County Council - Regular Meeting

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. Please be seated. Ms. Lawrence, when you get settled, could you call roll, please?

Here. Here. Here. Here.

Present.

Here. Here.

Ms. Smith.

Here.

And Mr. Liberto.

I'm present Ms. Lawrence. I was having a hard time hearing your mic.

And Mr. Sabatino?

Here.

All present.

All right. We have two ceremonial proclamations. The first one is the Suicide Prevention Month proclamation. Whereas suicide is a serious public health concern that impacts individuals, families, friends, workplaces, schools, and communities throughout Luzerne County and across the nation, and whereas suicide does not discriminate and can impact individuals of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and socioeconomic groups, reinforcing the importance of prevention efforts that reach every segment of our community, And whereas in 2025, Luzerne County tragically lost 67 residents to suicide, an increase from the 54 lives lost in 2024, underscoring the continued and urgent need for comprehensive suicide prevention, early intervention at education and accessible behavioral health services. And whereas those 67 Luzerne County residents range in age from 16 to 88 years old with an average age of 51, demonstrating that the risk of suicide can exist across the lifespan. And whereas of the 67 Luzerne County residents who died by suicide in 2025, 55 were male, highlighting the importance of ensuring that suicide prevention, education, outreach, and intervention efforts are accessible and responsive to the needs of individuals throughout our community. And whereas behind every statistic is a person, a family member, friend, neighbor, co-worker, or loved one, and every life lost to suicide leaves a lasting impact on families and our entire community. And whereas suicide prevention is a shared community responsibility and increasing awareness of warning signs, risk factors, available resources, and opportunities for intervention can help save lives. And whereas reducing the stigma associated with mental health and substance use challenges encourages individuals to seek assistance and creates opportunities for families, friends, coworkers, and the community members to have and supportive have open and supportive conversations about mental health and suicide. And whereas Luzerne County remains committed to strengthening suicide prevention efforts through education, training, community partnerships, crisis intervention, and increase awareness of resources available to individuals and families. And whereas Individuals experiencing a mental health or suicide related crisis, as well as those concerned about a loved one, can call, text, or chat 988 through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for immediate support. And residents of Luzerne County may also contact the local helpline at 570-829-1341 for assistance and connection to community resources. And whereas Suicide Prevention Awareness Month provides an opportunity to remember those whose lives have been lost to suicide, support families and loved ones who've experienced a suicide loss, recognize those who have survived a suicide attempt or struggle with suicidal thoughts, and remind our community that help and hope are available. Now, therefore, we, the Luzerne County Council, hereby recognize that September 26th as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in Luzerne County, and encourages all residents, organizations, schools, businesses, healthcare providers, first responders, and community partners to join in the efforts to increase awareness, promote prevention, reduce stigma, support those impacted by suicide, and ensure that individuals in need know where and how to seek help. Be it further proclaimed that Luzerne County renews its commitment to fostering a community in which mental health is openly discussed, individuals are encouraged to seek help without fear or shame, families and loved ones know where to turn to for support, and every resident understands that there is hope, help is available, and suicide can be prevented.

Thank you for all the hard work that you do.

would just like to take this opportunity to say that as we talked about 67 lives lost, we as a county are doing so much to improve awareness. So that starts with, I wanna thank council for recognizing suicide prevention month, bringing it to the papers and to the public. I also want to thank County Manager Crocomo for initiating a training for all staff to become suicide awareness aware and how to talk with people who might be experiencing suicidality. And I also want to thank our human resources director, Megan Stone, for bringing departments together and just showing that we as a county are doing so much on suicide prevention, not just like the mental health department, but we as a county as a whole. So we're working with Coroner Fernandez helps us with data so that we could better understand who this is affecting in our county locally, not nationally, but locally. So we could really drill it down and know where to put our resources. So we have that. We're working with Veterans Affairs to train VFW bartenders on suicide prevention and awareness. So I mean, this is just, it's been, the growth in awareness has been spectacular. And I just, you know, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate it. So thank you.

Thank you for everything that you and the Human Services Department do for us and this county. We really appreciate you. County Manager?

Well, Tara left out somebody, and that's herself. Because without her dedication and her knowledge and her commitment, we would not be able to do these things. And it's hard to show and prove that we saved lives, that she saved lives, but I know she has and I wanna thank her and all of the human services staff and our entire staff because we are coming together and we're working as one and that's how it should be.

Give it up for Tara Fox.

Now on to our second proclamation. Whereas on September 25th, 1786, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania carved Luzerne County out of Northumberland County, establishing a seat of government in the Wyoming Valley and bringing order and law to a frontier long contested by competing claims. And whereas the county bears the name of French minister to the United States, whose alliance with the American cause helped secure the independence this county was born into, and whereas Luzerne County once stretched across the northeast reach of the Commonwealth and from its original territory were formed Susquehanna, Bradford, Wyoming, and Lackawanna counties, making Luzerne County the mother county of a region, and whereas Beneath this ground lay the anthracite that heated the nation's homes, forged its steel, and powered its rise as an industrial nation, drawn out by generations of miners whose labor built the Commonwealth and whose organizing built the American labor movement. And whereas the promise of that work to families from Ireland, Wales, Germany, Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and beyond, and whose churches, clubs, kitchens, and neighborhoods remain the living character of this county. And whereas this county has met catastrophe more than once. the Knox Mine disaster, the floodwaters of Agnes, the collapse of the industry that made us and has answered each time not by leaving, but by rebuilding. And whereas in 2010, the citizens of Luzerne County voted to adopt the Home Rule Charter, vesting the legislative power of the county in an elected council, answerable directly to the people and affirming that the residents of this county are the authors of their own governments, And whereas today more than 325,000 residents call Luzerne County home, living in cities, boroughs, and townships that stretch from the back mountain to Hazleton Highlands, sustained by the same qualities that carried this county through its first two centuries, hard work, faith, family, and an unyielding attachment to this place. Now, therefore, we, the Luzerne County Council, does hereby proclaim September 25th, 2026, as Luzerne County Day, in recognition of the 240th anniversary of the founding of Luzerne County and calls upon all residents to reflect on the generations who built this county to honor the institutions that serve it and to commit themselves to the work of its next 240 years. Any managers?

