PureBunkum

Today, Lackawanna County’s former party bosses, now convicted felons,  Robert Cordaro and A.J. Munchak, will learn the length of their prison terms.

We in Luzerne County may learn whether some of our own officials will sue us over budget cuts.  President Judge Thomas Burke, Chief Public Defender Al Flora Jr. and new DA Stephanie Salavantis have threatened to, arguing they can’t live within the financial means the new council imposed on them.

Frankly, we can’t afford to be sued.  Or as Councilman Harry Haas aptly put it, “Frankly, I find it ridiculous we’re suing ourselves.”

Department heads have until 9 a.m. Monday to submit their budget plans.  The county needs to cut over 100 jobs in order to avoid another tax hike.  Finally, our new representatives are looking out for those of us who pay the bills.

So far, Home Rule is shaping up nicely.  We have a dead serious county council which appears to be overseeing the county courthouse like the multi-million dollar business that it is.

So will services be cut if employees are?  It’s hard to tell, although we believe DA Salavantis is sounding a bit like a drama queen in proclaiming that if the county cuts her budget, ”the public is put in danger.  That’s the bottom line here.”  No, Steph, the bottom line here is the county is a half-billion dollars in debt, and some of the detectives in your department pull in more than $100,000 a year in salaries and benefits, thanks to the generosity of previous county commissioners under the old system.

Councilman Rick Williams put it best when he said union contracts are loaded with benefits that are “offensive to taxpayers.”

County prison Warden Joe Piazza plans to rise to the challenge.  His publicized comments depict someone who is frustrated expecting  unionized employees to make some concessions so he can reduce costs, including overtime pay.

“I’ve asked the union over and over and over again, and I keep getting the same old answer – no,”  Piazza told The Times Leader.

As for Al Flora, interim county manager Tom Pribula told the council if  he cannot live with the cuts, find someone who will. Wow.  Will Flora really sue when he has too many other things to worry about, including taking a leave from his post to appeal the conviction and prison sentence of his friend, former county judge, now convicted racketeer, Mark Ciavarella?

And speaking of convicted racketeers, this morning the flamboyant Bob Cordaro and his sidekick A.J. Munchak, two former majority Lackawanna County commissioners, come face to face with sentencing judge,  Richard Caputo.  Cordaro’s lawyers are actually planning to argue that aside from Ciavarella and his co-conspirator, racketeer Mike Conahan, a lengthy prison term would be unjust compared to those handed out to other convicted public officials.

Does this guy, who was convicted of shaking down those wanting to do business in Scranton for tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks, actually believe he should get probation or home confinement?  Maybe 100 hours of community service would be to his liking.

Then there’s A.J., who will beg for mercy based on the 180 pints of blood he donated and the ”236 years in service” he gave during his 65 years on earth to his community and his church.

Yes, today promises to be one interesting day spanning two county courthouses.

- Betty Roccograndi

Some council members “expressed disappointment” that unionized employees won’t cooperate in helping out their cash-strapped employer?

Actually, cash-strapped is an understatement considering Luzerne County is a half-billion dollars in debt, and those who pay the bills, taxpayers, are already stretched to the limit. 

A union representative, in an apparent plea for sympathy, told the council Monday night to come to the courthouse the day they lay off workers to “watch them cry,” The Times Leader reported.

How about watching taxpayers cry if they’re hit with one more tax hike to pay for your outrageous benefits and pensions while they struggle to pay for their own families’  health care costs?

We’re quite sure that the 69 employees at Offset Paperback who recently lost their jobs cried too.  And we’re quite sure that their privately-owned employer took no pleasure in  having to let them go but had no choice.

Wake up, unions.  We’re in a recession, and you’re lucky to have jobs, especially ones where you don’t even work an average 40-hour week and get more sick time, vacation, personal days and holidays off with pay  than just about anyone in the private sector.

And you refuse to budge?

What will Robert Lawton do when he takes over as county manager next month?  Will he make it clear that he’s the boss or bow to the unions as did previous county commissioners who were beholden to them? 

As for interim manager Tom Pribula, the poor guy appears to be at his wit’s end.

First, outgoing county commissioners Maryanne Petrilla, Steve Urban and Tom Cooney handed their successors a budget which contained two painful choices: lay off scores of workers or take the easy way out and hike taxes.

Pribula has come up with several options, but obviously is frustrated because the council isn’t sure what to do and seems to have no appetite (THANK YOU) for raising taxes.

“The bright side is you’ve got a new manager coming in that’s going to have all the answers, and he’s going to solve all your problems, and everything’s going to run like a clock,” Pribula told the council.

Could that be true?  Maybe Lawton can do all of that, that is, if  he stays longer than he did at his last 10 jobs in 19 years.

 Pribula suggested the county’s union members take 12 days off without pay.  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR  MIND? was pretty much their leaders’ response.

