1  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  SCRANTON CITY COUNCIL MEETING  Held:  Thursday, December 8, 2005  Time: 7:00 p.m.  Location: Council Chambers Scranton City Hall 340 North Washington Avenue Scranton, Pennsylvania  Lisa M. Graff, RMR Court Reporter    2  1 2 3 4  CITY OF SCRANTON COUNCIL:  MR. GARY DIBILEO, COUNCIL PRESIDENT  5 MS. JANET E. EVANS, VICE-PRESIDENT  6  7 MR. WILLIAM COURTRIGHT  8  9 MR. JOHN POCIUS  10 11 12  MR. ROBERT MCTIERNAN  13 MR. AMIL MINORA, ESQUIRE, SOLICITOR  14 15  16 MS. KAY GARVEY, ASSISTANT CITY CLERK  17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. NEIL COOLICAN, ASSISTANT CITY CLERK    3  1  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. Please stand for  2 the Pledge Of Allegiance. Please remain standing for a  3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  short prayer. Roll call, please, Neil.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Here. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Here.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius. MR. POCIUS: Here.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright. MR. COURTRIGHT: Here. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo. MR. DIBILEO: Here. And if we can  dispense with the reading of the minutes, please.  MS. GARVEY: 3-A, ANNUAL FINANCIAL  REPORT FROM THE OFFICE OF THE CITY CONTROLLER FOR THE  YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2004.  MR. DIBILEO: Are there any comments on  3-B? If not, received and filed.  MS. GARVEY: 3-B, AGENDA FOR THE  NON-UNIFORM PENSION BOARD MEETING TO BE HELD ON  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2005.  MR. DIBILEO: Are there any comments on  3-B? If not, received and filed.  MS. GARVEY: 3-C, Clerk's notes. I    4  1 2  just have a few things that were asked of me last week. Is spoke to Mr. Harrison of the Moosic Borough regarding 3 the Corey Street issue, John, that you had asked about, and he said that the Council president was out of town, 5 he will be back. Their next meeting is December 13, 6 and he was in agreement, he thought that something  4  7  probably would have to be done in order to enforce it 8 and he will bring it to their attention and he'17 let  9 us know on that.  10 11  MR. POCIUS: Thank you.  MS. GARVEY: Bill, on Hollow Avenue, I  12 did speak with Mr. Parker, and I gave him the necessary  13 14 15  information that he needed with phone number and address and everything, and I also followed up with a letter. I - don't know what his situation is going to be  16 on that, but he does have the right information to  17 18  proceed with that.  MR. COURTRIGHT: I'11 have to tell Jay,  19 you were able to do it and he couldn't.  20 21 22 23 24 25  MS. GARVEY: I guess you will. The  letter -- I did the send a letter to the SRA for the requesting of the engineer's report on the garages. I haven't heard back on that, but it did just go out on,  I think, Tuesday of this week.  MR. COURTRIGHT: A11 right. Thank you,    5  1 2 3  Kay.  MS. GARVEY: And most of the other  letters that anybody did ask, and, Janet, the ones that 4 you have given to me, did go out to everybody, but you 5 have to understand this last Friday, Neil's computer  6  crashed, so we are down to working with one computer in 7 the office, and only two people that have to do the job 8 of probably four, so you have to bear with us a little  9 bit on that.  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17  MS. EVANS: And you've been doing quite  well.  MS. GARVEY: Thank you. MS. EVANS: My commendations. MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes, you have. MS. GARVEY: Thank you. That's it. MR. DIBILEO: Yeah, the City Council  office is very shorthanded, and I think Kay Garvey and 18 Neil Coolican do an excellent job, given the limited  19  resources that we have right now. Keep up the good  20 work. Thank you.  21 22 23 24 25  MS. GARVEY: Fourth order. Citizens  participation.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. We have a sign-in  sheet, and the first speaker on the list is Andy  Sbaraglia.    6  1  MR. SBARAGLIA: Andy Sbaraglia, citizen  2 of Scranton. Fellow Scrantonians, as you know, we had a - lengthy meeting on the budget, and PEL did not answer  3  4 a lot of questions, actually there's a lot more  5  questions to be asked than was asked, but unfortunately 6 they had to go somewhere, but the basic line was, they said the recovery plan is not going to do the job, sO  7  8 hence, we got to look for other alternatives.  9 10 11  One may be to bring back that $10,000  bidding, that the mayor went up to $20,000, that may be one of the ways you can control costs a little more  12 than what's being done now.  13 14  As you know, we're actually a freight  train running down a track with no bridge at the end of 15 it, and that's where we're going to go, right over the  16 17 18 19  precipice.  It's just too bad that people don't  really look at what's happening. I don't think we're bankrupt. Even if we did go to bankrupt, the state 20 would probably raise everybody's taxes to pay off the deal, that's probably what will happen, because of certain things that have to be and that will be, and  21 22  23 the only way they can do that is to raise taxes.  24  The only way to head off a big increase  25 in taxes is to control all spending, as much spending    7  1 2 3  as you can.  Now, I realize that the mayor has his  agenda, and it's not necessarily what Council's agenda 4 will be or maybe what the new council's agenda may be, 5 but the agenda of the taxpayers has remained the same. 6 We want to pay the least taxes and get the most out of them. That has always been the agenda of the taxpayers 8 in the City of Scranton, and we hope : well, we hoped that you would do that, but in four years, we have  7  9 10 11  slid.  We had a mayor give away the DPW site  12 for 198 years for a dollar a year, and I did complain 13 of that, and then they cut it back to 99 years for a  14 15 16 17  dollar a year. You haven't received that $600,000 from Burke, and I don't think you ever will for 99 years, because he would be stupid to pay it, but a lot the contracts that the mayor did in the very beginning had 18 all them stipulations in them, and them stipulations  19 20 21 22 23 24  drew from the city treasury.  The same with the South Side Complex,  that man took over a million dollars, well, over when it was sold, but originally if he wanted to sell it, that $1.some million that they were offering should have been in the city treasury, but he didn't do that,  25 he transferred it over to the SRA, because he had    8  1  control of the SRA, hence, the money was taken from the 2 citizens of Scranton and given to the SRA, and that's  3 where it stands today.  4  And thank God people are fighting it,  5 and I wish more people would get out there and fight, 6 and I wish they would come here and fight, because the 7 only way anything is going to be done in this city is 8 if there's a roar, and there should be a great roar, because what's happening is not only to them, but to 10 their children and their grandchildren, and I wish  9  11  they'd open their eyes and look, because this debt has 12 mounted, and it keeps saying, well, let's push it onto  13 14 15 16 17  our grandchildren.  Why should we worry about paying it,  because believe me, he has other things to do with his money, and one of them isn't : look at the projects in town, these great project, the mall, all that money we  18 put into that mall brings back nothing.  19 20 21 22 23  One block of the city probably pays  more taxes than all the mall. As you remember Jay said it was on the books for $24,000, and I knew it was assessed at under $400,000. That's the mall.  We had these other projects within the  24 city. They fell through. I mean, we heard this great  25  roar about Southern Union, well, that's gone, gone with    9  1 2 3 4 5  the wind, because it was a dream to begin with.  The same with the Hilton, that was  another dream. And even if the Hilton was a success, people that come to these conventions, they want action. What kind of action is there going to be in  6 the City of Scranton?  7  If you want to supply them with action,  8 you're going to be in a lot of problems, but that's 9 what they're going to come for. Do you think they're  10 going to come to see great Scranton?  11 12  Scranton is a sleepy city. They should  have never changed the name from Sleepy Hollow, that  13 was a nice name, could have remained here, but  14  unfortunately it's just the voters that are sleepy, and  15 Iwish they'd wake up and really smell the coffee,  16 17 18 19 20 21 22  because when that coffee drops on their lap, it's going  to burn. I thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Sbaraglia.  Les Spindler.  MR. SPINDLER: Good evening, Council,  Les Spindler, city resident. Since Jay is not here anymore, maybe I'17 try with Kay. A couple weeks ago, 23 I think it was about two weeks ago, it poured and my  24  sidewalks were flooded again, like for the last four 25 years since I've been talking about this, so maybe Kay    10  1 2 3 4  can send a letter out and maybe get some satistaction, because it seems like no one else has in the last four  years.  Now it's wintertime, and when the snow  5 melts or it comes up, it melts off the street, comes down on my sidewalk, I have my own skating rink.  6 7  And as Charlie Newcomb said last week,  8 he has the same problem, who's going to get the bills 9 when somebody falls and brakes their leg on my property because of something the city did? So, Mr. DiBileo,  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  can Kay get a letter out?  MR. DIBILEO: Yeah. Kay, would you  please do that for us, please?  MS. GARVEY: Just give Neil the  address, okay?  MR. SPINDLER: Okay. MR. DIBILEO: Thank you.  MR. SPINDLER: I was going to talk  about something, Kay already mentioned about Hollow Avenue, and I'd Tove to hear what Mr. Parker has to say about that, because I still say what was done there was illegal, and I think the attorney general would like to see those pictures, sO if Mr. Moran has them, wants to 24 get them to me, I'd like to drop them off and see what  25 the attorney general has to say.    11  1  MR. COURTRIGHT: Mr. Spindler, what  2 we're trying to do is to get Mr. Parker to sit down 3 with the residents and then hopefully we can get an  4 5  answer for it.  MR. SPINDLER: He doesn't seem to be  6 doing it, though.  7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  MR. COURTRIGHT: Well, Kay made a  little progress there, she got to talk to him.  MR. SPINDLER: Okay.  MR. COURTRIGHT: So, hopefully that  will take place.  MR. SPINDLER: Next thing, while we're  talking, Mr. Courtright, I was very disappointed in you changing your mind last week and making the motion to change Council's rules to vote on CRF again. I think 16 you turned your back on all your supporters and people  17  that put you in office, which I was one, and I think -  18 I'm very disappointed.  19 20 21  And I think Mrs. Evans right now is the  only one who cares about the taxpayers of this city. She's the only one who voted against it, and the people  22 won't forget.  23 24 25  Ican't believe what I read in the  paper this morning, Lisa Moran accepted an award that unionized employees were given that were off on    12  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  maternity leave.  Now, this was given to unionized  employees. She is not a unionized employee. What right does she have to get this award? Can anyone  answer that question?  MR. DIBILEO: No. Does anyone have a  comment on that?  MR. SPINDLER: She fought against that  award, and here she is accepting it, and she's not even  10 a union employee. Something seems fishy there. I  11 12 13  think it should be looked into.  Oh, Mr. Courtright, I forgot to ask you  a question, if you want to answer it or not, how can 14 you justify a city that's in such financial distress  15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  losing another $500 million on CRF : - or a half a  million, not $500 million?  I've thought I stated before the three  questions that I wanted to have answered, and they were answered, and I think it's going to help some economic development, and I think that will bring some money  into the area.  I think the one project that I was told  about, there was 52 jobs involved that might have left 24 the city, and that's something obviously nobody wants 25 to see happen, sO will we lose some money on there,    13  1  yeah, but I think the good is going to outweigh the  2 bad, that's just my opinion, Les.  3  MR. SPINDLER: We were supposed to get  4 out 80 jobs at Southern Union, and look at that, the  5 6 7  building is empty.  Last thing, I have a question for Mr.  McTiernan, I heard a rumor, and it's only a rumor, that 8 you're going to resign from Council the end of this  9 month, is there any truth to that?  10 11 12  MR. MCTIERNAN: Don't believe  everything you hear, Les.  MR. SPINDLER: Well, it's just a rumor.  13 IV was just asking. That's all I have. Thank you.  14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you. Doug Miller. MR. DOUG MILLER: Good evening,  Council. Doug Miller, Scranton. A few issues tonight. First one regarding the new police neadquarters, the unions over there are against the ban put on smoking, it was done for safe and done for : to have a safe and healthy environment. In 1997, Mayor Connors banned smoking downstairs in the basement, and anybody who may not smoke or may have an allergy, they shouldn't have 23 to be around that smoke, and I think we ought to ban  24 25  smoking in all city buildings. You do it for one, you  do it for all.    14  1  It think we need to send another letter  2 to PennDOT regarding the graffiti on the Harrison Bridge, it has not yet been removed, and I think we need to remind them, sO if we can please send another  3 4  5 letter. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  MR. DIBILEO: Kay, if you would do  that, please. Thank you.  MR. DOUG MILLER: As I spoke about the  budget earlier, I have a question, How can the city generate more money out of it assets in this city, and  I'd like an answer to that right now.  MR. DIBILEO: What was that question  again, Doug?  MR. DOUG MILLER: How can the city  generate more money from its assets? How do you plan 16 on : you know, how can we generate more money from our  17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  assets in the city?  