Mr. Glanton is black and Lincoln University, a traditionally black institution, appoints four of the foundation's five trustees; all the neighbors and most of the township commissioners are white.

His son Andrew "Andy" Lewis IV served as a township commissioner in Haverford Township, Pennsylvania between 2004-2007 and was elected in 2007 to the Delaware County Council.

But in recent months the township commissioners have passed a resolution opposing the move, and signs have sprouted on neighborhood lawns declaring, "The Barnes belongs in Merion."

When he was a senior in high school in 1975, the Democrats were desperate for candidates to run in a primary for township commissioner in his lopsidedly Republican hometown, Upper Darby, a working-class suburb of Philadelphia.

The prosecutor's designate, Capt. James Tobin of the Prosecutor's office, will remain in charge until the township commissioners decide who has the authority to name a permanent replacement, said Chuck Davis, a spokesman for the Attorney General.

In 1975, at the age of eighteen, Tierney unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for township commissioner of Springfield.

During this period, Corbett won his first election as a township commissioner in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shaler Township.

He served as township commissioner of Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, from 1941 to 1944.

In order to gain further powers or adjust their boundaries the township commissioners had to apply for a further act of parliament.

On April 12, 1827, Cass signed an act that abolished the office of township commissioner, and also established in Wayne County the townships of Brownstown, Bucklin, Detroit, Ecorse, Hamtramck, Huron, Mongaugon, Plymouth and Springwells.