If I could just make a few comments. The chair and the vice chair asked me to read that, but I didn't do really well in French class, so I passed on that. But I just want to remind everyone that there will be a celebration on September 25th at 7 p.m. at the beautiful Kirby Center, one of our architectural gems. Tickets can be purchased through the Northeastern PA Philharmonic or from the Kirby Center. Tickets start $16 for students and $24 for adults. That'll play on 240. And the music will be Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and Lincoln Portrait. There will be a dance performance and we will have special guest performance by our native daughter and Broadway star Celia Hatenstein and her I don't know if it's her husband or her boyfriend, Travis Tabor. And there will be Gracie Jane Sinclair, who was the winner of the Battle of the Bands. And there will be some other surprises that evening. And earlier in the day, if you are affiliated with any schools in the area, we'll be doing a performance and a talk to area students from surrounding schools in Lucerne County. So I hope to see everyone there to celebrate our beautiful, strong, rugged, and wonderful county.

Thank you, County Manager.

And if I may add one other event, which we'll be having on Friday, It marks 25 years ago that the country was struck in a way that could have divided us. And it did the opposite that day. In the hours and the days that followed, there were no strangers, only neighbors running toward one another to help one another. So on Friday, September 11th in the rotunda, we will gather to remember the lives lost, honor the first responders who ran into the smoke, honor our first responders, and recommit ourselves to the unity that carried this nation through its darkest morning. We are one community. We are one county. We are one people. That truth did not end on September 12, 2001. It does not belong to any one of us alone. So bring your families, bring your neighbors, come as you are. You are welcome, whoever you are, and stand together as we always have. We will begin our remembrance at 8.30 in the county courthouse rotunda.

Thank you, County Manager. Attorney Scheme, will you... Attorney Scheme, will you announce the executive session?

Yes, before this meeting today, we held an executive session to discuss a litigation matter that is going to mediation soon.

Thank you. Are there any deletions from tonight's voting session agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt? I have one, Mr. Chair.

Go ahead. Could we please delete number, where are we at here? Sorry, item number four, a motion to adopt. to examine potential location for drop boxes. We don't have any say in that. That's strictly an election board responsibility. So I move that we delete that. Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Nay. Nay. We're going to have to do a roll call. Ms. Lawrence, will you do a roll call vote on this, please?

Mr. Bellis?

No.

Mr. Kozlet? No. Mr. Haas?

Yes, to remove.

Ms. Krishnowsky?

No.

Mr. Lombardo? Mr. Lombardo? Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? No. Miss Smith. Well, Councilman Haas is right. We can't tell the election board to do anything. We certainly can suggest it. So absolutely not. Ms. Stevenson. No. Ms. Williams. No. Mr. Lombardo. And Mr. Sabatino.

No.

We have two yes and no. Eight, no, so, or nine, no, so it does not get removed.

No, we don't have it. We have eight nos. Eight, that's what I said. Two yes.

One, I don't know where he's at.

One did not vote. All right. Any other deletions? Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt the agenda?

I make a motion. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? The agenda's adopted. Now we'll move on to public comment. Mr. Griffith, you're the first up that I have.

Thank you. I think back in February when we abolished the ability to read public emails into the record, there was announcement made that all emails that are submitted to this council are going to be announced at this meeting prior to public comment. That hasn't been done. I don't know why the bylaws aren't being followed. But that amendment was made by Mr. Bellis to our bylaws to eliminate the reading of these minutes or these letters from the public. There's several letters out there on the internet that should be announced that they were submitted out to my public comment issue. is number two, the motion to introduce an ordinance. I think we need to have a moratorium on LERDAs in the county until we figure out the idea of what we need to do with LERDAs. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people in this county that are losing their homes because they can't pay their taxes, yet we're giving tax abatements to big corporations. I don't think that's right. I think maybe the money that we make from a LERDA, we can use to offset the property tax to give people a different rate on their property tax in general. based on the fact that there are certain properties that have now started paying taxes to this county who were never paying it before. Maybe that needs to be the situation. And I know it's to be introduced, and I certainly believe that the alert should be a moratorium. There should be that on there. And there's other comments I'll make on that under public comment under the next part of the agenda. And item number four, There's a motion to the for the resolution of the drop boxes. I don't know if there's any proof anywhere that Southern Lutheran County is benefiting by having a drop box abroad Street exchange. I know there are some people that use that drop box. But is it beneficial to the amount of vote mail in ballots that are submitted to the county in proportion to the amount of people use that drop box is be very interesting analysis to make on that drop box. I don't believe it's proportional. for the amount of people down in Hazleton that use the southern part of the county that would use that benefit. So why do we wanna put more in number one? And number two, it's not something that's authorized by the state. I'm really having a problem with drop boxes being put in without authorization. Two of the letters that were sent to council from two people that said that drop boxes are really important. It's interesting if you look at the history and I sent it to council, the one person who said drop boxes are so important doesn't even vote. He voted once. Whether it's a Dropbox or not doesn't help his ability to vote. He hasn't even voted. The other person that voted always has an absentee and always sends it in by mail, never uses a Dropbox. Those people are saying we need Dropboxes, but they don't use them. So I don't understand the need for a Dropbox. I strongly urge this council not to even go forward with that, even though you have no say in it anyway. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Mr. Iches. Do you have a comment on an agenda item? Yes, I do. Go for it. For the record, your name and your municipality, please.

Nate Eaches, Butler Township. Thank you. I have a comment on agenda item number two on the LERDAs. So I just want to give context. In Salem Township last year, Salem Township supervisor signed NDAs with data center developers QTS and Amazon. Then he resigned at the end of 2025. And keep in mind, he's still a Baja Berwick Joint Sewer Authority board member. And then also recently at a similar meeting. So basically what I'm trying to say is, These NDAs are covering up for pollution. So if you vote this LERDA through today, you're voting for pollution. Let me tell you why. Amazon already approved 29 million gallons of diesel a year over at the Salem site per year. And I had a rights now request. They're ignoring the federal 10 mile EPZ, nuclear federal regulated zone. I live in that 10 mile radius. There's 27 communities and 67,000 people that live in that zone. They've approved 258,000 gallons from Baja for sewage water for data centers for sewage water. There's already PFAS contamination in sewage water. And then when they use it to cool the data centers, it becomes more PFAS contaminated. So if you vote this through, has anybody been to a Salem Township meeting, by the way? Because they just tried to approve 4,000 acres. They tried to lock the doors on people and approve this vote. Has anybody been there? Well, there was eight plaintiffs. Four were Salem Township residents. A lot of people were locked out. They used police force to turn people away. And they tried to approve this 4,000 acres. Has anybody been there? I haven't seen it. And I'm just going to challenge every one of you. Because if you vote this through, you're approving pollution. They've approved 200 acres. 200,000 gallons of water a day. Some from the river, some from Berwick, PA American Water, Berwick, from Berwick. These are Berwick's, these are residents of Berwick. And they've been getting thrown out for not being able to speak in Salem Township. Non-taxpayers got thrown out. That's Berwick's. All Salem Township residents and children go to school in Berwick. So this is what's going on. And before this, LERDA, if you want to give, they better earn it and prove it. Meta just poisoned water in Wyoming. Meta in Georgia, they're suing them in Georgia. And also in Oregon, Amazon just polluted and they had to pay out $20 million for a settlement for nitrates from what? From data centers. So we want to rush in here and none of the councilmen have been to Salem, have been to Hazel where they chopped down 1,200 acres and the project got denied at the local level? We better wake up a little bit. And I challenge every one of you to go to these meetings and see if they're run fairly. Because I was one of those plaintiffs in that case where they locked the doors and the cops told me to turn. They turned me away. The cops and police turned me away. And I said, that's a Sunshine Act violation, sir.