MR. DIBILEO: Do you have any  suggestions?  MR. DOUG MILLER: Well, no, but not  really. I mean, I just -- I think that you should be able to answer this question. I think I should be able  to bring this up and get an answer.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. Let us contemplate  that.    15  1  MR. DOUG MILLER: Okay. Also, how can  2 we generate money without borrowing? What can we do to 3 cut our expenses? Maybe you need some time to think  4 5 6 7 8 9  about that.  If I have $5 and something is worth  seven, I can't buy it, sO I have to buy something that's worth $5 or look for a better bargain.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Doug, if I may, we had  a caucus earlier at five O'clock to go over the budget, 10 and we discussed taking some things out of the budget  11 12  and putting some things in, and we're going to see if that's going to happen or not, and I don't think it's 13 going to solve all of our problems, but we're hoping  14 it's going to help some of them.  15  MR. DOUG MILLER: Okay. That's it.  16 Thank you.  17  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Doug.  18 Bob Bolus.  19  MR. BOLUS: Good evening, Council,  20 Bob Bolus. I'd just like to say one thing, you know,  21 22 23 24 25  with the passing of Mike Ferke, it was really great to see the turnout of people and the respect that he earned from sO many people from so many places and the  representation in the city that he did.  And like I said, he's going to be one    16  1  heck of a guy that's going to be really missed. I 2 think that was proven by just what we saw with  3 4 5 6 7 8 9  everybody that showed.  On the agenda, on 5-M, the CRF, we've  heard about it, but, you know, I kind of find it funny, Id don't see all of those union people here today that were ramping and raving all those days when we were  here.  Ih have a very simple question, we put  10 CRF in, we don't know where it's going, what we're  11  doing with it, sure, Council will get a shot at it, but  12 if it goes to a union and it's going to give us all  13 14 15 16 17 18  this economic development so to speak what's coming here and we're going to just turn Scranton around overnight, but is it set up that the unions are going to do it cheaper or is it only going to go to union contractors, or is it going to be open to a bid process only to whoever it is, union or non-union, that maybe 19 the little guy who isn't looking for a favor down the  20 21 22 23 24 25  road gets an opportunity to earn some money in the city  that's he's paying all these taxes for?  Before you vote on this, decide if  that's the case. And second of all, why are we giving good loans away, when we have so many bad debts out there? Let somebody show us how to collect the bad    17  1  debt before we give them the good debt, before you 2 worry about CRF. We're not going anywhere with it.  3 4  The smoking ban was a great idea. It  should be in all the vehicles, too. Now, why just have 5 it in the building, it should be in the vehicles, as  6 7 8  well.  IK know some people are smokers, and  some of us aren't, but I don't think we should have it  9 in any city-owned vehicle. We'11 have less  10  Workman's Comp claims possibly, have a healthier group 11 of people, sO I think it's something to look at. If 12 we're going to do it in a building, it should be all  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22  buildings and all vehicles.  I'd like to know why the PEL is on the  city, why they're not stepping up to the plate, they're making a lot of money from the city, but they're not doing their job, so I think we should look to replace them. It's time to move on and get somebody that's  going to really worry about us.  They're a group, they're not doing  their job. They haven't proven it in four years, they haven't done any legal action to stop this guy from 23 doing what he's doing, they're not here to protect us,  24  they're only here to enrich themselves. It's time for  25 a - change there, also, and Council should look into    18  1 2 3 4  that.  You can't borrow money : you're going  to borrow to close out '05, to start '06, you know, people that live on a fixed income, they can't go 5 borrow, they're stuck, they got to make due with what they have, so why should the city borrow money when it 7 hasn't made one attempt to cut the wasteful spending in  6  8 9  this city, not one.  Nowhere can anybody in this city tell  10 us where they have cut one thing to make this city  11 12 13 14 15  efficient, other than spend millions and millions of dollars more. They're not sitting on a fixed budget, they're just spending what they want. They can't even tell you what the assets are for the Sewer Authority.  You know, The Scranton Times was glad  16 to print about Janet and everything about her comments, but, you know, I haven't seen them come out and say anything about Doherty's campaign finances.  17 18 19 20 21  It's kind of funny how the good old boy  clubs works in this city. When something's wrong, they selectively pick on who they should pick on, and nobody  22 on this Council has made an attempt to correct that  23 24 25  problem, and that disappoints me.  Mr. McTiernan, I have a question I'd  like to ask you, and I've brought it up, you are the    19  1  principal of the Scranton School, those signatures came 2 out of your school, have you done anything to get us 3 the names of the individuals that had access to those  4 5  files?  MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes, I've asked people,  6 and I think you're misrepresenting the case, because the list you're referring to came out of both high schools, and I'm not aware of anybody at Scranton High School who did that, so I would appreciate it if you 10 would stop misrepresenting that. It did not only come  7 8 9  11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  out of our place.  MR. BOLUS: Well :  MR. MCTIERNAN: To answer your  question, then I'11 be done, no one at Scranton High School, as far as I'm aware, released any names to any  campaigns.  MR. BOLUS: Okay, in other words, what  you're saying, the names that Chris Doherty's son got for the campaign from students that went to the schools didn't come out of Scranton High School, they were from  other schools?  MR. MCTIERNAN: I have no idea where  any of that came from. I'm telling you what I did. As  24 far as I know, no names came out of Scranton High  25  School.    20  1  MR. BOLUS: Okay. So, we can then ask  2 and investigate where they came from then, I guess.  3 4 5  MR. MCTIERNAN: You can do anything you  like. You asked me :  MR. BOLUS: That's exactly where I want  6 to go with it, yes, sir.  7  Tax hikes are coming, whether you like  8 it or not, you can't spend what you're doing and not  9 10 11 12  protect the assets, so they're coming.  Nobody has done anything about the fees  on KOZs and non-profits. There's a cash COW out there, nobody will do anything about it, because it's a good  13 old boy club.  14 15 16 17  On the landfill, I brought up about  collecting per gallon on the leachate coming out of that landfill coming into the Sewer Authority.  You want to give the Sewer Authority  18 the borrowed money, they can bring in millions, even  19 20 21  though the landfill paid for certain things, we should paid for at effluent per gallon that goes through our line into that Sewer Authority. Nobody's done that, 22 and that has been brought up four times : in four  23 24 25  years many times.  You know, they got a $300 million hotel  they're going to build in the Poconos, but they can't    21  1 2 3 4 5  pay for the leachate, because nobody will take the initiative to go ahead and do that. And that's money,  that's an asset making money.  The Rinaldi project on Lackawanna  Avenue, what's the story there? We're talking about 6 CRF and all this economic development, so far I've seen millions of dollars going down the pipe, what's going  7  8 on with Lackawanna Avenue? Is that development  9 10 11  happening or is it dead in the water?  MR. DIBILEO: As far as I know, it's  continuing. I haven't heard otherwise. And I'd like 12 to ask you, if you'd don't mind bringing additional comments back to the next meeting, Mr. Bolus.  13 14  MR. BOLUS: Sure. Be glad to do it.  15 Thank you.  16  MR. DIBILEO: Appreciate it. Thank  17 you. Erik Johnson.  18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. JOHNSON: Erik Johnson, taxpayer  and resident of North Scranton. Kay and Amil, you're both doing a great job filling in for Mark and Jay  Saunders.  Maternity Ruling Aids an Official Who  Fought Against It. A city clerical union worker won an unfavorable arbitration ruling dispute over maternity leave last month, and since the ruling is now the final    22  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14  city policy, all female employees, union or non-union females should and will be awarded maternity leave.  It should : it should and will be  awarded maternity leave for all female employees. Paid maternity leave is also - was also for the fathers.  In logic sense tells you this ruling  should favor primarily women. A11 city women  employees, union or non-union, who work for the City of  Scranton.  Since the city workers, police, firemen  and other workers co-pay for health care benefits and retirement incentives, as do majority other industries and businesses, it should absolutely be rendered to include all city school districts and surrounding towns  15 and Scranton, also, plus all the employees, plus  16  teachers, to co-pay likewise for their benefits without  17 as strike in this distressed stricken area.  18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Since heating bills bumps to a  five-year high and are hurting fixed and low income Scranton and other Pennsylvania towns by 25 to 28 percent, Senator Santorum needs to be sure to vote against the Medicaid cuts food stamps, medical  assistance to patients, hospitals and nursing home and student loans that will hurt our American young people  and also who needs this Medicaid help.    23  1  Senator Santorum, you want to keep your  2 job as our senator, and any state politician who's  3 4 5 6 7  trying to appeal against the pay raises appeal, I also see Pennsylvania voters retaliation in the very near future, as it will be used against them in a campaign  matter.  New laws and suits need to be applied  8 for victims of any political retaliation against people 9 for a campaigning, voicing their opinion or voting against them in any public or private office. Your rights may be violated, like mine have been and still  10 11  12 are being violated.  13  There should be an investigation done,  14 or maybe there is an investigation being done as of  15  now. I - and most residents of Scranton are in favor of 16 us all working together and move this city forward, as long as there isn't any particular cuts of public safety that will harm the safety of all our citizens of  17 18 19 20 21  Scranton.  A - big problem in the city  it is a  big problem in the City of Hazleton. I'm glad to hear 22 our airport is leasing the restaurant to Leo Vergnetti, a Scranton resident, who has run a similar facility in  23  24 the old terminal for decades.  25  I'm glad to hear City Council gave up    24  1  on appointing a new city clerk to serve for the rest of 2 the year leaving the decision up to the upcoming or  3 4 5 6  incoming City Council in January.  Politics took a back seat on this  issue. Having candidates apply and interview is a new process for the two positions. May the best two people 7 be hired without political pull for the job, as Council Solicitor and Council Clerk. I will miss Attorney Mark  8  9 Walsh and Jay Saunders respectfully.  10 11  Again, please, Senator Santorum, there  has been more than 5,000 signed up petitions asking you 12 to vote against the 2006 budget against our poor and 13 low income people. I'm also against the cuts. Thank  14 you for letting me speak.  15 16 17  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Erik. Lee  Morgan.  MR. MORGAN: Sometimes there's more  18 going out in the hallway on than there is in here. I'm going to be really brief, because you know what, I've 20 had enough time today, I don't need too much more.  19  21 22 23 24 25  I'd just like to say, 5-D, 5-E, 5-J,  5-N, 6-B, they should all be rejected. This is just borrowing out of control. There's no excuse for it, there's no solution to the city's problems by doing all  this borrowing.    25  1 2 3 4  You know, I really regret that I think  s should have ran for a political office in the last election, because, you know, it's just so regrettable to see where everything is going on the county level, 5 the city level, all of : everybody : all everybody 6 wants to do is borrow, and people in my general age bracket, we're looking at no Social Security, we're 8 watching people on Social Security suffering, we're  7  9 10 11 12 13 14 15  watching all this stuff take place, and in all honesty, gentlemen, Mrs. Evans, I consider you, you know, councilman instead of a woman, but, I mean :  MS. EVANS: That's okay.  MR. MORGAN: It's not a slur, but we  really need some answers, and you know what, the choices are very tough, but goodness gracious, we're  16 just borrowing and borrowing, and the mayor and  17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  everybody else isn't being honest with us, we're getting no answers, and the PEL comes in here and they're a bunch of, and in my opinion, former  politicians or aids to politicians, and they're coming in here, and they don't have any facts either.  So, I mean, all we're doing is we're  winding around the big circle that just keeps getting  smaller.  And as you watch all the pain and    26  1  suffering in this community, you can see that there 2 isn't one real answer in play here, not one, and that's 3 what we need. We need one answer to start off with,  4 and then move our way from one to two.  5  And as far as the residents of the city  6 and the county are concerned, they have to come to one conclusion, no quarter, no surrender, no rest, no peace, and let's bring it to where it has to go and let's put all the taxes in escrow, let's fight.  7 8 9 10 11 12 13  L - intend to go to the courthouse and  see what the statutes are for pankruptcy, because all corporations can go bankrupt, and maybe we'11 have to move bankruptcy from this side of the podium over to 14 your side, but you know what, I don't personally like  15 your answers, I don't see any, okay?  16 17 18 19  And all the borrowing in the world  isn't going to help us, we're only going to lose everything we have. We have no assets.  