(AUDIO) Police Called on School Board Candidate at Baldwin-Whitehall Meeting

By Akasha Brandt and Robert Edward Healy, III

It's called public-comments time for a reason. Just ask Thomas Barchfeld, a former Baldwin-Whitehall School Board candidate who lost his bid for a board seat during this past May's primary election.

Taking the microphone near the end of Wednesday night's board meeting, Barchfeld changed topics quickly and dramatically from promoting his book club event to shouting at school board members.

The situation became especially heated when Barchfeld, a Whitehall Borough resident who gained some notoriety in early 2012 when he tried to have Barack Obama removed from Pennsylvania's ballot for President of the United States, goaded school board member Martin Michael Schmotzer about negative comments that Barchfeld alleges that Schmotzer made during a previous board meeting. (Listen to part of the exchange between Barchfeld and school officials in the audio clip above.)

Angered over these previous "inappropriate" comments that Schmotzer "yelled" at him, Barchfeld refused to give up the microphone after being asked to do so by school board President Nancy Sciulli DiNardo.

It wasn't until Sciulli DiNardo threatened to call local police to the scene that Barchfeld resigned to his seat, slapping his clipboard full of notes down on the chair beside him. Mostly quiet throughout the confrontation, Schmotzer rocked in his chair with his lips pursed.

After being reproached for then calling out from the audience, Barchfeld fell quiet, occasionally jumping up to pace around the boardroom. That was until the end of the meeting when he stood up and continued to confront Schmotzer, prompting Schmotzer to tell Barchfeld to "piss off" before walking away.

Barchfeld exited the meeting room (part of the Baldwin-Whitehall School District Office along Curry Road in Whitehall) before police arrived there shortly after 10 p.m.