And he blew me off like I was a nobody anyway. So this is what's going on.

And I challenge all of you to do better and vote no for number two. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Reaches. Next up, we have Annie Venetieri. Ms. Venetieri, please.

Good evening, Annie Venetieri, Sugarloaf. Good evening, Chairman Sabatino and Council. I am speaking in reference to agenda item two as well, motion to introduce procedures regarding LERTA tax abatements. And I do commend you for beginning and continuing this critical ordinance process.

I'd like to preface with that.

but I'd also like to drop a few truths. Just over a year ago, citizens, some of us are here tonight, brought up serious concerns with the state of LERTA tax abatements in Luzerne County. Not long after this, John Augustine of the development sector in Northeast PA was invited and given over one full hour to speak regarding the importance of them stating, quote, why wouldn't you judge and negotiate each on its merits without handicapping the process from the beginning? Council risks adopting a one size fits all policy that will limit its own statutory flexibility and scare away potential investors. Anytime that you do development, you get people that are for it and against it. It's a double-edged sword, he said. Do we want to pay more taxes and not have development? That's the other answer, end quote. This bait and switch approach of shifting responsibility to the residents and rate payers and taxpayers for not being more welcoming of his brand of development, and by the way, some would say gross overdevelopment that heavily favors warehousing, logistics, and data centers, is very telling. In the time since then, to my knowledge, not one community stakeholder has been meaningfully included in this conversation. We get our measly three minutes clocked, but we get to live with the fallout of the developers and their lobbyist actions indefinitely. While I think this is a solid start, I noticed that there are some things going on with this. Some of the wording, I believe, lacks teeth. And so I challenge you to work on that as it seems that you will in the work session. One of those things is near the end of the proposed ordinance, the wording says that council may request a developer presentation. Why is this not an imperative? It should be an imperative. Also, nowhere is it stipulated that any of the economic or other analyses that they want performed, that you are requesting be performed, be done by a neutral third party. This also seems to be a glaring weakness and I challenge you to improve the language there. There needs to be more robust language about determining and analyzing the definition of deteriorated land, which of course is one of the prerequisites for something being qualifying for a LERDA tax abatement. Do you know what is happening, and I'll reflect a little bit of Mr. Eaches' comments, what's happening in Salem Township right now? Much of that land has been approved for LERDAs on data center sites, property that was up until very recently perfectly livable and farmable and forested, I might add. to the tune of about 7,500 acres when they finish getting all the zoning overlays, the probably contract zoning stuff that's going on there. And that should stop you right in your tracks. Or how about in Hazel Township where Amazon and North Point's Project Hazelnut has been declared mine scarred? which got alerted and nearly 1,000 acres of virgin forest were cleared in the name of progress. And I will also add, this is not just your fault by approving these LERDAs, but I also, this shows a major DEP failure. I'm over my three minutes. Thank you so much. I think the residents of Luzerne County deserve better. I hope that you'll consider what I've said tonight. Thank you.

Do you want me to mark you down for three minutes at the end? Sure. Great. You can finish up then. Thank you. No problem. Next up, we have Mr. Zolo of Sugarloaf. Mr. Zolo. If whatever you hand us is going on the website, it's public. Do you? Okay, no problem.

John Zola, Sugarloaf. So guys, first of all, I want to thank you all for tending to the LERDA matter. This is what I'm here to talk about. You all know how important it is to me, obviously. And to see you addressing it at this point in time makes me very, very happy. And the ordinance has some really good stuff in it. I think it's a really good start. But what I handed you tonight, I just ask you in the work session or when you have time to read it over. These are some things that I think would really enhance this ordinance. I mean, I've been living this stuff for two years now, so I kind of know what's important to the people. I think once you read it over, you'll see there's some really, really good things in here that you could add to this ordinance to make it a little bit more solid and address some things that may be haven't been addressed. Some of the stuff that I have for my recommendations, you do actually touch on, but maybe I enhanced it a little bit. And other stuff you guys didn't touch on, and I'm bringing it to your attention. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zola. Next up, we have Cynthia Dorzynski, Ms. Dorzynski, please state your name and municipality for the record.

Cynthia Dorzynski, Wilkes-Barre Township, Luzerne County. This also has to do with Florida. I just wanted to say to Mr. Sabatino and Vice Chair, Brittany Stevenson and members of council, thank you and applaud Chair Sabatino and all the others who decided it was time to create a consistent system that puts guardrails and accountability in place to protect the taxpayers and make sure development is done the right way and ensures projects deliver real benefits to local residents. I believe the application requirements that are in this LERDA ordinance to be discussed are necessary and ask that special attention be made to all safety concerns, whether by increased traffic generated by the LERDA project or its impact on the residents during and after construction, while making sure that municipalities involved are not overwhelmed. Public safety is not jeopardized, especially emergency management departments. I would also like to suggest that it be mandatory to require a public presentation by the applicant prior to any consideration for LERDA. For too long, it seemed LERDA was not fair to the taxpayers. It was a tax giveaway to the developers, while the taxpayer has seen shifted burdens Their taxes go up and up with delayed public tax revenue and the community's infrastructure potentially being negatively impacted without careful thought and upfront compensation. But I'm really appreciative of this council, all of its time and diligence and all of you and your council's clerks hard work and making this county a better place to live. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, I have a slip here for Miss Phyllis Hopkins. But I'm not sure did you want to speak now for an agenda item? Please go ahead name and municipality for the record.