He then suggested that they agree to a pay freeze for 2012.  WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER.

One suggestion the union was interested in considering was taking voluntary lay-offs from one to six months while collecting unemployment benefits, as long as the county continued to pay for their health care premiums and guaranteed in writing that they can return to their jobs after their state taxpayer-financed vacations ended.

“I do believe the number of interested workers could be significant,” said their union rep, Paula Schnelly.

What are we  missing here?  Oh, yeah, the shared sacrifice part.

- Betty Roccograndi

Wilkes-Barre City Hall has an immediate need for a filing clerk.

For starters, the successful candidate must be proficient in placing credit card statements in their proper files and not  misplacing requests for proposals for $860,000 worth of fire engines.  No experience necessary because it really doesn’t take any to properly file city documents, even though we’ve been having some problems of late.

Actually, if you’re a trained monkey, we’d love to hear from you.

As city Mayor Tom Leighton said -  after blaming Bank of America for not having the city’s credit card statements on file - City Hall receives voluminous stacks of bills each year.

The credit card statements city residents requested but could not be found “could have been attached to something else by mistake,” said Mayor Leighton.  “We get thousands of vouchers ranging from paving streets to buying a hammer or a shovel,” he added.

And let’s not forget buying $860,000 worth of  fire engines.  Maybe someone put those missing proposals with the shovel bills by mistake.  If they’re not there, check the hammer invoices file.

For those of you not up to speed with City Hall’s somewhat lacking filing system, it all began when Karen Ceppa asked for information regarding the purchase of three fire engines.  Much to her surprise and to everyone else’s, she learned that five years ago the city received a $1 million donation to pay for them.

City officials swear three requests for proposals were received, but sadly, two are MIA.  Maybe someone should look for them in the “paving streets” file because that file is likely pretty sparse.

Adding to the city’s frustration, residents Joseph Wielgosz and Charlotte Raup asked to see credit card statements, which detail charges officials billed to city taxpayers.  A reasonable request by anyone’s standards, with the possible exception of city officials and council members, who would prefer that their trips to Orlando and Reno to attend conventions remain out of the public’s view.

But they can’t hide from The Times Leader, which published its findings on Sunday and Monday.

For some reason, a handful of city watchdogs  believe they have the right to see what taxpayers are paying for. Well, as any good journalist knows, there are always two sides to every story.

So let’s hear what city officials have to say.

We don’t believe, and the city council will back us on this, that these pests, er, watchdogs, need to know that we like to go on junkets from time to time to gather important information on running the city.  I promise you that if there is a National League of Cities convention on how to not misplace important city documents or, worse, lose them, we will fly five to six of us there, but only if it’s in Reno or, at the very least, Atlantic City.  Those meetings are grueling, and we, like you, like to spend our down time in a casino or at the pool basking in the warm Florida sun.

Furthermore, we can assure you that former city controller Bernie Mengeringhausen and former city councilman Tony Thomas will be available to attend.  How do we know that?  Dedicated public servants that they are, they flew to a Phoenix convention with only one month left in their terms.  Now, THAT’s dedication.

Thomas actually said that the knowledge he gleaned from that convention in Phoenix will be beneficial to the city even though he is no longer on the council.  He’s  not a ghost, he said.  He really did tell the Times Leader that, putting to rest any rumors that he was.

“It’s not like I’m a ghost. I’m not leaving,”  Thomas said.  As for Mengeringhausen, we don’t know if he’s a ghost, but he very well may be, because, since retiring, he seems to have disappeared.  Over several days, the TL called him, and he didn’t return any of the calls.

So, considering all of this, we are hoping that the city hires a file clerk without delay.

And just a friendly warning, Mayor Leighton, don’t even think of hiring your daughter or nephew.  City taxpayers are now paying attention.

- Betty Roccograndi

After an exhaustive search, Wilkes-Barre City officials cannot find all of the propoals they said they solicited before spending $860,000 for three new fire engines.

There has to be a logical reason why the only one found was from the company the city hand-picked for the sizeable contract.

1.  The dog ate the other ones for breakfast.

2.  They were put in the Hotel Sterling for safekeeping near one of several smashed windows and got waterlogged.

3.  Someone stored them in the Thomas C. Thomas building with Luzerne County’s records, and pigeons flew through the reported hole in the wall and poked at them with their beaks, rendering them unrecognizeable.

4.  The city took its lead from its exclusive tower,  Leo Glodzik, who doesn’t keep records.

5.   They don’t exist?

Didn’t I tell you yesterday that more revolving facts would emerge on this very strange tale of the $1 million anonymous donation to the city that Mayor Tom Leighton chose to keep to himself and possibly to his inner circle.

Well, this morning The Times Leader informs us that city officials are beside themselves trying to locate the other proposals they said they received before buying the fire engines.