One young gentleman here asked, How can  20 we better manage our assets? We don't have any. So,  21  how are we going to manage them? I mean, to be honest 22 with you, we're talking about sewer drains, DPW, all this other smoke and mirrors stuff, and in all honestly, you know what, I pray that Council will do 25 what is right and tell them mayor make some choices,  23 24    27  1  let Mrs. Novembrino make some tough choices, let the 2 business administrator make some tough choices, you know what, Council make some tough choices.  3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  It's not too late for a little  leadership. We didn't sink yet. This is a rat ship,  but it didn't sink. Thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Morgan.  Diane Boone.  MS. BOONE: You guys have a tough job.  First I'd like to :  MR. DIBILEO: Just for the record,  Diane, if you can give your name.  MS. BOONE: I'm Diane Boone, publisher  and editor of Mellenian News, it's a community paper  focussing on minority achievement.  I'd like to congratulate all of you on  your winning efforts to represent our wonderfully evolving city. It's a tough job, after listening to  19 what's going on.  20 21 22 23 24 25  And even more so, I send accolades to  the nistory-making women majority, even though it's not happening right now. I look forward to witnessing the contributions you have to offer over the years.  Also, I truly thank those of you who  contacted me during the campaign in an effort to reach    28  1  the Melanian Community, unfortunately I had to forego 2 that issue because of some overwhelming circumstances I  3 have had to face over the past year.  4  But as this year comes to a close, if I  5 may offer one recommendation for all of the leaders of 6 the city, whether black, white, Hispanic or other, it 7 is that we stop focussing on that which we don't want 8 and start focussing on that which we do want, because 9 the law of thought, nature, simply guarantees that we 10 get that which we focus on; therefore, it is my hope as 11 we enter the new year that the people of Scranton stop  12 13  resisting the inevitable and start embracing the undeniable, because it takes the contribution of all of  14 us to make a thriving community viable.  15  And I have to tell you that Restoring  16 the Pride has some negative connotations to some of us  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  choosing to live here, especially when all we can see is growth in upper scalemenities on the one hand and bigger prisons and better courts on the other hand.  With that being said, I'd like to share  my focus and tell you some of the things I want. Firstly, I want my community to know why I've been sO unavailable, why I'm not at the meeting and the events 24 that I should be at. Believe me, I want to be there.  25  However, aside from being the sole    29  1 2 3 4 5  orchestrator of Melanian News, and a single mother of five with three full-fledged teenagers at home challenging every aspect of motherhood, I also work eight and a half hours five days a week loading and unloading trailers at the post office. I expect at 6 least two out of three of these change real soon for  7 the better.  8 9 10 11 12  Secondly, I want Melanian News to be  part of Scranton's pride. Simple as that. It is certainly part of Scranton's history, because no matter how far I go with my vision for Melanian News, it will always lead back to the fact that it starred right here  13 in Scranton.  14 15  And just like your female majority made  history here, let it be noted that this female minority 16 has made history here, and Scranton should be proud.  17 18 19  I want Melanian News to become a  household name in this town, I want each one of you advertising at least your business card in my paper, I  20 want help getting every business in this town to  21 22 23 24 25  advertise in my paper, I want every school distributing the positive images that are seen in my paper, and eventually I want this paper distributed in every  county in Northeast PA.  Ultimately, I want this paper to be    30  1 2 3  important to the city where it was founded.  Now, I know I won't necessarily get  everything I want, at least not right away, but missing 4 any one of the above is a loss to all of us. So, I  5 need your help.  6 7  No man is an island, and no woman  should be left to struggle alone; therefore, I ask the 8 City of Scranton to help promote the positive impact this paper has on our growing community, I want  9 10 11 12  Melanian News and the people that it represents to be a part of Lackawanna Wonderful, and lastly, another historical - about another historical event in the  13 city, if you check out my website at  14 15  Mellaniannews.com, you will find the story and many photos of last year's first annual unity festival, and 16 by the grace of powers far greater than me, I managed to host this wonderful event, in spite of my lack of experience, and the tragic loss of Morris Jackson and Bill Foreman, who were directly involved in making it  17 18 19 20 21 22  happen.  Iask the City of Scranton to fully  support next year's event and make it an annual part of  23 our cultural heritage.  24 25  If you will help me with these things,  IV will help you bridge a tremendous gap. Thank you .    31  1  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Diane. And  2 for those at home that may want to check your website,  3 how do you spell Melanian? Okay.  4  M-E-L-A-N-I-A-N-N-E-E-W-S.COM. Thank you very much.  5 Carol Derrik.  6 7 8 9 10 11  MS. DERRIK: Good evening. I'm Carol  Derrik, sister of Fireman Mike Ferke, who passed away  last week.  I'm here on behalf of the family to  extend our sincere gratitude to the City of Scranton and its citizens for all the acts of kindness and words  12 of comfort shown to us since Michael's passing.  13 14 15 16 17 18  The men in blue, Scranton Fireman, his  comrades, there are no words to describe what exceptional individuals they are. They are men and women of integrity, honor and courage which gives of themselves unselfishly on a daily basis. They are compassionate caring individuals which have walked the  19 walk with us from the time Michael was leaving his  20 21 22 23 24 25  house to the time of his passing in the hospital and  from daily visits and calls.  They have a bond of friendship, the  brotherhood that reaches out to those in need. They are to be respected, admired and to be looked up to.  Michael's legacy was a man of honor,    32  1 2  integrity, respect and encourage. He was very passionate about his work, his family, his friends, a 3 man of convictions, which fought for what he believed in, and did not waiver even when opinions were against  4 5 him. 6 7  My only hope is that his legacy is  continued and that someone has the courage to step up  8 to the plate and to continue his work.  9  Michael will be truly missed, but he  10 will be in our hearts forever. I would like to thank anyone that has attended any of the viewings, the funeral. And from what we were told, it was possibly  11 12 13 14  over 1200 people from the three viewings.  And I'd like to thank each one of you  15 for allowing me to speak tonight, and I wish each and  16 17  every one of you a happy holiday.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Carol. And I  18 was one, along with other Council members that attended 19 your brother's funeral, and the turnout was just  20 21  amazing, and he certainly has a lot of friends and touched a Tot of people's lives, and we're certainly 22 going to miss him, and he was just a terrific guy that 23 we will never forget. Thank you. J.B. Davis.  24 25  MR. DAVIS: Assalaam Alaikum. I come  here with a heavy heart this evening because a steward    33  1 of our community, of our African American community in Scranton, Mr. Paul Blue's daughter, Ms. Wilma Blue  2 3 4  Daily, died yesterday.  A few things I've written here doesn't  5 say enough about her, but she was a board member of the  6 7 8  original progressive AC.  At one time the Progressive Center was  called Progressive AC, it was athletic center, but it 9 was where we learned how to do our manners, how to do 10 our dances, how to clean our dishes, how to cook, how 11 to sew, and how to be human to one another, and it was 12 a place that the churches, the Bethel AME Church and  13  the Shilo Baptist Church put together a place where we 14 could dance, because we couldn't dance in our churches, 15 it wasn't allowed, but it was done with the chaperones 16 from the churches, which was a beautiful outlet for us, 17 but it taught us to respect one another and it taught 18 us to respect the greater community at the same time.  19  And she was like our big sister, she  20 was like my big sister. She was an Eastern Star, which is like the masons of women masons, as my mother was  21  22 and my two sisters were.  23 24 25  She had eight children, that I know of.  Todd Bailey, you might have heard of, he was quite the  basketball phenom, we called him.    34  1  She was the mother that pushed all of  2 her kids to be the best they could be, but not only did she push them, she pushed us, too, but she was a beautiful person, and I will miss her, because she used 5 to come to those dinners down at the Progressive Center 6 when they had the senior dinners, and that was my only chance to see all the old people. I thought I was 8 young at that time, and it was only a couple of years 9 ago, but she said you're old enough now, but they sat down and they would tell you where you were going, they would tell you how you should get there. And I'11 miss 12 her, and I miss every one of them, and we don't have  3 4  7  10 11  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21  these things.  A11 right. I'm here because of two  things, because of what she was to the  Progressive Center and what the Progressive Center has  become.  UNC has taken over the Progressive  Center to the point where the programming for the children, for the young people, is non-existent.  There are no programs there. I wish  22 you would, I really wish you would take time out from your very busy, busy, busy schedule and just walk through the Bellvue Center in the evening after  23 24 25  seven O'clock or through the Progressive Center and see    35  1  how little these kids have to play with or what to do  2 with. 3 4  They have a little computer center, and  that's all. There's no library. Have you ever heard 5 of a community center without a library? But for some reason or another, UNC doesn't think it's necessary.  6 7  They made the place into a plantation  8 for me, and I say that very harshly, because I don't  9 like what has become.  10 11 12 13 14 15  They've hired people who have no  knowledge of the community, and they do it  continuously, and the community can say nothing about it, because they're not on the board, and they don't  select them to the board.  I - would like you to investigate them,  16 I'd like you to investigate and audit their budget for  17  last year and find out how much of that money was spent  18 in administrative costs and how much was spent for  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  services to the clients, the children, those that they're supposed to be helping. Is that impossible? What must I do in order to get legislation like that? What must I do? Please, Ms. Evans, I'm coming to you because I think that you're going to give me an answer.  MS. EVANS: Well, I'm a bit befuddled,  because I don't believe that Scranton City Council has    36  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  any jurisdiction over United Neighborhood Centers.  MR. DAVIS: You give them money every  year.  MS. EVANS: Pardon?  MR. DAVIS: You give them money every  single year.  MS. EVANS: They receive Community  Development Block Grants which are administered by the 9 Office of Economic and Community Development. Perhaps they're able to at least track how the money is  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  utilized.  MR. DAVIS: Before you okayed that,  before you okayed that particular grant, why can't you put a stipulation into it that you give us these figures, give us your administrative costs, because we know that all people who say they're working for the  non-profit are honest, now, come on.  MS. EVANS: I - don't know that we can do  that. There are government regulations that surround those grants, and I'm sure as each organization applies for an allocation, they are providing the information  that is appropriate and required by law.  MR. DAVIS: So, therefore, you cannot  ask for anything else, is that it?  MS. EVANS: Honestly that I don't know.    37  1 2  MR. DIBILEO: Perhaps OECD might be  able to, Jim, and that's something that you'd have to 3 ask them, but that's something that we don't have any control of unfortunately. Thank you very much.  4 5 6 7  MR. DAVIS: Okay. I thought maybe  since you did say, Hey, this is a good grant, that's a good grant, that's what I'm going to do with that 8 money, if you do that -- I know if my father said,  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21  Here, you can have $25 today, he would say, but what  are you going to do with it?  If I couldn't come up with what I was  going to do with it, I didn't get the $25. I think you  have the same abilities.  MR. DIBILEO: Thanks, Jim. John  Bryzicki, Jr.  MR. BRYZICKI: Hi, Council. MS. EVANS: Hello. MR. DIBILEO: Hi.  MR. BRYZICKI: John Bryzicki, Jr., 333  East Locust Street, South Side, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Off the record, Gary, I want to say we're very proud of 22 you. You ran a great campaign, a very good range of  23 24 25  campaign for us for the City of Scranton, and we're sorry to see you get beat, but don't quit, Gary. You got four and a half votes, four and a half votes.    38  1 2 3  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you.  MR. BRYZICKI: But where are the 40,000  registered Republicans and Democrats that are supposed 4 to vote in these elections? Where are they? Okay. 5 That's all I want to get off my chest. I don't know 6 where they're at. I don't know where they're at. 7 What, did they all move to Florida or what? What's so great in Florida? They got hurricanes down there.  