Good evening, Phyllis Hopkins, Pittston. I'm here about the drop boxes, and I'm hoping that you will consider. I know you say that we have no say, but I would like to say some of the things that I've experienced in 2024 election. First of all, I take my dad, who's 85, and my uncle Louie, Louie Pace, who's 94, and I drive them to the Luzerne County, I don't know which way it is, borough to vote, to drop off their mail-in ballots because unfortunately we cannot trust the mail anymore. And I do have those reasons right here. So they are subjected to going through security and all that, which is great. And thank God there are helpful people that do help him, help both of them when they come. Also, I have witnessed, I witnessed 200 people in Pittston never return their mail-in ballots. Now, I think that's a high number of people from one place. Also something that happened in the Luzerne County elections was that polling places were moved five weeks before an election. And okay, so I'm the third district chair of the Democratic Party and Harris won in 2024 by 39 votes. Normally Biden, Clinton before those in the presidential elections won by hundreds. Isn't it funny how there's 200 missing? And where did they go? Did they vanish into thin air? Did they die? 200 people died in, you know, where are these mail-in ballots? I also work at the Pittston Memorial Library, and there was a drop box there, which we've never had a problem with, no matter what people say. There's a camera on it. The sheriffs come and got it. Now, I know some of the excuses that people used were, well, you know, drop boxes were never in the Constitution. They were just there for emergency. Well, you don't think we're in emergency now when we have a president that's attacking our postal system. You don't think that's an emergency?

So, I'll get my glasses.

So he elected, well, I'm sorry, appointed Louis DeJoy, the postmaster. His immediate operational cutback, where there were immediate operational cutbacks in the summer of 2020, elimination of extra delivery tips. Previously, if mail sorting ran behind trucks, wait a second, or have a second late trip to ensure the mail went out. Dejore required trucks to leave strictly unscheduled even if they were empty or leaving sorted mail behind. Overtime restrictions. Strict limits were placed on employee overtime, leaving local post offices understaffed to handle mail backlogs. Equipment removal.

This is my favorite.

That's it?

Your time is up.

Oh, man.

Well, thank you.

All right. Now this one I can't read your writing. So Sherry Bangle. If you could please say your name and municipality for the record and spell it.

My name is Sherry Brick B R Y K. And I'm a resident of DuPont. I want to thank Council for, I guess, trying to have a discussion about additional drop boxes. We know that voting is a right. It's essential to a well functioning democracy. And it's enshrined in the Constitution. It is a right. It is not a privilege. A government of the people, by the people, for the people, requires participation by the people. And one way, the most important way, is being able to vote. I would hope anyone in support of this right, our democracy and our Constitution, would agree that voting should be easy and accessible. to anyone who wants to participate. And we also must recognize that not everyone is the same. Not everyone has the same life. Not everyone has the same abilities. Not everyone has the same support as others. Those who are ill, elderly, disabled, People who do not have transportation available. And there are many. In my neighborhood in DuPont, where I grew up and lived the majority of my life, those ladies on the block, they never drove.

They never drove.

Maybe that was a sign of the times. I don't know. But not everyone drives. Not everyone has the ability to drive. and not everyone could afford a car and not everyone can afford gas. So thinking about, it's really not a big deal to drive from Avoca, DuPont, Pittston to downtown Wilkes-Barre with limited hours is not really easy and it sure is not accessible. And with the threat of mail-in voting who knows what the outcome will be. I personally lost faith in the postal system when it came to my ballot. I was the woman screaming from the rooftops for everyone in my world to make sure they were going to vote. And here I was, my ballot never came. I called and called. I left my job in music. to drive down to try to vote in person because they kept saying my ballot was coming. I waited in the building for eight hours. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone can miss work to drive or miss work to drop off their ballot. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up. Yeah. Everybody can have another three minutes later at the end of the meeting for non agenda items. Mr. Troy, Sam Troy. Mr. Troy name and municipality for the record. Sam.

Sam Troy from City of Wilkes-Barre. Not proud of it, but anyway, I want to address number two, the LRTA. I'm glad that council finally has, to some small extent at least, seen the light on this issue. I challenge council to do some research on the last, on all the letters that have been granted, let's say in the past 12 months, And what benefit? I, by the way, agree 100% with what Mr. Walter Griffith said before. There should be a moratorium on all learners. And I'm glad they're addressing this and trying to put stipulations on them. But if you do any research, I would like to see what benefits those learners have bestowed on the population in general and the taxpayers. And as far as economic development or jobs created, Right now, maybe somebody can enlighten me on this issue, but I don't think there are any stipulations right now. When you grant a LERDA, let's say to this Mr. Tam Barrow up here, very, as I could see it, very unconscientious developer. When you granted that LERDA to develop that property up by the nursing home, I went to the school board meeting, the Wilkes-Barre school board meeting, and the school board members were falling all over themselves to grant that LERDA as well. He had to get the LERDA from three places, right? The school district, the township, and from you guys, the county, and he got it. But were any of you aware that he was going to develop that land? You could see, if you come off exit one on this Cross Valley Expressway at the top when you're going to the Woodlands or the Casino, If you look up there on the hill by Route 81, I don't know if any of you are aware of this. The whole mountain has been raked. It's barren by this Mr. Tambaro for us. What I understand it to be a mall. I'm all in some apartments. I don't know what the whole, but it's massive. I mean, you don't have to be a radical environmentalist, I don't think, to look and see what the destruction, the impact of the ramifications that destruction is. My question to you is when you granted that lawyer to him to develop, I thought it was just the land around the nursing home, some street redesigning and so forth. But from what I found out from the solicitor at the Wilkes-Barre School Board, there were no limits to what he could do. And he took down, he slammed that whole mountain, loss of watershed land, loss of wildlife land for them, for God knows how many, you know, and we're in whether you want to believe it or not, a terrible climate change syndrome where we need all the watershed and all the trees we can. And there must, I don't know how many, I mean, some of you may have seen it, but if you haven't seen it, you should go up and look. And if that is within the parameters of that lawyer, you're granted a shame on you for not knowing what the limitations, and this should be worked in. If you're going to address this issue, what kind of stipulations, what kind of limitations conditions that should should we be should be written into the lawyer when you before you grant it some and especially environmental regulations, well, environmental stipulations, because I'll tell you what is happening up there is a disgrace. I mean, it hurts.

It hurts when you look at it. Anyone else from the audience tonight? Mr. grantee?

Joe Granteed playing sound chip. It's amazing that the majority that controls drop boxes are the same people. They want to remove 9000 names from the radical petition and keep the American Pennsylvanians and Luzerne County voters from their voices being heard. It's the same party that unanimously voted against the Save America Act. that secures elections by having people prove that they're American citizens and that they're registered to vote. I have no faith or confidence in the integrity of Luzerne County Election Bureau, board, or this council.

Anyone else from the audience tonight? I see one hand up, Mr. Masekera.

Sorry about that. Can you hear me, Mr. Chairman?

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Masekera.

All right. Dave Masekera, Kingston.

Name and municipality?

Yeah, Dave Masekera, Kingston. So since LERDAs are on tonight's agenda, I just want to go back in time a little bit. Last year, there was a big LERDA approval that- Can you speak up, please? Oh, I'm so sorry.

