbreaking in Carbondale and called it “monumental,” appearing alongside UNC CEO Lisa Durkin. When Taylor took over the Wayne County task force, it “approached” UNC — as the River Reporter framed it. What that framing leaves out: the man running the meetings had already publicly endorsed UNC’s work, stood beside its CEO at a ribbon cutting, and watched the same organization run the same model in his own city. No RFP was issued. No alternative developers were evaluated. No evidence exists that anyone other than UNC was considered.
We asked Taylor whether he disclosed this prior relationship before the task force approached UNC. He did not respond.
Kim Fisch, who also attended meetings alongside Williams, is President Pro Tempore of Honesdale Borough Council, Vice Chair of both the Finance and Economic Development committees, an active real estate agent with Davis R. Chant Realtors, and co-chair of the task force that brought UNC to the table. The March 2025 minutes name her a co-chair two months after her January 13, 2025 appointment to council. The April minutes describe her task force function as “Realtor who can provide information about available properties.”
She co-chairs the task force that approached UNC. She’ll vote on the project when it comes before council for zoning, land development review, or a PILOT agreement. And she sells real estate in the market that forty-two new residential units would affect.
Her co-chair is Sandi Levens, Executive Director of the Greater Honesdale Partnership, whose mission is downtown density and foot traffic — precisely what this project would produce. Neither has disclosed these interests in connection with Timber Mill Commons.
We asked Fisch whether she plans to recuse from Timber Mill Commons votes. No response.
The law firm that connects both sides
Andrew Hailstone is listed on UNC’s board of directors as affiliated with Kreder Brooks Hailstone LLP in Scranton — the same firm whose website names both United Neighborhood Centers and UNCDC as representative clients. Hailstone was honored in 2019 for fifty years of service on UNC’s board. The board seat is unpaid. The firm’s legal representation of UNC is not.
KBH attorneys James Hailstone and David K. Brown appeared on the development team at UNCDC’s 2024 Bucktown Center groundbreaking — the same model of LIHTC project now proposed for Honesdale. Whether KBH is handling Timber Mill Commons specifically has not been confirmed.
Andrew’s daughter, Sara Hailstone, runs Hailstone Economic, a Scranton consulting firm that advertises preparing LIHTC tax credit applications and structuring affordable housing deals — the exact services UNC needs right now. Wayne County hired her firm in 2020 to administer its PA CARES COVID relief grants. Honesdale Borough hired her firm to write the DCNR grant for the Apple Grove Dog Park. If Hailstone Economic is involved in the Timber Mill Commons application — and her firm advertises the exact services UNC needs — the same family would hold paid relationships with the developer’s law firm, the county, and the borough simultaneously.
We asked Sara Hailstone and KBH whether Hailstone Economic is involved in the Timber Mill Commons application. Neither responded.
About that $400,000
Rep. Jonathan Fritz (R-111) secured $400,000 in state acquisition funding that appears connected to UNC’s purchase of the Timber Mill Commons site — with no press release, no named program, and no application on file. Fritz’s office documents everything else. A $500,000 DCED stormwater grant for Honesdale came with a full press release naming the program, the agency, and four quoted officials.
At the November 20 meeting Williams attended, Hubshman said UNC was “working on securing the last bit of funding” for the land. Whether Fritz’s $400,000 was that money, and when it was approved, has not been disclosed.
We asked Fritz what program funded the allocation. No answer.
What none of them told the public
The task force records from February through November 2025 contain no mention of the Wayne Highlands School District, no services impact analysis, no PILOT discussion, no evaluation of homeownership alternatives, and no record of any developer other than UNC being considered. No elected body — not the commissioners, not Borough Council, not the Planning Commission — has taken a formal vote. The school district, which would absorb new students and potentially lose tax revenue under a PILOT agreement, has not been consulted.
Williams attended three of these meetings. He co-presented the study request. He wore two hats in the same room. And through all of it, the people of Honesdale were told nothing.
How we reported this
On April 29, the Pocono Review emailed sourced questions grounded in public records to 17 individuals and organizations connected to Timber Mill Commons, with a May 6 deadline. Chief Clerk Andrew Seder offered an interview on behalf of the commissioners.
PNC Bank responded to say it is not involved.
Every claim in this article is sourced to public documents: Housing Task Force minutes at waynetomorrow.com, commissioner meeting minutes at waynecountypa.gov, UNC IRS Form 990 filings at ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, KBH’s client list at kbh-law.com, HNB’s shareholder page at hnbbank.bank, and the WEDCO team page at wayneeconomic.com.
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