8  9 Okay. That's enough of that.  10 11 12 13 14 15  Okay, Lisa, I'm not going to go too  fast for you. Mr. Pocius, is that the end of the paving for the City of Scranton for this year?  MR. POCIUS: They don't pave in the  winter, John.  MR. BRYZICKI: I know they don't do it  16 in the winter, but three weeks ago they were down there  17 by Pittston Avenue paving something.  18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. POCIUS: The city?  MR. BRYZICKI: Yeah, and they were  paving even down in the South Side shopping center down  there, the parking lot.  MR. POCIUS: Well, that's private work. MR. BRYZICKI: Everybody was paving. I  saw a city truck paving, too.  MR. POCIUS: I don't think sO, John.    39  1  It might have been patching, but I don't think they  2 were paving.  3  MR. BRYZICKI: A1l right. A11 right.  4 We'11 forget about that.  5  Do you know Mr. Wadicka? Mr. Wadicka,  6 has anybody ever heard of Mr. Wadicka?  7  MR. POCIUS: Yes, I knew Mr. Wadicka  8 very well.  9  MR. BRYZICKI: You did? How about  10 Mr. Clifford?  11  MR. CLIFFORD: I knew Mr. Clifford very  12 well, too.  13 14  MR. BRYZICKI: In my opinion, we should  name a street after Brian Reap in the City of Scranton,  15 that's my opinion. How about yours, John? Do you  16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  believe that, Brian Reap should be named in the City of  Scranton?  MR. POCIUS: I  don't know if you should  name a street after him. He's a good :  MR. BRYZICKI: Yeah, I think we should  name a street after him, he did a lot for this Council.  Anyway, that's it.  Okay. I want to report on the property  tax rebate claim for Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, a lot of people still have not put in for this    40  1  easy money, very easy money. It's : all you have to  2 do is people that are retired and are on Social  3 4 5 6 7 8 9  Security, all you have to do is put down is your Social Security amount, the amount of money you get there, then you would take your retirement fund and add that fund, or if you would add a pension, you would add that, too, and then you would take your savings on your savings account, and if it comes down than less than $15,000 of your adjusted gross income, you can get  10 close to $100 back free from the state.  11  And 40,000 people did not do that yet,  12 and I'm just wondering, they should call this number,  13 14  963-4585 to get this form in the mail. They"17 put it next day in the mail for you. You get a chance to get 15 a 1 rent rebate up to $500 free just by filling out the  16 17 18 19 20 21  form.  And if anybody has a problem filling  out the form, my name is John Brzycki, I live at 333 East Locust Street, my phone number is 347-7253.  - have one more thing to report to the  Council, and that is that I still have nothing done 22 with my street and the people that live on 333 East Locust Street next to the Family Garment. I got pictures to show you, Family Garment, and also that Joe  23 24 25  Scott's warehouse building there.    41  1 2 3 4  The only thing good about : what they  didn't do, they didn't clear that area out, because now  they can't dump their snow there.  MR. BRYZICKI: Now I'm getting down to  5 the subject that I really came here for, I want to know 6 where the 17,000 delinquent taxpayers are in the 7 City of Scranton. You ought to get a list of all that 8 to see where they live, because I know where they live, they live on Capouse Avenue, they live on Washington 10 Avenue, exception for Janet Evans, she pays her taxes,  9  11 12 13  everybody else doesn't, and they also live up there by Lake Summit by Lake Scranton, they all live up there, and they don't pay their taxes, sO we should get down 14 to tax about getting those delinquent taxes paid for. That's all I have to say. Have a pleasant Merry  15 16 17 18  Christmas and Happy New Year.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you. Happy  Holidays. That's it for the sign-in sheet. Are there  19 any other speakers?  20 21 22 23  MR. MCANDREW: Good evening, Council.  Larry McAndrew, Scranton resident, Scranton taxpayer. I - want to make a couple comments. A few weeks ago I came to this podium addressing about a park bench in 24 North Scranton by the post office, well low and behold  25  this bench has been replaced, and I have to wonder, was    42  1 2 3 4 5  it an appearance of a US Senator, or was it the $200,000 that he brought to the city, if this had any  influence on having this bench replaced?  mean, it seems to me -- I came here  several times inquiring about it, and nothing was done. 6 This Senator makes an appearance, and all of a sudden  7 this bench is replaced. It's remarkable.  8 9 10 11 12 13  Also, we had a senior citizen come to  this podium during the summer months discussing about benches on Wyoming Avenue and by the Steamtown Mall, I addressed this at our county commissioner meeting Tuesday, and Commissioner Cordaro wants to address this at the next county commissioner meeting to go see if 14 Mr. Finan, who's in charge of the Colts Bus system 15 could work with the city, because the city is lacking 16 in providing these benches, that something can be done, so that the taxpayers and the general public who are waiting for these buses do not longer have to stand and 19 wait. These benches should have been installed months  17 18  20 21 22 23 24 25  ago.  About the budget, the future of the  City of Scranton is at stake, and it doesn't look like it's a bright future for us, but, again, I want to emphasize that you five people up there make the decision here tonight on whether to borrow more money    43  1 2 3 4  to give to this mayor. It's not the right thing to do.  Ib beg you to do the right thing for the  taxpayers of this city and not allow this mayor to borrow more money. Let him find other alternatives, 5 let him amend his budget. Do the right thing for the  6 7  taxpayers of this city. I thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. McAndrew.  8 If there's no further speakers :  9 10 11  MR. GERVASI: Hello again, City  Council, Dave Gervasi, city resident. I would just like to echo some of the things that Mrs. Derrick had 12 to say about Mike Ferke's funeral, I'd just like to thank everyone on behalf of the Scranton Fire Department, all of our members of the extraordinary turnout. I think it meant a lot to the family, and it 16 meant a lot to us, and I want to thank all the other  13 14 15  17 18 19 20 21 22  firefighters from all over the county, I don't want to start mentioning their departments, because I'm sure I'11 forget a few, but I'd especially like to thank Moscow Fire Department, what a great bunch of men and women we met up there, we had a gathering afterwards, and we gained a lot of new friends, great people, and 23 we all had the honor to meet Mike's family, and what a great family they are, just tremendous people, and they're really hurting, but I know all the outpouring  24 25    44  1 2 3 4  of support that day had a lot to do with them getting through this, and I would just like to thank everyone.  Just a few comments on some of the  speakers, Erik Johnson was here and saying that he 5 hopes he's not going to see cuts in public safety, 6 we're going to fight this out to the end, the end is going to be soon, I'm sure, and if we're not successful, you're going to see, not just cuts in 9 public safety, you're going to see drastic ugly deep  7 8  10  cuts in public safety, and there's not much more we can  11 do about it, so we're just hoping we're going to be  12 13  successful and we can mitigate this somehow.  The other thing, maybe Mr. Courtright  14 will be interested in this, just a little story,  15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  arbitrations are in the newspaper, there's a lot of talk about arbitrations, I met with the Taxpayers Association and we discussed arbitrations, just tonight, a few hours ago, we had an arbitration  scheduled for tomorrow, it was on a very narrow subject about, just to let you know briefly what it is, last winter, it's a normal routine in the fire department that if there's very inclimate weather, ice storms, heavy snow storms, instead of sending a full, we call 24 it a box, a full alarm of people, different apparatus, certain amount of manpower to each first alarm during  25    45  1  inclimate weather for a temporary amount of time until 2 they plow the streets, we usually just on automatic 3 taped alarms, which are just automatic alarms in  4 5  commercial buildings, sometimes we'11 just send one engine company just to do an investigation, because 6 most of the time it's nothing, especially if there's security there and there's, you know, the electronic systems that the alarms go off automatically.  7 8 9 10 11  The city in its ultimate wisdom  continued to do that after the snow was cleared into the spring. We discussed this with the city on how 12 this is an extremely reckless thing to do, and we were  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22  successful just in talking to our leadership to have an additional truck company and the chief respond on those alarms, but we still said we're still missing the rescue end, an additional engine, they relented again, and they added the rescue to those trucks, but since, I believe it was November or December of last year, we have been running with two or three less firefighters going to these first alarms, and we've been : and one piece of apparatus less than we normally do.  Through further discussion, we couldn't  23 get the alarms back up to the complement we normally have for proper safety purposes, obviously safety purposes. We grieved it, and it went to mediation. We  24 25    46  1 2 3 4  couldn't settle it in mediation, we went to  arbitration.  Well, tomorrow was supposed to be the  second part of the arbitration, it was probably going 5 to be the final day of arbitration, just a small  6  two-day arbitration on that, and it was a violation of 7 our contract, Article 19, and it was just a general  8 9 10 11 12  safety violation, we felt.  Well, it appears that at six o'clock  tonight, I received a phone call from our attorney that the arbitrator was sitting in his hotel room in Wilkes-Barre, he's from, I believe, Jersey or Delaware, 13 our attorney was here, and the city cancelled because their expert witness from Arkansas could not make it 15 because he was sick, well, the city is going to be  14  16 17  footing the bill for the arbitrator to be here, the city is going to be footing the bill for our lawyer to 18 be here because they asked for the postponement, and  19 when the next hearing is, we don't know.  20 21 22  The point I'm trying to make here, is  in arbitration when the city was talking about cuts and restructuring the department, they hired an expert 23 witness from Arkansas, the same gentleman, spent  24  thousands of dollars flying him here to testify that  25 what they believe they want to do is okay to do.    47  1 2 3  At that arbitration, we made a  statement to the arbitrator that, you know, it's funny that they spent all this money on this guy coming up 4 here, because if they just brought a guy with that expertise up here, we could have discussed this and negotiated any restructuring they'd like to do, and I'm sure we would have listened to this gentleman, but unfortunately the recovery plan says that the mayor 9 will have sole discretion to determine restructuring of 10 the department, how many fire houses, how many engine  5 6 7 8  11 12 13 14  companies, types of apparatus, how many firefighters he thinks we need, that the language in the recovery plan.  So, I just want to make it clear to you  and to everyone else that's listening, that is one of 15 our major problems is the mayor having sole discretion.  16  And why I say that is because this is  17 one small narrow subject, and our leadership, our chief and our public safety director apparently doesn't know enough to rebut testimony of myself and two other members of the fire department who happen to have degrees in these things, not myself, but the other two that I brought, have degrees and some expertise in this, but they will never sit down and ask us if we think things are right or wrong and decisions that they 25 make, and apparently it was proven, because in a small  18 19 20 21 22 23 24    48  1  arbitration like this, they have to hire a man and fly 2 him in from Arkansas, who is an expert, and we believe 3 he's an expert, to fight us in arbitration, but they 4 want us to accept that the mayor will have discretion 5 on the entire restructuring of the fire department.  6  That's the problem we have, and I hope  7 you understand that's why we're fighting this language, because it's reckless, and the mayor could just come in 9 on a Monday morning, if he gets that language, and with a flick of a pen, knock off 30 firefighters, close fire houses, close engine companies and without any impact  8  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17  studies.  That's one of the reasons why we're  fighting, and this just proves that our leadership doesn't have the capability to go to an arbitration and rebut what just plain old firefighters have to say about the recklessness of their actions, but they will 18 hire an expert to come and defend them when they make  19 20 21 22 23  these reckless actions. So, that's all I have to say, and, once again, thank you very much for the  opportunity to speak.  MS. EVANS: Mr. Gervasi, just a quick  question, a resident has asked me to pose this question  24 to someone knowledgeable, and here you are   25  MR. GERVASI: Thank you, I'm flattered.    49  1 2 3  MS. EVANS: When you respond to a fire  alarm at a non-profit organization within the city, how many responses are you allowed before they perhaps have  4 to reimburse the city for false alarms?  5 6  MR. GERVASI: I'm sorry to let you  down, I don't know the exact number, it may be around,  7 Mr. Courtright might know this :  8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  MR. COURTRIGHT: I think it's three. MR. GERVASI: Three or five. MR. COURTRIGHT: Three in a year, I  think.  MR. GERVASI: Yeah, three a year. MS. EVANS: Per institution? MR. COURTRIGHT: I believe so.  MR. GERVASI: That depends on the type  16 of response. If there is something that actually  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  happened, like, I mean, anything as small as a nursing statin, they were making lunch in a microwave and the microwave malfunctioned or there was smoke in the building, that wouldn't count, because that's a  legitimate thing.  