Did the TL make a mistake because in its opening paragraph it said the engines cost $840,000 and all along we’ve been told they cost $860,00?

But we’ve been told a lot of things by city officials, which turned out to be false, like the fire engines were purchased with city funds and that the $1 million donation was not public money.

“You’ll have to get (the other proposals) from the administration,” City Clerk Jim Ryan told TL reporter Bill O’Boyle.

“All I know is that there was more than one response,” said assistant city attorney, Willliam Vinsko.  He said he had “been advised” that there were three bidders.  “But I am looking to confirm that.”  If he learns there were not three, hopefully he’ll tell us who “advised” him that there were.

City spokesman and administrative coordinator Drew Mc-Laugh-lin said the city searched for the two other proposals but could not find them.

Is this any way to run City  Hall?

“Transparency and good record-keeping is an essential part of being a good steward of taxpayer money,” Jay Ostrich, the director of public affairs at the Commonwealth Foundation Public Policy Center in Harrisburg, told the TL.

You would think so.  But Jay probably didn’t understand that the $1 million was not taxpayer money.  At least that’s what Mc-Laugh-lin indicated when he said a donation to the city is  not public money.

Mayor Leighton assured everyone – after telling us we should celebrate this gift even though we only learned about it five years after the fact -  that the donor has no ties to city officials and has never received a city contract as a result of the contribution.

Aha, but did he or she receive one as a result of something else?

Sorry, but after Bill Clinton’s testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair that it depends on what the meaning of is is, one can’t be too careful when interpreting statements from public officials.

Stay tuned.  This fire engine firestorm is far from over.

P.S.  Times Leader, please let us know if the fire engines cost $840,000 or $860,000 because if your article today is correct, then we need to account for $20,000.

- Betty Roccograndi

The Luzerne County Public Defender’s Office needs more help and a scanner.  The county DA said her office is “overwhelmed,” and hinted that she walks on egg shells around her detectives.  County court officials won’t even show up to discuss serious budget woes.  The county’s unions?  Good luck getting them to make any concessions.

Is this any way to run a courthouse?

Poor interim manager Tom Pribula.  He’s pictured on the front page of today’s Times Leader looking as though he’s ready to pull the rest of his hair out.  He said earlier that when he asked the court branches to help out, he got “squat.”  Then they told him where to go when they kept on hiring.

One of the less than “palatable” solutions Pribula offered was asking the county’s 80,000 property owners to give up their $52 homestead deductions.  It’s just a suggestion, but why not, instead, force courthouse employees to kick in a little more for their premium health care plans?

Another option is, (What else is new?)  another tax increase on overburdened taxpayers.  It’s just a suggestion, but since the county is shelling out approximately $15 million a year for health care benefits, how about insisting that courthouse employees pay a little more than the skimpy 10-percent some of them now pay?  Some pay nothing.

Then there’s this one:  making courthouse employees take 12 days off without pay, to which the unions would likely say:  Don’t even go there.  We’ll go to binding arbitration, and YOU WILL PAY.

New county DA Stephanie Salavantis said her staff is overworked, and she can’t afford to furlough anyone.  Then she uttered this rather telling statement, that as much as she is constantly questioned about the detectives and their benefits and salaries, she has to be “very sensitive” dealing with unions.

If our new, young, inexperienced DA is intimidated by her unionized detectives,  how will she hold up if  she has to come face to face with, say, Hugo Selenski, when his trial comes up?  Will she stare him down or buckle if he glares at her?

Chief Public Defender Al Flora threatened to close down the office’s juvenile unit if the county imposes staff cuts.  He said he needs more lawyers not less.  So why is he and William Ruzzo taking a leave of absence to try to spring former corrupt county judge, Mark Ciavarella, from prison?  From a prison cell, Ciavarella continues to wreak havoc on this county.  Now, we have to pay for his appeal because he was declared indigent.  Somehow he spent his ill-begotten millions like a drunken sailor.  Either that, or he somehow tucked them away for safe-keeping.

And will someone please take up a collection to buy Flora a scanner.  He told the council Tuesday night he doesn’t have one.  How much could one be, a couple hundred dollars?

It is very upsetting that those who run the court system didn’t even send a representative to this important budget meeting.  We’re not quite sure who pays for this, but for starters, court officials could take a good, hard look at the rental fees for district magistrate offices.  I recall reading that some of those rental fees are $70,000 a year.  Someone really needs to look at all of the expenses associated with those offices.

Maybe some of these department heads should follow the lead of Deputy Warden James Larson, who told the council that his department may be able to absorb layoffs, if they’re “surgically” implemented.

And speaking of cuts, and it’s only a suggestion, aside from a tax increase, the council needs to get tough with the unions and demand concessions.  It is unfair to expect taxpayers to finance 90-percent of not only their health care plans but also their families’.