Can you hear me? Much better.

Okay. Last year, LERDAs were on the agenda last year. And that was when Council was Councilman Lombardo, who he voted for the LERDA. And when Council was considering a moratorium on new tax breaks, In Southern Luzerne County, he was quoted as saying, all development is good development. That's important context because now Councilman Lombardo, who is running for state representative, is sounding the alarm about a potential hyperscale AI data center in neighboring Lackawanna County. He's telling people to be paying attention. He's raising concerns about residential land, woodlands, electrical infrastructure, effects on surrounding communities and transparency. And I agree with him on one thing. People should be paying attention. But Councilman Lombardo, where was that philosophy when Luzerne County was considering these tax incentives? When it was our county, we heard all development is good development. When it's Lackawanna County, suddenly we need scrutiny, transparency, and a serious discussion about the consequences. So as council discusses Lourdes tonight, I think taxpayers deserve a clear answer. Is all development good development? Or should council actually examine what taxpayers are giving up? what permanent jobs we're getting, and what impacts residents will be left with. You can't tell Luzerne County that all development is good development and then warn Lackawanna County to watch out for the consequences of development. The power grid doesn't recognize the county line. Neither should transparency. And whether Councilman Lombardo is sitting up here tonight, or on Zoom not voting, or asking voters to send him to Harrisburg, Luzerne County residents deserve the same concern and scrutiny he is now demanding for our neighbors. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Claude, go ahead.

Thank you.

You will have no problem hearing me. My name is Andrea Glott, and I'm from Wilkes-Barre. And thank you. I'm sorry I marked it wrong. Just recently, Donald Trump said a true thing. He said, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You know that, right? So if you're away, we have an exception. If you're in the military, we have an exception. If you're on a business trip, we have an exception. If you're disabled, we have an exception. And if you're ill or if you're not feeling good, we have an exception. All true. But what Trump didn't seem able to understand is that many of those exceptions don't happen on schedule. I have worked lots of campaigns, several of yours. Here's what I hear when I talk to people on the phone about voting. My daughter just got called to work and I have to watch the baby. Somebody got sick and I have to go into work. I fell, and the doctor says, I have to stay off my foot for two weeks. And that list goes on. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and I'm going to say that every one of you sitting at these tables know that those things are true. So yes, citizens need access to ballots delivered to their homes. Should they prefer, or if they are able, they can return that ballot and they can vote in person. Or for whatever reason they can't vote, there's all kinds of help. There's declarations of need, there's designed agent forms, there's alternative ballots. What we do need are more drop boxes, especially since the current administration has gone out of its way to cause some distrust in the mail service. And so I'm hoping that you people will make a decision tonight to advise that the election board make that decision because two drop boxes in the entire Luzerne County is stupid. Thank you.

Next up we have Megan Coker. Ms. Coker, please unmute yourself.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm not going to take much of your time tonight.

I just want to speak up a little bit. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes.

My name is Megan Coker. I live in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, Plymouth Borough. I just wanted to jump on and express support for your agenda item to consider more drop boxes across the county. While I do know that this ultimately will fall on the BOE, I'm very thankful that the county council is considering it. It's 2026. We need to make it easier for people to vote, and drop boxes offer a secure location for people to return their mail-in ballots, which we know is a secure form of voting. So thank you very much for considering that. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything goes, and I hope we can make it easier for Luzerne County residents to vote this year. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have J.N. Please unmute yourself. Go ahead, J.N. Hear me? name and municipality, please.

Yes, my name is Jane. I'm also I'm from Pittston. I'm calling about the drop boxes do as someone who regularly uses drop boxes to place my mail and ballot. I strongly support not only their continued use, but placing additional drop boxes throughout the county. Luzerne County is geographically large, and not everyone has reasonable access to use utilizing the safe way of delivering their ballot. Adding more drop boxes will give more people the opportunity to utilize them, which everyone deserves. Drop boxes have been proven safe and are more popular than ever. Not only does using a mail-in ballot allow people time to research candidates by studying the ballot and properly deliver our votes to the box on a day that is more convenient, but it also could potentially give the county time to collect and sort the ballots to be counted. I also suggest that you recommend that mail-in ballots be allowed to be counted ahead of time so that the results can be added to the voting totals on election day and without the stress of rushing. We need to be encouraging people to vote and make it easier and more efficient. Dropboxes are a logical addition to enabling us to exercise the right to vote. Finally, whatever happened to the hours and hours of Dropbox monitoring videos that were released to Ben Herring? apparently the conspiracy theories around these boxes being used for voter fraud did not show up on any of the footage meanwhile the naysayers added yet another huge expense that was inflicted on the county my thanks to county council for taking this issue up again and for all your efforts to move louisville county forward despite the noise from the fear-mongering minority thanks thank you next up we have joe fiorello coker

Please unmute yourself, Mr. Coker.

Hello, Council. Can you hear me?

Speak up and municipality.

Hello, Council. My name is Joe Fiorello-Coker. I'm a resident of Plymouth Borough. I just wanted to come on and say that I am in support of Council's ordinance to try to expand access to drop boxes within Luzerne County. I would like to echo the sentiments of a lot of people that spoke tonight and say that adding more drop boxes makes it easier for a lot more people in this county to vote. And as Americans, we all have the right to vote. right to get our vote counted. And by adding more drop boxes into the county, we will be expanding access for everyone that lives here in Missouri County. Thank you, Council, for your work on this.

Thank you. That appears to conclude our public comments for the first part of tonight. Moving on to our agenda items. Number one, motion to adopt the minutes of the August 25th, 2026 voting session. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, abstentions? That passes. Number two, motion to introduce an ordinance establishing procedures for county participation in local economic revitalization tax assistance LERTA programs. Motion. Second. Okay, roll call, please.

On the question. It's a motion to introduce there isn't. Oh, okay. All right, no problem.

No, no problem at all.

No problem.

I promise we're going to talk plenty about this in the work session. Roll call, please.

Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslett? Yes. Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Kruschnowski?

Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes, with obviously more discussion. Ms. Simmons?

Yes. Ms. Smith?

To introduce, yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Passes 10-0. It's introduced.

Okay. Next up, we have the automatic introduction of the ordinance establishing penalties for real property owners for failure to comply with 68 PA 2502 related to maintenance of county property contact information list. County Manager?

I will be introducing that ordinance. establishing penalties for real property owners for failure to comply with 60 APACS Section 2502 related to the maintenance of a county property contact information list.

Thank you. We will discuss that more in the work session as well. Number four, a motion to adopt a resolution of the Luzerne County Council requesting that the Luzerne County Election Board of Elections Luzerne County Board of Elections examined potential locations for additional drop boxes for the 2026 general election. So moved.