This is just for false alarms, that  their automatic systems are malrunctioning, certain 24 parts of their systems are malfunctioning, it becomes a  25  nuisances, and that happens a lot, it happens a lot. I    50  1 2  believe it's three or five, something like that.  MS. EVANS: And thereafter they're  3 changed or they have to reimburse the city?  4 5 be. 6 7 8 9  MR. COURTRIGHT: They're supposed to  MR. GERVASI: They're supposed to be. MR. COURTRIGHT: I don't know if we do  that, do we?  MR. GERVASI: I ( don't have any answer  10 on that whatsoever, I really don't know how the  11 12 13 14 15 16  procedure works, but they are supposed to be, yes.  MS. - EVANS: Could you please find out  then?  MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.  MS. EVANS: Because this individual is  looking for the total cost : the total revenue the 17 city would have realized, let's say for the year 2005,  18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  from false alarms.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Okay. I'11 find out. MR. GERVASI: Deputy Chief Osborne, I'm  sure, can help you with that, he knows about all that, and it's just not a part of my : what I really know.  Thank you.  MS. EVANS: Thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Gervasi.    51  1  MR. ANCHERANI: Good evening, Council.  2 I'm Nelson Ancherani, resident, taxpayer, financial  3 4  secretary of the FOP.  I know I sound like a broken record,  5 but I guess I really don't care, and as of this date, our returning : or the soldiers that returned from 7 Iraq and who didn't get paid equal to what their pays 8 would be if they weren't called to active duty did not 9 get the money from the city to bring them to par with  6  10 11  their regular pay.  I don't believe it is asking too much  12 to give them a $200 a month bonus for every month they spent in Iraq, after what they have done for us by protecting us and keeping us free. The better thing 15 would be to pay them the balance of what they didn't  13 14  16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  get.  I'm going to mention the new police  building. The police will be moving into the building soon, and I will say it again, the building looks great, the outside looks good, although I haven't been  inside.  The new building is much needed and  1,000 percent improvement over the present neadquarters  24 in City Hall. eadquarters in city hall are  25  deplorable, as you all know. The original intent for    52  1 2 3 4 5  building the new building was to house the entire  department under one roof.  The newspaper mentioned in many news  stories about how the police department was spread all over the city. The juvenile unit and training division 6 are not moving into the new building. The new building 7 was not built big enough for the entire department.  8  The excuse given that it wasn't built  9 big enough is budget constraints. I bet if the police department was known as the Scranton DPW Police  10 11 12 13 14 15  Department, the money would have been found to make the  intent right.  $1.7 million was added to the DPW  building when that came in over budget. And I find it interesting that the city in its capital budget has 16 $1.1 million earmarked for renovations to City Hall.  17 18 19 20 21  The city is going to plop that much  money into a dump. They're going to camouflage it, powder and paint to make it look like what it ain't.  And just a side note, but the juvenile  unit still doesn't know where they're going. Ia always 22 said the juvenile unit was the orphan of the police  23 24  department.  Now the budget, $3.4 million was spent  25 on raises and new hairs over 2002 through 2005.    53  1 2 3 4  Harry Miller a little earlier said that we have cost control provisions put in place to get the city back on  track.  The unions were blamed by Mr. Cross for  5 the problems of the city because the recovery plan was 6 not in place in 2003. What about the raises and new hires that the mayor put in his budget? This is  7 8 9  selective and iscriminating.  Harry Miller stood at this podium and  10 said that he believed the budget was followed when  11 12 13  asked about the new hires and raises.  The way I take that is, is he is saying  $3.4 million isn't excessive. Miller also said that  14 health care is a problem. Whose fault is that?  15 16  The mayor fired the health care  consultant who saved the city millions of dollars. I 17 wish you asked Miller why the mayor fired the health care consultant that saved millions of dollars.  18 19 20 21 22 23  The mayor forced out 100 workers and is  paying them medical benefits for life. The mayor replaced the 100 workers and is now paying medical  benefits for these 100 workers.  Thank you, Mrs. Evans, you brought up  24 the questions that, in my opinion, Harry Miller  25  answered miserably.    54  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  He referred some questions back to the  city, because he couldn't or wouldn't answer them. It appears that Miller and Cross are very well in the same  click with the mayor.  w would like to remind this Council  that in the recovery plan, the city wants the active members of the police and fire department to pay the increases in health care for the retired persons and  9 the administrative costs.  10 11 12  The active persons are not and should  not be responsible for the retired health care. The retired health care is the responsibility of the city  13 as is the administrative end of it.  14 15  Miller and Cross appear blind to the  added issues. They get paid from the city, so they are  16 going to be on the side of the city.  17  PEL has job security in Scranton. Why  18 would they want Scranton to come out of distressed?  19 20 21 22 23  They"11 be out of a job.  And I just started going through the  budgets, and that $3.4 million for the new hires and raises through 2005, I believe it's going to be a sizeable increase when 2006 is added into that, sO stay  24 tuned for that, we will have that again. Thank you.  25  MR. COURTRIGHT: Mr. President, can I    55  1 2 3  make a comment? Not directly to you, Nelson, but you brought it up, and I forgot about it, so I want to speak on it now, after Mrs. Stulgis brought up about 4 the police officers that had come back from Iraq and 5 that they weren't getting paid and whatnot, I was surprised, and I got two E-mails, one from an  6 7  individual saying, why should I be surprised, I should 8 have known what was going on, I should have kept on top 9 of it for these police officers, not happy that I  10 11 12 13 14  didn't do enough for the police officers, and one, I can't use the terminology that they gave, but the other one, the exact opposite said, I should stop kissing up  to the police officers.  And I'd like to say what I did, when  15 these two officers that are in question were in Iraq, i 16 was in contact with both their wives quite a bit, they  17 had called me, I had called them back.  18 19 20 21 22 23  Initially when they did not receive any  checks, I went to see Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Moran, she initially told me there was a mistake made and they  would be getting their checks.  Then I found out later on that they  weren't going to be getting the money that was included 24 for their housing and their combat pay or whatever else they would get, the city was only giving them what  25    56  1 2  would make up the difference.  spoke a little bit more with the  3 wives. I thought it was settled. Nobody had brought anything more up to me, so I thought it was settled. I  4  5 did not back away from it.  6 7  Idid speak to one of the officers  recently, twice in the last two weeks or week it was, 8 and spoke to them, they told me what they were doing on their end. I told them what I would do on my end, if I  9 10 11  could.  He agreed that it wasn't the best thing  12 for me to discuss their personal business here on TV, 13 so there are things going on about how they got paid 14 and what they got paid, and so those of you that feel I 15 didn't do enough, I'm trying to do the best I could to 16 help them, for those of you that think I kiss up to the police officers, I'm just sorry that's what you think, 18 I was just trying to have happen the right think for  17  19 all concerned.  20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. ANCHERANI: It's the mayor's  responsibility, he's at the top, he's the captain of the ship, so that's where the buck is. Thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you.  MS. KRAKE: Good evening, Council. MR. DIBILEO: Good evening.    57  1  MS. - KRAKE: Nancy Krake. One of the  2 dirty little secrets in the recovery plan that Harry Miller failed to mention earlier is there is no cap on  3 4 5  administrative health care costs.  The caps they are forcing on the  6 unionized people do not apply to them. That is nowhere  7 in the recovery plan.  8 9  And even though the recovery plan  stating there would be no raises, they have received, 10 as Nelson just, said $3.4 million in raises since 2001,  11 12 13  so it's very one-sided.  So, whatever the Pennsylvania Economy  League has to say has to be taken with a grain of salt  14 and dissected for the truth.  15  I wanted to mention the article that  16 was in the paper, and several people brought it up  17  tonight about the maternity leave that the clerical  18 union won in arbitration, Lisa Moran, the human  19  resources director, fought us tooth and nail on this,  20 and now she has benefitted from it, and will be  21 22 23  benefitted from it again shortly, as she's expecting  another child.  I am probably a person that believes in  24 equal rights for everyone to an extreme, and I'm  25  thrilled that she is going to have this benefit, I    58  1 2 3 4 5  think everyone deserves a benefit, however, for her to fight it so vehemently and then come down on the other side, it just goes back to everything that this  administration does.  They have not appealed or they : this  6 is the only arbitration they have not appealed, and 7 it's probably the only one that they benefit from. 8 Once again, it just goes back to their whole thought  9 10 11  process from the very beginning.  Lisa Moran has received $37,100 in an  increased pay since 2001. She replaced a gentleman who  12 was here for 12 years, and in that four years she's made more than what he made in one year. It's incredible the amount of money they've given to  13 14 15 16 17  themselves.  She also mentions that generally  non-union employees follow the clerical union contract, 18 well, she implemented hand scanning, and I welcome her 19 to hand scan with me tomorrow morning and at lunch and  20 21 22  then in the afternoon.  I - think if she wants to follow our  contract, she would enjoy the hand scanning, I know we  23 enjoy it very much.  24  I - also have one more issue I'd like to  25 raise, I think I've heard several comments, I wasn't    59  1 2 3 4 5 6 7  here last week, that Mr. Courtright may be voting in favor of CRF, and that issue is going to be raised again, I just would hope that this administration, since there probably will be a yes vote on this, I'm assuming, will consider input from Council as who Council would like to be considered for the loans.  It think that would only be fair, and  8 maybe this would be a turning point for this  9 10 11  administration that they would start listening for a  change. Thank you.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mrs. Krake.  12 And if there's no further speakers :  13 14  MS. GARVEY: 5-A, motions.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. Mr. McTiernan, do  15 you have any motions or comments this evening?  16  MR. MCTIERNAN: Nothing at this time,  17 Mr. President.  18 19 20 21  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you. Mrs. Evans,  any motions or comments this evening?  MS. EVANS: Yes. I first ask for your  prayers for a wonderful woman who was mentioned earlier  22 this evening, Mrs. Bailey.  23 24  I have just a few requests this  evening. First of all, Seventh Avenue near Anthracite 25 Auto, where the road curves around, clean the liter and    60  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  repair the road which is slanted. Last week an automobile bottomed out in the area heavily damaging  its underside.  Also, residents request a streetlight  installation in the 700 block of West Elm Street, specifically in the area of 705 West Elm. They also have a petition requesting said installation.  IV would advise the residents to forward  their petition to the office of Scranton City Council,  10 if they've not already done so.  11  And I already covered that issue with  12 Mr. Courtright about learning the cost of emergency  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22  municipal services.  And last Sunday's slight snowfall  caused big travel problem on East Mountain. Residents, specifically of Cherry Street and Snook Street report that vehicles were stuck on these roads because of poor conditions. With a measurable snowfall due tonight and tomorrow, I hope the DPW will address these complaints  in a timely fashion.  And a quick announcement, the Upper  Hill Ecumenical Committee will be hosting a fundraiser 23 at Friendly's Restaurant on Wednesday, December 14,  24 25  Friendly's in Dunmore from 5 to 8 p.m. to benefit the Fisher House Foundation, which is the Ronald McDonald    61  1  House for the military, so I would encourage everyone 2 who's able, please get up to Friendly's on Wednesday  3 and help out our military.  4 5 6 7  On December 6, when I read Mr.  Kresefski's allegation that I used faulty logic, it brought back some fond memories. I was the person who first informed the public of the huge long-term debt  8 the mayor created in only three years.  9 10 11  Is said this mayor's long-term debt  included interest which totalled $198 million. The mayor and the newspaper reacted to that information 12 with much castigation in which they said my dollar  13  amounts were wrong, my analysis and conclusions were  14 wrong, and how dare I give the people such false  15 16 17 18 19 20 21  information.  Then they took another attack in trying  to it criticize me, they said my figures were accurate, but the mayor spent all of the money on the parks and downtown projects; in other words, when he sold city assets, overspent accessively and borrowed large amounts of money to plug holes in his budgets, they 22 were to restore the pride and move Scranton forward.  