Opinion & Analysis · Honesdale, PA
It doesn’t matter what the question is. It doesn’t matter if your kids were in school during a reported shooting and nobody sent you a text. It doesn’t matter if roads were closed and county buildings were locked down and the only information you could find came from a neighbor’s Facebook post. You ask, and the same people show up to explain — patiently, condescendingly, on cue — that you’re overreacting, that you don’t understand how these things work, and that the real problem isn’t the mayor who said nothing. It’s you, for expecting him to.
That’s what happened last weekend. Again.
“It’s been a busy morning in Honesdale,” Mayor Derek Williams wrote on his “Mayor Derek of Honesdale” Facebook page on June 12, 2026 at 12:10 PM, well after the incident, confirming nothing, explaining nothing. He thanked the troopers, mentioned that roads “remain closed,” plugged a text alert system that multiple residents in his own comment section say was never activated, and signed off: “May you and your families’ weekends be filled with joy and relaxation 💕”
A Hallmark card and a broken text system. That’s what Honesdale got.
And here’s the thing: according to a source familiar with the response, there may not have even been a shooting. The source indicated that an officer may have overreacted after a rock or projectile flew past their head and broke a window. No shots were heard. Nothing was founded. If accurate, the whole thing plays out like the infamous acorn incident — a law enforcement panic over nothing. Pocono Review has not independently verified this account, and the proper officials have provided no information to confirm or rule it out. Which is exactly the problem. If the entire response was triggered by a false alarm, a single text message saying “all clear, no threat” would have ended it. Instead, roads stayed closed, buildings stayed locked, and parents spent the day terrified because nobody in charge could be bothered to say what happened — or didn’t happen.
The comment section filled with furious residents. J. Hughes was in Scranton for work and “had to frantically call to make sure my kids were safe because of unconfirmed reports of an active shooter but no notification from government officials.” She’d been signed up for text alerts since the system launched. She got nothing. “Just like last weeks shooting,” she wrote, “I heard from our local neighborhood fb group before we heard from anyone official!” S. DeVita-Simpson lives within earshot of the incident and found out from her sister on Facebook. S. Grandinetti told the mayor: “tell the known facts of the story early, tell them all, and tell the truth.” V. Canosa confirmed “no text message came till after the County lockdown was lifted.” M. Falco asked the mayor directly: “are you going to let the residents know what actually transpired?” E. Machnicki said what half the town was thinking: “I hate how this town hides things. So worried about tourists hearing anything bad.”
Parents. Taxpayers. Neighbors. People who had every right to know what was happening in their own town while it was happening. They didn’t get that. What they got was a mayor who showed up late, said almost nothing, and asked them to have a nice weekend.
And then the crew showed up.
K. Gola Called It
Somewhere in the middle of that thread, K. Gola posted a comment that deserves to be framed and hung in Borough Hall:
“I love when the mayor makes a post, community members voice opinions of concern on the matter, then his girlfriend and friends come to debate why they’re all wrong and should just leave him alone 😂”
She just watched it happen. Because it always happens.
The Usual Suspects
Right on cue, like someone sent out a group text that actually works, the defenders arrived.
Luke Green told residents to stop worrying: “This was a social media emergency, not an actual one.” While J. Hughes was calling from Scranton trying to confirm her kids were safe, Luke Green’s contribution was to tell everyone nothing happened. When E. Marcrander noted that Pike and Monroe county offices found out through Facebook, Green shot back: “why should neighboring county offices have been alerted to something happening in the middle of Wayne County?” Anyone who lives here knows why. Neighboring counties routinely support each other during emergencies. But Green isn’t confused about that. He’s doing what he came to do: make the people asking reasonable questions feel stupid for asking them.
Here’s what K. Gola may not have known when she posted her comment: Luke Green was photographed at a People’s Playground Project planning session at Greenhouse Coffee on Main Street, seated at the same table as Lisa Glover, the mayor’s domestic partner, and Candy Maylone, the PPP affiliate who spent weeks harassing journalists and threatening a sitting councilmember she believed was behind this outlet’s reporting. He’s not a concerned citizen. He’s in the network.
Julie Rose Romano dismissed a frightened parent’s crisis communication reference as irrelevant: “This is a guideline on timing for addressing a business crisis, not a police matter. They’re not really comparable.” This is the same Julie Rose Romano who told Pocono Review journalists their reporting would “ruin your life and your family,” who has openly admitted she knows Williams and Glover personally, and who alongside Candy Maylone turned every Honesdale comment section into such a hostile environment that ten thousand people read and almost nobody would speak. She wasn’t there to talk to J. Hughes. She was there to make J. Hughes wish she hadn’t said anything.
Adam Christian Reinhardt told residents not to “take it out on Derek.” First name. Personal. Like he’s defending a buddy at a barbecue and not a public official who failed to activate his own alert system. Joel DeYoung asked “Do you want the mayor to call you when something like this happens?” Apparently unaware that yes, that is literally what a text alert system is supposed to do.
Translation from all four: stop asking questions. Calm down. Trust Derek.
The Pattern
This isn’t new. They did it when Pocono Review asked about unregistered fundraising. They did it when we documented $171,500 in grants flowing to the mayor’s girlfriend’s organization from the foundation that pays his salary. They did it when we published the donor wall showing network insiders funding themselves past the threshold to unlock their own matching grant. And they did it when parents asked why nobody told them their kids might be in danger.
There is no line for these people. Junk science soil reports? They’ll defend it. Unregistered fundraising? They’ll defend it. A shooting response that left parents calling from other cities to check if their kids were alive? They’ll defend that too.
K. Gola saw it in one Facebook thread. Pocono Review has documented it for months with records, photographs, and federal tax filings. She just had her eyes. That was enough.
One more thing. Every time Pocono Review has documented a conflict of interest in Wayne County (the mayor’s employer funding his own borough, his girlfriend holding officer positions at organizations collecting those grants, the same names on every board and every donor wall) the excuse is always the same. It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone. That’s just how it works here.
But when a shooting is reported and parents can’t find out if their kids are safe? When the text alert system sits idle and the mayor’s Facebook page is the only source of information well after roads close and buildings lock down? Suddenly little Honesdale is too big, too complicated, too hard to reach. Suddenly you can’t expect one person to notify a whole community. Suddenly it’s unreasonable to think the mayor should have picked up the phone.
Small enough for every conflict of interest to be forgiven. Too big to send a text when someone’s shooting.
Pocono Review covers Wayne, Monroe, Pike, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties. Tips, documents, and on-the-record accounts: tips@poconoreview.com. We never name our sources.
Pocono Review is committed to accuracy. If you believe any fact in this report is incorrect, email corrections@poconoreview.com with the specific claim and your supporting documentation. Verified corrections will be published promptly.