Second.

Okay, roll call please. I'd like to make an amendment, Mr. Chair.

If we could, council, please go to page 18 of 124. It's the second section entitled Considerations. Page 18, yeah. So just for the edification of the public, it currently reads section two considerations and conducting it's an examination, the County Council respectfully requests that the Board of Elections consider geographic accessibility for voters throughout the County, security and operational feasibility, the costs associated with salvage maintain additional equations and compliance with applicable federal and Pennsylvania law. If we could add after the word feasibility installation of round-the-clock monitored flock cameras to that since we're taking a look at and we want to increase the security and operational feasibility. I think that would make a whole lot of sense. The installation of round-the-clock monitored flock cameras. The issue in the past with the existing ones is that one of the citizens volunteered to monitor and that was declined at the time. And I myself in 2002, my father and I were dropping off our ballots. And I myself saw somebody drop off five ballots, vote harvesting, ballot harvesting, it happens. And I think if we're really serious about this, the other half, I think we're talking past each other on this a lot. I understand the convenience, but half the county, half the country is very concerned with fraud. And it is a real thing.

Is there a second on the amendment? From me.

Came from me.

Nope. No second on the amendment. All right. Any other discussion on this? Mr. McDermott.

I believe that there will be enough votes to pass this. I will be voting against it, but again, I will pass these concerns on to the election board. Obviously the cost is brought in there, but cost per box, all the associated costs. Any problems that we have with the existing two boxes? I know there was an issue maybe two elections ago where the pictures, something about they weren't being recorded I believe that has been corrected and I don't know if we've had any other issues since, but of course, that's a big concern to make sure that there are no issues with the existing boxes or possibly new ones, because we paid a lot of money for them. So obviously the cost is very important. One thing I would request as well is what is the return rate? So drop box ballots versus the USPS mail. How many do we get from the drop box? How many do we get per mail? And ultimately and ideally, we want the legislature to address this issue, to set the law so that all counties can be uniform. so that it's not left up to each county trying to make this decision and constantly arguing about it. We've asked the legislature to do this before. They haven't done it. It needs to be done. Someone had mentioned about people not being able to get to the Dropbox or to even a polling station. There is the designated form, and I know that was mentioned, but there is the designated form that you are able to fill out and take with you to return someone's ballot. And that's the proper way that the county has set up, but that's something that can be printed out and you could take anyone's ballot. I know it's important for everyone's ballot to be returned. You can't ask questions right now. um for the ballots that are not being returned both parties have this issue people request them they don't fill them out they don't return them i mean you could call the people and ask them why they don't but it it happens believe me to both parties and it's a shame because if you're not going to go to the ballot to to the polling station to vote in person and you have this option why do you request a ballot and not return it it's laziness And if someone doesn't drive, they still need a ride to that drop box to drop it off unless you get the designated form. So if someone doesn't drive, and they're going to return the ballot, they still need a ride. Designated forms do help that. And that's the proper way to do it if anybody's going to do it so that it is not considered valid parts harvesting. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, if I may. I mean, we debated this years ago, which drop boxes weren't a thing in Pennsylvania until 2019. On October 31st, trick or treat, legislature passed some facsimile of this. And then I don't know how they had the crystal ball, the COVID hit. So there was a need to do mail-in balloting. And that was the proper place for an emergency situation. I agree with my colleague that the state legislature truly has to act, and they just have really dropped the ball on this issue. This created a problem that we didn't have because I think that the discussion now, we were talking past each other. This is now morphed into a question of convenience by and large over going up and showing up in place in person. We've had a solution for this for 60-some years. We've had absentee balloting. And I looked it up here. Since 1957, the Constitution has allowed it. And it became law. And it said in cases, aside from the military and other situations like that, it came up in cases of unavoidable absence or physical disability, which means elderly people that can't get around. Somebody spoke to that. It means people that have a job conflict. It doesn't say out of convenience. And we've got to understand a lot of people that spoke about this very issue tonight are very involved politically. They're involved in campaigns. They know how the game works. And trust me, it is a game that this mail-in balloting has changed our elections for the worse. Have you all, and I'm talking to people here, the people at home, have you received an inordinate amount of mail, political mail, if you're a voter in the past several years? Yes, you have. Because what this has done now, it has monetized our election so much that candidates with a bigger bankroll can go out and they can really get the word out and flood your inbox and go after those low information voters, just like my colleague said. Some people... aren't excited to vote. That's just the way it is. It's nothing sinister. They just don't want to in many cases. Sometimes people can't. I couldn't vote one year. I got the COVID. I wasn't able to vote. I didn't vote. Okay, but I got the COVID. I don't want to go and bring that to anybody else. So we have our own people. Governor Wolf violated his own law in 2020. His wife dropped off his mail-in ballot. He broke the law. The governor of Pennsylvania broke the law. we keep on doing these little these little bites of this apple that it's just causing division it's causing a lot of time i don't mind hearing from people but here we are 45 minutes to a meeting that this isn't even our purview it's already been established that the board of elections has the final say on this which i also disagree with that but that's what's been decided you know we we keep on talking about these divisions in america well On election day, you go and you talk to people from different parties, from different persuasions, and you talk it out and you see each other as you gleefully cast your ballot. Well, that is going away with mail-in balloting. In a republic, which we are, we're a constitutional democratic republic, the rule of law stands. And there's no rule of law. This has been a mishmash of executive orders and Supreme Court cases. This is not codified law. And I do. I fault the legislature for their inaction. We keep on seeing this time and again. Somebody who's after John LeBarn, maybe he can help fix it if he goes to Harrisburg. I don't know. But regardless, I keep on seeing this. This doesn't help us. This discussion, this doesn't help anybody. It was even asked, I asked at the time, if somebody dies between mailing their ballot and election day, I said, who? Who brings that case? Who challenges that? And the question at the time was, well, it'll figure itself out. It doesn't. There's these little nuances out there that I understand. People want the convenience. They want to be able to vote for whatever reason. I get that. I don't want to disenfranchise anybody, but we've always had that. You have to show up on election day. Sometimes it's not convenient. Being an American isn't convenient. You have to participate. You have to show up sometimes. You have to show up. You have to go after work or before work in between, taking your kids to practice. That's what we do. We're Americans here. We're not couch sitters. I'm without words because I don't think the other side of this argument understands the real concern half the country has that this opens up to ballot harvesting. It's happened in other states. I just keep on coming back to these arguments, but I'm wasting my time because I know where this is going tonight. And again, it's not even our purview. But I guess I'll leave with this, that people don't trust the mail because they don't trust the federal agency. But now we're going to put our trust in the state or the local government. In years past, you could drop your ballot off at the post office, and it was there. They had it at the post office. It didn't go anywhere. You drop it off yourself right here in Wilkes-Barre. I don't know, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry for taking everybody's time because this is going to be a vote. But I just hope that people of the other persuasion can really see where I'm coming from. It is a concern for a lot of people. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Haas. Mr. Bellows and Ms. Williams.