23 24  You constantly heard this propaganda,  and, yes, you also heard Scranton is crime free, and if  25 you believe that, you'17 also believe the world is    62  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  flat.  The not sO humorous conclusion to the  mayor's long-term debt was when the newspaper finally printed a large article and admitted the Doherty  long-term debt is over $200 million.  Mr. Kresefski's latest criticism of my  statement is that the 2006 budget is improperly  inflated, and it will not stand, because it is inflated  9 by at least $6.2 million, which is listed as  10 11 12  revenue.  S suggest just more borrowed money  falsely listed as income. Borrow the money that has 13 not yet been approved by the people of City Council an  14 15  must be paid back with interest.  To me, the mayor will borrow a total of  16 $20.7 million in 2006, all of which he listed as  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  income. Is this true income or borrowed money?  assume the people of Scranton did not  elect me to City Council so that I, too, should feed them false information and propaganda. The people want  the truth.  I suggest Scranton is not flourishing.  Scranton is sinking into serious financial crises. 24 This mayor's long-term debt is now well over $200  25  million.    63  1  But this isn't the main problem. The  2 most frightening thing is that a majority of Scrantonians live in a contaminated financial environment of suspended disbelief.  3 4 5  We've fallen economically i1l because  6 we're used to seeing nothing but glitz and glowing  7 8  stories about this administration.  On the one hand the people have learned  9 to believe the mayor and The Scranton times, on the  10 11  other hand, the people have learned not to believe the terrible long-term debt, only because the mayor has not  12 yet moved to increase our taxes.  13 14  But believe me, that will come, and in  such a manner and in such an amount that the people  15 will be shocked into the real world.  16 17 18  No mayor can continuously overspend,  make a few friends wealthy, take care of political cronies with tax favors and job creations and not have 19 to ultimately make the people pay for his excesses, nor can any mayor lay off police and firefighters and then publicly state Scranton is safe. That's nothing more than strolling down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz.  20 21 22 23 24 25 day.  We can no longer ignore the economic  and financial pressures that have been building each    64  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  Let the record show that for the past  two years, I, as a member of City Council, and a few other taxpayers, did speak out and say that this mayor should not be allowed to continue with these financial policies, because they do nothing but create a situation which will in the reasonably near future  seriously harm our standard of living.  Mr. Doherty had and will continue to  9 have a majority of support from my honorable colleagues 10 on Council, so we can say the term rubber stamp has not  11 12 13  been deleted from our vocabulary.  The direct impact is that he and the  newspaper have become arrogant and intolerant of anyone  14 who presents facts contrary to what they want.  15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  To me, the facts show this  administration has reduced the honest and industrious people of Scranton to pliant individuals who by now surely know the current financial chaos into which this mayor is leading us will only end in disaster.  Now is the time for the people to  question, to aggressively look for the truth and stop our destructive financial slide. That's it.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mrs. Evans.  Mr. Pocius, any motions?  MR. POCIUS: Nothing, Mr. DiBileo.    65  1 2  Thank you very much.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Pocius.  3 Mr. Courtright, any motions or comments?  4  MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes, Mr. President.  5 I've been a little laxed in getting back to a lot of people that sent me E-mails, I used to use Jay's computer when I came into the office here, and it's not 8 there right now, I'm waiting for it to be returned, sO Iw will be getting back to you as soon as possible.  6 7  9 10 11  I'd just like to read a portion of a  letter, Sunday the first plowable snowstorm generated a 12 Tot of calls to me, and this one woman wrote a pretty 13 long letter about it, and I just want to read just a  14 15  portion of it.  It says, Sunday morning as I went to  16 work at 7 a.m., the roads on the East Mountain were 17 terrible. Just attempting to cross Seymour Avenue was  18 19 20 21 22 23  a - challenge.  My husband then took the kid to church  at 8:30 a.m., he called the DPW, as still there was no  sign of any plowing being done.  Their excuse, the first snowfall is  always hard. The equipment had been sitting for a 24 year, plows are not fitting right, hoses were breaking,  25 and it was Sunday.    66  1  And then she goes on to say, Don't we  2 at the city prepare for the first snowfal1? And I  3  don't know the answer to that, but I would hope that we  4 would. 5 6 7 8  And I can understand her frustrations,  because I got a lot of calls. She also has concerns that deal with crime up in the Robinson Park area, Yesu Drive, Cherry, Brook Street, Elm Street, and because 9 she did not leave a mailing address or a telephone 10 number for me to get back to her, I thought possibly  11  she watches these Council meetings, and I will forward 12 her concerns onto the police department. And that's  13 14  all I have, Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you,  15 Mr. Courtright. I received a little gift tonight given 16 to me by a good friend, that friend is non other than  17  Johnny Super Star. Everybody knows Johnny. He showed 18 up tonight. Knowing our bell was broken two weeks ago, 19 he showed up with a new bell for me, but then I heard a  20 21 22 23 24  bell tonight, is that a new bell, Kay?  MS. GARVEY: That's compliments of  Helen Cook.  MR. DIBILEO: Oh, all right. Well, I  want to thank Helen and thank Johnny. And Johnny tells  25 me it's his birthday today, sO I want to wish him a    67  1 2  Happy Birthday. Not only his he one of the premiere party DJs in the city, but he also comes bearing gifts 3 on his own birthday, so thanks to Johnny. And that's  4 5 6 7  all I have.  MS. GARVEY: 5-B, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 82, 2004, AN ORDINANCE ENTITLED GENERAL CITY OPERATING BUDGET 2005  8 BY TRANSFERRING $4,450.00 FROM ACCOUNT NO.  9 10 11  01.080.00083.4460 (STREET LIGHTING) TO ACCOUNT NO. 01.401.10030.4299 (ZONING BOARD OPERATING EXPENSES) TO PROVIDE FUNDING TO COVER ZONING BOARD EXPENSES THROUGH  12 YEAR END.  13 14  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11  entertain a motion that Item 5-B be introduced into  15 it's proper committee.  16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  A1l those in favor of introduction, signify by saying  aye.  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes    68  1 2 3 4  have it and so moved.  MS. - GARVEY: 5-C, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 135, 2005, AN ORDINANCE ENTITLED SALE OF TAX DELINQUENT PROPERTY AT 5 659 WALES STREET NEAR LEGGETT'S CREEK, SCRANTON,  6 7 8  PENNSYLVANIA, TO PENNSYLVANIA AMERICAN WATER COMPANY (PAWC), 100 NORTH PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA, 18701, FOR THE SUM OF $4,000.00 IN ORDER 9 TO REFLECT THE CORRECT ADDRESS WHICH IS 600 BLOCK OF  10 WALES STREET BY LEGGETT'S CREEK.  11 12 13 14 15 16 17  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'17  entertain a motion that Item 5-C be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MR. - POCIUS: Just on the question,  18 Mr. Minora, would you Took into the heading of this for  19  next week, because the ordinance we have says failed to 20 be introduced into the committee, sO it never should  21  have had an ordinance number to begin with. I mean, it 22 may have to be amended, just the heading, so would you look at that for next week sO we can take care of it?  23  24 That's all, Mr. President.  25  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Pocius.    69  1 2 3 4 5  Thank you.  MS. EVANS: Is this the property which  abuts the Palmiere property?  MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.  MS. EVANS: Have we heard any news from  6 Mr. Palmiere?  7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  MR. COURTRIGHT: We didn't get any  response; is that correct, Kay?  MS. GARVEY: Yes, I called three  different times and left a message, but I didn't get a  returned phone call yet.  MR. POCIUS: I was told by Mr. Konjemmi  in a conversation that they met with the neighbors, including Mr. Palmiere out there, this was a while ago, it was probably either late in the summer or early fall 16 in September, showed them the plans for the building, showed them what it looked like, it was going to be basically : showed them that there would be increased security because they checked these buildings with their own security staffs, I was told that this was still very critical to the water company, and that they seemed that they had addressed all the residents' concerns, that's what I was told. And that's it.  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  24 That's all I can tell you.  25  MR. DIBILEO: That's what I'm aware of,    70  1  also, and that's why we reached out to the people who 2 had the concerns last time, and if we find out this 3 week that there's something other than that situation,  4 we can address it next week.  5 6  MR. DIBILEO: So, if there's no further  questions, all those in favor of introduction of 5-C,  7 please say aye.  8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and sO moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-D, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE AND SALE OF A FIVE MILLION DOLLARS $5,000,000.00) PRINCIPAL AMOUNT, TAX 17 AND REVENUE ANTICIPATION NOTE OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON KNOWN AS TAN SERIES A, AWARDED TO COMMUNITY BANK & TRUST COMPANY; DETERMINING THE FORM AND TERM OF SAID NOTE; AWARDING SAID NOTE; AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE FILING OF CERTAIN DOCUMENTS; AND DIRECTING THE PROPER OFFICIALS OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON TO TAKE ANY AND ALL OTHER ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED IN CONNECTION WITH THE  18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  ISSUANCE OF SAID NOTE.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11    71  1 2 3 4 5  entertain a motion that Item 5-D be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  6 A1l those in favor of introduction, signify by saying  7 aye. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-E, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE AND SALE OF A NINE 16 AND ONE HALF MILLION $9,500,000.00) DOLLARS PRINCIPAL AMOUNT, TAX AND REVENUE ANTICIPATION NOTE OF THE CITY 18 OF SCRANTON KNOWN AS TAN SERIES B, AWARDED TO COMMUNITY BANK & TRUST COMPANY; DETERMINING THE FORM AND TERM OF SAID NOTE; AWARDING SAID NOTE; AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE FILING OF CERTAIN DOCUMENTS; AND DIRECTING THE PROPER OFFICIALS OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON 23 TO TAKE ANY AND ALL OTHER ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED IN  17  19 20 21 22  24 25  CONNECTION WITH THE ISSUANCE OF SAID NOTE.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'17    72  1 2 3 4 5  entertain a motion that Item 5-E be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  6 A11 those in favor of introduction, signify by saying  7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24  aye.  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: By a 4-1 vote, the ayes  have it and sO moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-F, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO ACCEPT, RECEIVE AND RECORD A GIFT OF REAL ESTATE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SCRANTON CONSISTING OF PARTIAL PARCEL AT THE INTERSECTION OF MULBERRY STREET AND JEFFERSON AVENUE TO ENLARGE TO TURNING RADIUS FOR VEHICLES TURNING RIGHT FROM MULBERRY TO  JEFFERSON.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'17  entertain a motion that Item 5-F be introduced into  25 it's proper committee.    73  1 2 3 4  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MR. POCIUS: Just on the question,  5 Amil, I hate to keep giving you all this stuff, but I 6 read the description and the map that was attached, and 7 the description, somehow it's wrong. I marked up the description to describe the parcel that's to be conveyed, which is Lot 2, and if you want to look at 10 it, I think we can just amend this for next week and  8 9  11  make a motion to amend the attached description next 12 week, okay? I do this all the time, and you can look  13 14  at it, but I got it marked up here corrected.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you, Mr. Pocius.  15 And if there's no further questions, all those in favor  16 of introduction, signify by saying aye.  17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-G, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - VACATING ANY AND ALL RIGHT, TITLE AND INTEREST OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON IN THE RIGHT-OF-WAY OF    74  1 2 3 4  A PORTION OF WRIGHT COURT IN THE CITY OF SCRANTON, AS MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED ON THE MAP ATTACHED HERETO.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11  entertain a motion that Item 5-G be introduced into  5 it's proper committee.  6 7 8  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  9 A11 those in favor, signify by saying aye.  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MR. POCIUS: Mr. DiBileo, I think we  always have public hearings on these vacations, sO 18 maybe if we're going to try to keep it to schedule, 19 I'17 make a motion we hold a public hearing possibly next week at 6:45 concerning 5-G, and allow Kay to place the legal ad and we can have a hearing, and I don't think we're going to get anybody, and we can move it along with the other legislation next week.  20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. We have a motion    75  1  on the floor and a second. On the question? A1l those  2 in favor, signify by saying aye.  3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: John, can I just ask you  if that has to go before the planning commission? Does it have to wait the 30 days before the public hearing?  