We cannot allow them to hold taxpayers hostage any longer.  The county is a half-billion dollars in debt and their generous benefit packages and pensions are part of the reason.

- Betty Roccograndi

For far too long, unions have ruled at the Luzerne County Courthouse.  Now it’s the taxpayers’ turn to get a break.

There’s a choice here, and our new Luzerne County  council has to make it.  Raise taxes or cut staff.  We got some good news last week when the council took a straw vote, and no one supported a 3.93 percent tax increase.  Or to put it another way, taking the easy way out.

Last week, Offset Paperback, we’re sure, reluctantly and sadly, let go 69 employees.  No one wants to see anyone lose a job.  On the other hand, everyone would probably agree that the county courthouse has been likely operating with more employees than needed.  And those benefits!

No one will have any sympathy whatsoever if the unionized employees refuse to budge on this score.  $60 a month for premium health care for unionized county prison workers?  And not until 2013?

The Times Leader reminded us once again that the county pays about $15 million a year for health care benefits with county employees kicking in a paltry $1.2 million.  In this day and age, when health care premiums are going through the roof, that is an outrage. 

But here’s some of the comments union leaders made last week:

“On the surface, I’m not interested in opening up collective bargaining agreements until they expire,” said Tony Seiwell, who represents those 300 prison workers who belong to the Public Service Employee Union Local 1300. Not even interested in asking those employees to consider paying a  miserly $15 a week now for premium health care?  Like that would really kill them.

Paula Schnelly, head of the American, Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union, told The Times Leader  she can’t recall a contract re-opening in her 18 years with AFSCME.

Let’s hear it for Home Rule!

Schnelly also suggested to interim county manager, Tom Pribula, to consider providing extended health care to some of the county’s older workers to encourage them to leave.  “There are quite a few people between the ages of 60 and 65 hanging on because they couldn’t afford health care,” she said.

Well, one has to ask, if the county  needs to encourage workers to leave and that they’re simply “hanging on,” are they even essential to the operation of the county?  Should county taxpayers be paying employees to hang on if they apparently would prefer to hit the road? 

And we’re expected to shoulder a proposed 3.93-percent tax hike to maintain the status quo?

Let’s see a show of hands, taxpayers.

- Betty Roccograndi 

Wilkes-Barre City Mayor Tom Leighton and assistant city solicitor William Vinsko have stated  – in prepared statements – that there was nothing illegal about the purchase of three fire engines with an anonymous $1 million donation which no one knew about until now.

Then they fled, answering no further questions.  Is that any way to douse a firestorm that seems to get hotter as new details emerge?

What jumped out of the Times Leader’s front page article Friday was that there is no invoice or contract available in City Hall for the $860,000 purchase of three fire engines.  That’s what city resident Karen Ceppa, who ran unsuccessfully for city controller, said.  Ceppa, who discovered the donation, told the newspaper that a member of the city administration and the city attorney’s office said no specifications, invoices or contracts exist.

“And further, even if they do exist, I was told I have no right to see them as the money came from an anonymous source,” she told the TL.

Really?  If there is no invoice, how do we even know that the city paid $860,000 for the fire engines and not, say, $700,000?  An invoice is a bill submitted for payment.  It lists the amount owed, the due date and where to remit the payment.  City officials already said they hand-picked KME-Kovach Corp. of Nesquehoning to build the fire engines.  There is no invoice from them on file for this costly purchase or a cancelled city check to verify when and to whom it was paid?

Just how was this business transaction executed - with a handshake?

Pressed for an explanation by Times Leader reporter Bill O’Boyle, councilman Bill Barrett, a former city police chief, said, “The fact that it was concealed raises suspicions.”  Then as fast as you could say, “HUH!,” Barrett said, “At this point, I don”t see any reason to (investigate).  HUH!!!!!

Barrett had no answer when O’Boyle asked him why neither he nor any council member questioned where the exorbitant amount of money came from to purchase three fire engines back then. 

Duh, we were just tickled pink that the mayor saw fit to buy them and protect the city.

Is it any wonder that City Hall lately is being bombarded with right-to-know requests from city taxpayers who ARE curious about how elected officials are spending their money?

Another oddity is this.  Vinsko, who is aspiring to be a U.S. congressman and with his polished evasiveness he would probably fit right in, said the council did vote on the $140,000 balance of the $1 million donation.  Why, though, if it wasn’t necessary because it was a donation?  Why didn’t the council have to vote on spending the largest chunk of the donation, $860,000, but made a point of voting on the smaller  balance of $140,000?

And the Citizens’ Voice reported this week that meeting  minutes do not reflect that the $140,000 spent was from an anonymous donor.

“Nothing illegal was done here?”

That’s good to know, but please forgive us if we need a little more proof than the prepared statements of the mayor and his solicitor.

- Betty Roccograndi