So I just wanted to say, as far as the considerations go, I'm a little shy about giving it. any consideration to the poor just because i don't think we should tell them how they should consider or what they should consider but i'm very shy about considering and this is not this is not a dig at you whatsoever but i just want to go on i just want to go on the record as saying that i am vehemently against um flock cameras in general um and I am too. But I certainly wouldn't want people to have to endure the, I would say, probably First Amendment and possibly other amendment issues just to go and place their ballot in a dropbox. So I mean, I don't like them when they take your license plate as you drive by them on the side of the road. I don't like them when you park in in a parking spot and they know who you are and where you were and, and all of that. And I certainly wouldn't want, um, you know, to, to put people through that when they go to vote, but that's my two cents. And, um, you know, everything else, uh, considered, I think, you know, politically, this is one where the R's believe one way that these believe the other way. Um, but there are, uh, a lot more of the D's, uh, than the R's. So I think that, You know that's just the way that this goes right now, you know. Elections have consequences is sort of the bottom line on it.

All right, this Williams and this Stevenson.

Well, first I I kind of take offense to be caught being called or any mail ballot user being called a couch sitter. I think that's almost, to me, it sounds like discrimination. The progress, the only sure thing is change. And things happen, elections advance and things change. And a third, almost a third of the residents of Luzerne County vote by mail. that's a significant amount of residents who vote by mail. So I certainly want to support them just as much as I'd want to support those who prefer to go to the poll. And I'm not going to call them any names for going to the poll or do anything like that. But I totally disagree that mail ballots have made elections worse. And I think making something easier and more convenient, what is wrong with that? I just don't understand how you can say making something convenient is wrong. And I think that's good. I think that's the way you would want anything to be, not just elections, but anything. I want to go back, though, to Councilman Bellis' comment just now about Republicans and Democrats disagree on this. It wasn't the case with Act 77 when mail ballots came in. The Democrats were the ones down in Harrisburg who did not vote overwhelmingly for this. It was all of the Republicans who wanted mail ballots. And the reason why, because the compromise was to end straight ticket voting. That was the loss. And the Democrats didn't really want to lose that. So it passed overwhelmingly by the Republicans is that that's how it went through act 77. So what I'd like to do, the last thing I'd like to do is propose an amendment to this under section one examination of potential ballot drop locations, page 18. At the very end of that paragraph, I would also like to add that the Bureau of that the Board of Elections look into the possibility of relocating the Broad Street Exchange ballot drop box back to the Hazelton City Hall. And the reason I'm proposing that is because I've been to where both were are where the one is and the where the Broad Street Exchange boxes is very difficult to find. I had a really hard time finding it when I went to look for it when it was first put in. And when it was in the Hazleton City Hall, it was so much more accessible. The parking was better, as good as parking can be in the Hazleton City area, and it And it was upstairs initially then it had to move downstairs and see how the upstairs location was very, very. Well traveled very accessible and my understanding is that that is could be a possibility and. So I would just like them to look into the possibility of that. And maybe the numbers are low in Hazleton because it is so difficult to find and there isn't much of an awareness of it being in that building.

Is there a second for this amendment?

I'll definitely second that amendment. I do believe the drop box in Hazleton is not the most accessible to the public. And I think placing it back in Hazleton City Hall would be a phenomenal suggestion for the board.

Okay. Roll call, please.

Mr. Coslett?

Yes.

Mr. Haas? Yes.

Ms. Grishnowski? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Well, since we already have a Hazleton location, I would say easy accessibility is important, so yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Beallis? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Yeah.

I didn't hear you calling. All right. So that amendment passes. Back to the original question, Ms. Stevenson.

I'm going to call the order.

All the question. All right.

Question. My apologies. Thank you.

They're okay with the people that made the initial motion in second. Still good with that amendment. Okay, great. Roll call, please.

Mr. Haas?

No.

Ms. Krishnowsky? Yes. Ms. McDermott? No. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

This is on the full thing, correct?

Correct.

Absolutely, yes.

Ms. Stevenson?

Yes, I'll do anything in my power to give Luzerne County residents access.

Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslett? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Passes 8 yes to 2 no.

Okay. Number five, motion to adopt a resolution approving the allocation of opioid settlement proceeds to the Berwick Area Transitional Services.

So moved.

Second. Roll call, please.

Ms. Krishnowski? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Kozlet?

Yes.

Mr. Haas?

Yes.

Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Unanimous.

Unanimous. Number six, motion to adopt the resolution approving the allocation of opioid settlement proceeds to Dress for Success for Luzerne County.

Motion. So moved. Second.

Roll call.

Ms. McDermott? Dress for Success is a wonderful organization, absolutely yes. Ms. Simmons?

Very supportive of Dress for Success, yes. Ms. Smith?

Agreed and yes.

Ms. Stevenson? I would love to continue supporting Dress for Success, yes.

Ms. Williams? Absolutely, yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslin?

Yes.

Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowsky?

Yes.

Mr. Sabatino?

Allow me to shower you with some more love and say yes.

No problem.

Number seven, motion to adopt the resolution approving the allocation of opioid settlement proceeds to Guardian Angel Recovery House.

Motion.

Second. Roll call, please.

Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. Ms. Stevenson?

Yes.

Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslett? Yes. Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowsky? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Unanimous.

Number eight. Motion to adopt a resolution approving the allocation of opioid settlement proceeds to restorative routes.

So moved. Seconds.

Anyone on the question? Roll call, please.

Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams?

Yes.

Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslett?

Yes.

Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowsky? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Ms. Anonymous? Yes.

Number nine, motion to adopt a resolution approving a modification to an American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded project, Luzerne County Building and Grounds. One. So moved.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Coslett? Yes. Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowsky? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Mr. Sabatino?

Yes. Number 10, motion to adopt a resolution approving a modification to American Rescue Plan Act Funds Awarded Project, Wyoming Valley Airport Improvements. So moved.

Second.

Before we vote on this, this is not a new allocation of money. This is cleaning up the ones that we did last week and putting it into the project. Roll call, please.

On the question, Mr. Chair, actually it's for just management. I talked remote about this a little bit earlier. I couldn't find an email. Could we get an e-copy of that, Ms. Manager, of the whole program for the art bazaar, Ms. Barrage? Yes. I know, I think we've had it somewhere before, just about what the What the overall project is for the improvements?