MR. POCIUS: I'm not sure. I mean, I  13 don't think there's enough time to do it with this  14  Council, maybe there is, Amil can maybe look at that, 15 boy, you're going to be busy, you jumped in right at  16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  the right time here, but if not, it's going to have to maybe what I'11 say is if Amil doesn't think by reviewing what we have to do for vacationing, maybe this can be held for the new Council so we don't spend money on an ad and everything else, sO maybe you can just take a look at it with Kay and Council's rules about vacations or just public law about vacating  stuff.  If we have to wait for comment, it will  never make it, because it's already December 8, and    76  1 2 3 4 5  this Council will be dispersed by January 2, sO : all  right?  So, maybe I'11 amend my motion to say  I'11 ask for the public healing only if  Attorney Minora advises : or I'11 withdraw my motion  6 and they can withdraw their second :  7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16  MR. COURTRIGHT: I'11 withdraw my  second.  MR. POCIUS: Mark was always a genius  at this. You'11 withdraw it?  MR. COURTRIGHT: I'11 withdraw my  second.  MR. POCIUS: Okay. So, do we have to  vote on that or is that okay?  MR. MINORA: Not to withdraw. MR. POCIUS: Not to withdraw, okay.  17 So, I'17 make a new motion which is to hold a public hearing only at that time as designated only if Attorney Minora thinks this could pass in the time  18 19 20 21 22 23  frame of this Council.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. We have a motion  on the floor and a second. On the question? A11 those  24 in favor, signify by saying aye.  25  MS. EVANS: Aye.    77  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-H, FOR INTRODUCTION - AN  ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND DELIVER A DEED OR DEEDS 9 OF EASEMENT TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,  10 11  DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL SERVICES, CONVEYING PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY EASEMENTS UPON PROPERTY ON PENN AVENUE, GREEN  12 RIDGE STREET, CAPOUSE AVENUE, MONSEY AVENUE, MARION STREET, SANDERSON AVENUE AND GLENN STREET, LEGAL DESCRIPTIONS OF WHICH ARE ATTACHED AS EXHIBIT A AND MAPS OF WHICH ARE ATTACHED AS EXHIBIT B, IN FURTHERANCE 16 OF A FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT TO CONTROL FLOODING ALONG  13 14 15  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  CERTAIN STREAMS WITHIN THE CITY.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'17  entertain a motion that Item 5-H be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  24 A11 those in favor, signify by saying aye.  25  MS. EVANS: Aye.    78  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-I, FOR INTRODUCTION - A  RESOLUTION - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER  APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES WITH NORTHEAST CREDIT AND COLLECTION FOR THE COLLECTION OF DELINQUENT REFUSE FEES; THE CONTRACT TO RUN FOR THE YEARS 2006, 2007 AND  2008.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11  entertain a motion that Item 5-I be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MS. EVANS: Perhaps I should be  addressing this on J, rather than I, but since it pertains to both, has there been or could there be any discussion of returning some of these services to the treasurer's office and perhaps just allowing an amount 24 in excess of maybe five or $10,000 to be pursued and  25  collected by NCC, and those amounts that would be under    79  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14  that particular cap could be handled in-house?  MR. DIBILEO: Has there been any  discussion of that?  MS. EVANS: Yes, or would you entertain  discussion.  MR. DIBILEO: Well, I personally would  entertain anything that would make the process be more effective; however, how would we gain that knowledge?  MR. POCIUS: You can't. I don't know  how you could amend a contract. This is to collect  all.  MS. - EVANS: Well, I think if : MR. POCIUS: I think we can vote on a  contract itself, I mean, just from my own opinion, we 15 can vote on the contract. We have no right to amend 16 the contract, because the contract is not between us,  17  it's between the city and Northeast Credit, and what 18 I'm saying is that we can't get inside the contract  19  itself, because that's what was submitted, that's what  20 was negotiated with the administration.  21 22 23 24 25  MR. DIBILEO: Perhaps that question can  be asked of the administration.  MR. COURTRIGHT: If they would be  willing to look at it.  MR. POCIUS: What I'm saying is, they    80  1 2 3  may agree and they may not send anything over a certain amount to Northeast Credit, but I don't think we can dictate by the legislation what they do, I don't think 4 so, because the contract is based on certain things,  5 and the legislation reads that way.  6 7  MS. EVANS: I would agree on this  contract, but I think it's certainly not impossible for  8 the administration on the advice of Council to  9 10 11 12 13 14 15  renegotiate that contract, if indeed they'd like that  contract to continue.  MR. POCIUS: Well, we've had these  since June 7, 2005, and to try to make an eleventh hour  amendment, I'm not for it.  We've had : these are dated June 7,  they were sent here, sO if you wanted to look or ask, 16 we could have looked in the last six or seven months,  17 18  six months.  MS. EVANS: Well, I was simply trying  19 to come up with a compromise that would benefit the  20 21 22 23 24 25  people of the city, because over these two years, I've received countless complaints, countless times I've had to take actual bills to the treasurer's officer or NCC to have it straightened out, and these have been cases of mistaken identity, mistaken addresses, to mistaken  elinquencies.    81  1  - know of a colleague, for example,  2 whose credit was ruined twice, who sued the company 3 twice and received a settlement twice on the exact  4 5  same.  So, - you know, when we have people's  credit people's unjustifiably damaged and their peace 6 of mind disturbed, particularly for senior citizens, I think Council should give this renewal serious thought, 8 and it was, as I said, only in the best interest of the people of the city, most of whose bills would come, 10 whether it's delinquent property taxes or whether it's delinquent garbage fees would most likely fall under that dollar amount that could be handled suitably and probably far more fairly and pleasantly in the  7  9  11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  treasurer's office.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. Are there any  further questions? If not, all those in favor of  introduction, signify by saying aye.  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: A 4-1 vote, the ayes have  24 it and so moved.  25  MS. GARVEY: 5-J, FOR INTRODUCTION - A    82  1 2 3 4 5 6 2008. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13  RESOLUTION - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER  APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES WITH NORTH EAST CREDIT AND COLLECTION FOR THE COLLECTION OF DELINQUENT REAL ESTATE FEES; THE CONTRACT TO RUN FOR THE YEARS 2006, 2007 AND  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. At this time I'17  entertain a motion that Item 5-J be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MR. COURTRIGHT: On the question,  14 Mr. President, I don't think it would do any harm if we  15  sent down Mrs. Evans' request to the administration and  16 see if possibly they were willing to take a look at  17 18 19  this. I C don't think it would hurt anything.  MS. EVANS: And if they were willing to  make those changes, then I might be willing to approve 20 this contract, but if I'm forced to go with what I see  21  tonight, because we don't want to inconvenience anyone,  22 then I'm going to be voting no.  23  MR. DIBILEO: I think it's reasonable  24 what Mr. Courtright is suggesting.  25  MR. COURTRIGHT: Do we need to make a    83  1  motion to send a letter or can we just send a letter 2 down and ask if they'd be willing to look at that? I 3 don't know what the proper procedure would be.  4 5 6 7 8 9  MR. POCIUS: I think what we've done in  the past is we've continued to vote on the  introduction, and if someone sO chose to make a motion after it was introduced, they can make a motion : a formal request, if they sO choose to do so.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Okay. We'17 vote on  10 it then. If you want to make a motion, I'11 go along  11 12  with it now.  MR. DIBILEO: Would that occur,  13 Mr. Minora?  14 15  MR. MINORA: I - didn't hear you.  MR. DIBILEO: Mr. Courtright brought up  16 the question about sending a request to the  17  administration to have Mrs. Evans' suggestion looked 18 at, would we do that now prior to voting or would we  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  vote and need to make a motion or just send the written request to the administration without a motion?  MR. MINORA: I think you could send the  request whenever you'd like. I - don't think it needs to affect legislation. If you choose to have it affect  legislation, you can.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Maybe we can just ask    84  1  Kay to send a letter down like we normally do. It 2 would be easier, correct? It would be easier if we just send a letter down asking him if he would  3 4 5  entertain that.  MS. EVANS: And, Kay, let's indicate,  6 since it's my request, a $5,000 limit, those bills, 7 those delinquencies, which are $5,000 or less would be handled in-house by the treasure's office, and those exceeding $5,000 would be farmed out to NCC.  8 9 10 11  MR. DIBILEO: Again, if that's going to  improve the whole process, I'm totally in favor of it. 12 And if we can determine that quickly, it would be very 13 good, so if you can get that down there tomorrow, Kay,  14 15  appreciate that.  Okay. If there's no further questions,  16 all those in favor of introduction of 5-J, signify by  17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  saying aye.  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: A 4-1 vote, to introduce,  the ayes have it and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-K, FOR INTRODUCTION - A    85  1 2 3 4 5  RESOLUTION - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER  APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A REIMBURSEMENT AGREEMENT NO. 048606-A WITH THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, DEPARTMENT OF  TRANSPORTATION FOR THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE OF THE NAY  6 AUG PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE.  7 8  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11  entertain a motion that Item 5-K be introduced into  9 it's proper committee.  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MR. POCIUS: What this ordinance does  is the reimbursement agreement, it's 100 percent federally funded, the construction. It increased their participation from $400,000 to $636,000 to completely  fund the project.  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you. If there's no  further questions, all those in favor of introduction,  signify by saying aye.  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes    86  1 2  have it and sO moved.  MR. POCIUS: Kay, just for the record,  3 you got to - I don't know for whatever reason, we say this every time, they don't : this is a standard PennDOT form and there's not enough signature lines for 6 the city, you have to add one for the controller maybe 7 and the city solicitor, because there's only two  4 5  8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  signature lines, that's our rules, not their rules, we need the extra signature lines. We always do this.  MS. GARVEY: 5-L, FOR INTRODUCTION - A  RESOLUTION - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER  APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A QUALIFIED SELLER AGREEMENT (QSA) WITH COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT FUND, INC. (CRF) WHICH AGREEMENT WOULD QUALIFY THE CITY TO SELL OUTSTANDING LOANS FROM THE CITY OF SCRANTON, OFFICE OF ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY  DEVELOPMENT.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'11  entertain a motion that Item 5-L be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  24 A1l those in favor of introduction, signify by saying  25  aye.    87  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: 4-1, the ayes have it to  introduce and so moved.  MS. GARVEY: 5-M, FOR INTRODUCTION - A  RESOLUTION - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER  APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A LOAN PURCHASE AGREEMENT WITH COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT FUND INC., (CRF) FOR THE PURCHASE OF FOURTEEN LOANS MADE BY THE CITY OF SCRANTON, OFFICE OF ECONOMIC AND  COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT.  MR. DIBILEO: At this time I'17  entertain a motion that Item 5-M be introduced into  it's proper committee.  MR. POCIUS: So moved. MR. COURTRIGHT: Second. MR. DIBILEO: On the question? MS. EVANS: Yes. These loans are our  most secured loans, they are indeed a city asset. When a business sells its assets, that means a business is  24 in trouble, and I just don't think we should be  25  suffering the loss of approximately a half million    88  1  dollars to sell off what belongs to the people and what  2 is the best part of that program.  3  MR. DIBILEO: Thank you. Last week  4 when Mr. Courtright made a motion to introduce this, I 5 had said that I voted in favor of it originally because  6 If feel as though the advantages outweigh the  7 8 9  disadvantages, and I'm not saying there aren't  aisadvantages.  The disadvantage obviously is the cost  10 tos sell the loans, but the advantages would be  11 12  hopefully economic development which would relate and turn into jobs for our area, so we have to hope that 13 the jobs that this money freed up for loaning to new  14  businesses or expansion of existing businesses could 15 and will outweigh the disadvantages involved, and also  16  politics has now been removed from the process, which 17 is obvious since the election, and I think that's a  18 19  good thing.  MS. - EVANS: The only thing I want to  20 add, just sO that everyone is clear on this, is that  21  minus this agreement, it does not mean that no loans 22 are available for new or existing businesses in the 23 City of Scranton, that money is certainly available, 24 and it's provided by the payments made on each one of these loans, as well as many others, so it's not a  25    89  1 2  matter that there is no available money and without this agreement, no new business will be provided for.  3 It's still going to occur one way or another.  4 5 6 7 8  MR. DIBILEO: Just two things on that,  it's my understanding that some of the loan money available is beginning to dry up, and does anyone have any additional information on that by any chance, but that's something that I'd like to look into this week 9 as we introduce this, and secondly, the fact that any 10 loan using these funds would come before, not this  11 12  Council, but I assume the new Council for approval, each and every single loan is what is supposed to be 13 the situation, and let's certainly hope that that's the  14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  case.  MS. EVANS: Indeed, because what's  supposed to be and what is quite different, and we've seen evidence of that over and over in the last two  years.  In addition, I just might add I think  if we're looking at a lot of our funding that's going in and out of OECD, you know, we might be looking at a little bit of a short end here, because let's not forget we've lost an awful Tot of money on the Hilton Hotel, and we've been using a lot of our money to repay  the government.    90  1 2  MR. DIBILEO: And that will be  something that I personally do this week, is look into 3 the situation involving the existing funds that are available for being loaned to new businesses.  4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  If there's no further questions, all  those in favor of introduction of 5-M, signify by  saying aye.  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: A 4-1 vote, the ayes have  it and sO moved.  MS. GARVEY: Sixth order. 6-A, READING  16 BY TITLE - FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 162, 2005 - AN ORDINANCE  17 18 19  APPROPRIATING FUNDS FOR THE EXPENSES OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT FOR THE PERIOD COMMENCING ON THE FIRST DAY OF JANUARY, 2006 TO AND INCLUDING DECEMBER 31, 2006 BY 20 THE ADOPTION OF THE GENERAL CITY OPERATING BUDGET FOR  21 22 23 24  THE YEAR 2006.  MR. DIBILEO: You've heard reading by  title of Item 6-A, what is your pleasure?  MR. POCIUS: Mr. President, I move 6-A  25 pass reading by title.    91  1 2  MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.  MR. DIBILEO: Okay. On the question?  3 A1l those in favor, signify by saying aye.  4 5 6 7 8 9  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye. MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: 4-1 vote, the ayes have  10 it and sO moved.  11 12 13  MS. GARVEY: 6-B, READING BY TITLE -  FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 163, 2005 - AN ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE LEASE OF CERTAIN REAL PROPERTY TO THE 14 SEWER AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA  15 16  PURSUANT TO A LEASE AGREEMENT; DECLARING THE GUARANTY OF SAID AUTHORITY'S GUARANTEED LEASE REVENUE NOTE FOR 17 THE BENEFIT OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON TO BE A PROJECT OF 18 THE CITY FOR WHICH LEASE RENTAL DEBT IS TO BE INCURRED; STATING THE REALISTIC ESTIMATED USEFUL LIFE OF THE FACILITY RELATING TO THE NOTE; DETERMINING TO INCUR LEASE RENTAL DEBT IN AN AGGREGATE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT NOT 22 TO EXCEED 512,000,000 IN RESPECT OF SAID PROJECT, SUCH  19 20 21  23 24 25  DEBT TO BE EVIDENCED BY THE CITY'S SUBLEASE AND GUARANTY AGREEMENT WITH RESPECT TO SAID NOTE;  AUTHORIZING CERTAIN CITY OFFICERS TO PREPARE, CERTIFY    92  1 AND FILE WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THE DEBT STATEMENT REQUIRED BY SECTION 8110 3 OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNIT DEBT ACT AND AUTHORIZING 4 THE PREPARATION OF A BORROWING BASE CERTIFICATE;  2  5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  APPROVING THE FORM OF, AND AUTHORIZING, SUBJECT TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS, EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF THE AFORESAID LEASE AGREEMENT AND SUBLEASE AND GUARANTY AGREEMENT; REPEALING INCONSISTENT PRIOR ORDINANCES; SETTING FORTH CERTAIN CONDITIONS TO THE EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF THE AFORESAID LEASE AGREEMENT AND SUBLEASE AND GUARANTY AGREEMENT; AND AUTHORIZING THE PROPER OFFICERS OF THE CITY TO TAKE ALL REQUIRED, NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE RELATED ACTION IN CONNECTION WITH SUCH PROJECT AND THE EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF THE LEASE AGREEMENT AND THE SUBLEASE AND GUARANTY AGREEMENT.  MR. DIBILEO: You've heard reading by  title of Item 6-B, what is your pleasure?  MR. POCIUS: Mr. President, I move that  6-B pass reading by title.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? A1l  those in favor, signify by saying aye.  MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.    93  1 2 3 4 5  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed?  MS. EVANS: No.  MR. DIBILEO: By a 4-1 vote, the ayes  have it and so moved.  MR. POCIUS: Just a thought, Mr.  6 President, there was a request to move this ahead, I 7 mean, if there's no support, I'm not going to go  8 9 10 11 12  through making any motion tonight to move this thing ahead. Kay, did anybody follow up on the urgency of  this?  MS. GARVEY: No.  MR. POCIUS: I mean, if nobody is in  13 the position, I'm not going to stick my neck way out 14 and suspend these rules and get in a long debate over 15 why we should or we shouldn't, so are you comfortable 16 to let it go to next week, let them work a little  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  harder if they've got to run it through Harrisburg or whatever. If it goes with the budget, then fine.  MR. DIBILEO: That's fine by me. MR. POCIUS: If it's not going to go,  it's not going to go. I'm not going to :  MR. DIBILEO: In my discussions with  Len Kresefski, who was in our caucus meeting tonight, 24 we talked about this, but he did not bring up the  25  urgency of suspending rules to move it forward tonight.    94  1 2  MR. POCIUS: Well, we were in the  assume position last year, and I don't know when we did  3 it or didn't do it, but :  4  MR. DIBILEO: Doug Hein didn't mention  5 it to me, :  6  MR. POCIUS: It was in Rob's letter,  7 the only reason, but if it's not : I don't want to  8 9 10 11  get into a big long debate over this.  MS. GARVEY: Sally just brought it down  from the law department saying that was in there. I don't know the date in which :- she made it sound like 12 it was maybe by the end of the year and that someone 13 might come forward to pick up this legislation either 14 by the end of this weak to try to get it to the state,  15 but I don't know of a date or anything.  16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. POCIUS: It goes hand and hand with  the budget, sO maybe it's more appropriate that it just goes next week and goes hand and hand with the budget,  is that what everybody thinks?  MR. DIBILEO: Yeah. Okay.  MR. POCIUS: Okay. Fine. Enough said.  Good. Done.  MS. GARVEY: 6-C, READING BY TITLE -  FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 164, 2005 - AN ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE TRANSFER OF A PARCEL OF LAND ACQUIRED    95  1  BY THE CITY THROUGH THE FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT TO 2 THERESA STEVENS AS PARTIAL COMPENSATION FOR THE  3  ACQUISITION OF A PORTION OF THE STEVENS PROPERTY FOR  4 THE LACKAWANNA RIVER FLOOD CONTROL PROJECT.  5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23  MR. DIBILEO: You've heard reading by  title of Item 6-C, what is your pleasure?  MR. POCIUS: Mr. President, I move 6-C  pass reading by title.  MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? A1l  those in favor, signify by saying aye.  MS. EVANS: Aye. MR. MCTIERNAN: Aye MR. POCIUS: Aye. MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.  MR. DIBILEO: Aye. Opposed? The ayes  have it and sO moved.  MS. GARVEY: Seventh order. 7-A, FOR  CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION RESOLUTION NO. 142, 2005 - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO AN AMENDMENT TO THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION TRUST AGREEMENT TO REFLECT MODIFIED FUNDING REQUIREMENT FOR  24 THE RESERVE ACCOUNT.  25  MR. DIBILEO: As chairperson for the    96  1 2 7-A. 3 4 5 6 7  committee on rules, I recommend final passage of Item  MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question?  Just on the question, if you might recall the last time this came up and it was put on hold for some time, the legislation calls for the using of the reserve fund or 8 the reserve account for possible buyouts and to remove people on the Workers' Comp tax rolls, buying them out, 10 sO to speak, and removing them from the rolls, and I  9  11 12 13 14 15 16 17  had concerns then, and I'11 just state now that I hope that these funds used non-politically so that the administration does not determine who will or will not get a buyout and that we hopefully leave that up to the administrator, and in addition to that, that we also implement a workplace safety program, which the  Workers' Compensation Bureau is recommending that we do  18 in conjunction with this legislation.  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  If there's no further questions, roll  call, please, Neil.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius.    97  1 2 3 4 5 6 7  MR. POCIUS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright. MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Yes. I hereby declare  Item 7-A legally and lawfully adopted.  MS. GARVEY: 7-B, FOR CONSIDERATION BY  8 THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION - RESOLUTION NO. 173, 2005 - RE-APPOINTMENT OF DAVID SMITH, 1115 ELECTRIC STREET, SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18509, AS A MEMBER OF THE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN COMMISSION, EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 12, 2005. MR. SMITH'S TERM EXPIRED 13 ON OCTOBER 11, 2005 AND HIS NEW TERM WILL EXPIRE ON  9 10 11 12  14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  OCTOBER 11, 2009.  MR. DIBILEO: As chairperson for the  committee on rules, I recommend final passage of Item  7-B.  MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? Roll  call please, Neil.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius.    98  1 2 3 4 5 6 7  MR. POCIUS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright. MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Yes. I hereby declare  Item 7-B legally and lawfully adopted.  MS. GARVEY: 7-C, FOR CONSIDERATION BY  8 THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION - RESOLUTION NO. 174, 2005 - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A CONTRACT FOR 11 WORKERS COMPENSATION EXCESS INSURANCE FOR A THIRTEEN (13) MONTH POLICY AS SET FORTH IN THE PROPOSAL OF  9 10  12 13 14 15 16 7-C. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  WEXFORD/CNA.  MR. DIBILEO: As chairperson for the  committee on rules, I recommend final passage of Item  MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? Roll  call please, Neil.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius. MR. POCIUS: Yes.    99  1 2 3 4 5 6  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright. MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Yes. I hereby declare  Item 7-C legally and lawfully adopted.  MS. GARVEY: 7-D, FOR CONSIDERATION BY  7 THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION - RESOLUTION NO. 175, 2005 - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A RENEWAL OF 10 THE CITY'S STOP LOSS COVERAGE FOR MAJOR MEDICAL HEALTH  8 9  11 12 13 14 15 16 17  INSURANCE WITH AMERICAN FIDELITY ASSURANCE COMPANY FOR  2006.  MR. DIBILEO: As chairperson for the  committee on rules, I recommend final passage of Item  7-D.  MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? Roll  18 call please, Neil.  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius. MR. POCIUS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.    100  1 2 3 4 5  MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Yes. I - hereby declare  Item 7-D legally and Tawfully adopted.  MS. GARVEY: 7-E, FOR CONSIDERATION BY  6 THE COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - FOR ADOPTION RESOLUTION NO. 176, 2005 - AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND 8 OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A LOAN AGREEMENT AND RELATED DOCUMENTS WITH NORTH SCRANTON PARTNERSHIP, L.P. A PENNSYLVANIA LIMITED PARTNERSHIP FOR THE PURPOSE OF RENOVATION AND  7  9 10 11 12  REHABILITATION OF THE FORMER NORTH SCRANTON JUNIOR HIGH  13 SCHOOL PROPERTY.  14  MR. DIBILEO: What's the recommendation  15 of the chairperson for the committee on community  16 17  development?  MR. MCTIERNAN: I recommend that Item  18 7-E pass by title.  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: On the question? Roll  call, please, Neil.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McTiernan. MR. MCTIERNAN: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. MS. EVANS: Yes.    101  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Pocius. MR. POCIUS: Yes.  MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright. MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes. MR. COOLICAN: Mr. DiBileo.  MR. DIBILEO: Yes. I hereby declare  Item 7-E legally and lawfully adopted.  And seeing no further business on the  agenda, I'11 entertain a motion that we adjourn.  MR. COURTRIGHT: So moved. MR. POCIUS: Seconded.  MR. DIBILEO: We're adjourned.  (MEETING WAS ADJOURNED.)    102  1 2 3 4 5 6 7  CERTIFICALE  - hereby certify that the proceedings and  evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me on the hearing of the above cause and that this copy is a correct transcript of the same  8 to the best of my ability.  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Soa M. sHhaH, RmR  LISA M. GRAFF, RMR Official Court Reporter