For the airport, I believe there was an email. It was the construction of the two T-hangers, an installation of the AWAS system, which I don't remember exactly what it stands for, but it's automated weather. So it makes it safer for the pilots to land. And then the last thing was the Jet A fuel facility.

Maybe I'm just getting the acronym wrong there or something like that. Okay.

I mean, I can certainly give you an update, but that's what those projects are.

Can you pump that for us? You know, put it at the top of our email for us? Sure. Thank you. Sorry for the extra. That's okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Roll call, please.

Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellows? Yes. Mr. Coslatt? Yes. Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowski? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Unanimous.

Number 11, motion to adopt a resolution approving a modification to an American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded project, Wyoming Valley Airport, LC Engineering. So moved. Second. Roll call, please.

Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Cosley? Yes. Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowsky? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Unanimous.

Number 12, motion to adopt the resolution to renew the lease with Grande Incorporated for Magisterial District Court 11-01-03. Motion. Second. Roll call, please.

Mr. Coslett?

Yes.

Mr. Haas? Yes. Ms. Krishnowski? Yes. Ms. McDermott? Yes. Ms. Simmons? Yes. Ms. Smith?

Yes.

Ms. Stevenson? Yes. Ms. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bellis?

Yes.

Mr. Sabatino?

Yes.

Unanimous.

We've arrived at the second portion of public comment. Mr. Griffith, please join us.

Walter Griffiths, Trucksville. On non-agenda items, again, I'm going to ask if anybody on this council has the ability or the desire or the intestinal fortitude to recall the chair based on item number four being added to the agenda, which council has no purview in, again, overstepping. I'm going to continue to bring this up until somebody on this council realizes that you have a chairman that doesn't get it. You need to replace him or recall him. Um, on the order ordinance, I do commend the council for looking at that whole process. I do think there should be a moratorium and some, somebody in the audience also did speak about some of the items that I had on my item list. So when you get to the work session, you could talk about, it should be in the one section. It should say the applicant will be required to make a public presentation prior to any vote, which I think is really, really important. and tag onto that, that they would also allow public hearings, not public comment, public hearings on all alertas. I think that's really important that the public gets an opportunity to speak about alerta that may be in their neighborhood, that they could provide insight to this council. And it should be a public hearing where people get up here and could speak to the person asking for alerta, and they can question that person and ask them the value as well as damage or whatever they may have on their minds regarding alerta in their neighborhood. I think that's really, really important. And also, I think the failure to provide reports, you have language in there says if they fail to provide reports involving it could go against them for future participation in any alerta program. I think that's pretty weak. I think what you should do is say if they don't report annually, their alert is removed, potentially removed. Put that language in there. That way, you'll be sure to get your reports every year. Because in one section, it says they shall. And then as you get further down, it says, well, if you don't, it's OK. We'll just consider you next time and not give you alert. So I think that's really, really important information that should be put in that ordinance when you speak about how we're going to adjust those items to make that alert actually worthwhile. And the other item that I have on there is mail-in ballots are called mail-in ballots for a reason. You're supposed to use a mail, not a Dropbox ballot. It's a mail-in ballot. And if they're a mail-in ballot, they should be put in the mail. So if you really want to make it easier and more convenient for people, put a stamp on it for them so they don't have to buy a stamp. Then when they do their ballot, they could just drop it in the mail. And they don't have to worry about going and getting a stamp. That might be making it easier. We're talking about making it easier. Let's provide them a stamp. So that way when they're done voting, they can put it on their mailbox and have it mailed in like they're supposed to. They don't put it in the mail because they don't want to buy a stamp maybe. So we're all about making it easier and more convenient for people, but we don't talk about why don't we put a stamp on it. Business class, it doesn't matter. If they don't turn it in, we don't pay for it. It's all good. That should be done. I think when we had COVID, that was done in this county. It was posted, provided to mail-in ballots, if I remember. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Next up, we have Ms. Vinatieri. Please join us again.

Thank you. Appreciate the additional opportunity to comment. I just want to finish up my thoughts. Before I do that, I wanted to add in something else, because I'm a history nerd. I know Mr. Haas. I know Mr. Haas is too, and I think a couple of the others. of who you are. And actually, we're right at the anniversary. It would be 129 years and two days of the Latimer Massacre. And I don't know if that was mentioned recently in council. It may have been. I think it was last year. But as someone who grew up many years near that site and actually had the opportunity to work with researchers from the University of Maryland who did site research there. I just like to remind people that we really are like the heart of the whole labor movement really came out of, truly came out of our coal fields as was mentioned in the resolution and it spurred on major changes. It became the first US president, it was Teddy Roosevelt to sit down with miners and say, let's figure this out. So pretty cool. But anyway, let's not forget those 19 that were gunned down in cold blood, they were shot in their backs, it was pretty rough. Um, I would like to say on the matter of Lourdes, um, just to finish my thought. So, um, I think we need to reevaluate how we look at land that is quote deteriorated, which I was saying is a prerequisite for, uh, alerted to be granted. Um, and this seems to be a very wishy washy thing. So I think we need to tighten that up and I'd like to see language to that, um, effect there. Um, again, Salem Township is slated to lose about 7,500 acres to mass industrial build out. This is unacceptable to make our area sacrifice zone for the state. That's right on our beautiful and mighty Susquehanna River. This is all very farmable, livable land. So anyway, in Hazel Township, where there was major DEP failure there, They then went ahead and also removed 1,000 acres of virgin forest. And this was on land that had been granted ALERTA as well by this council and by two other councils. The residents of Luzerne County, I believe, are tired of overdevelopment, speculative development, and environmental destruction. And like I said, we are tired of being the sacrifice zone for this state. That's not progress, that's just our facts. So I urge you to continue to do the due diligence and engage the public on this front. I think you could do this meaningfully. I think that you could establish maybe some public Q and A's, some public hearings. What's not appropriate is to continue to bring in the large same developers that have been in the area that have been over developing the area for decades and continue to platform them it's essentially a slap in the face of working in middle-class Americans. So I just urge you to change your stance on that. I urge you to do better moving forward. You have a new council at large this year, and I'd like to see you guys make it count. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Ms. Vinatieri. Ms. Hopkins?

Hello again. Yeah, so I was talking about what happened with the post office since Louis DeJoy. Well, one reason we can't just slap a stamp on it is because of the equipment removal. The USPS dismantled and removed hundreds of high-speed mailing sorting machines from processing plants, which has really stopped, made the mail a lot slower. I have experienced waiting for checks in the mail for, I don't know, weeks, and not those kind of checks in the mail. My husband, at his place of business, he had two places he never got his checks, and that was the first time that ever happened in the whole business of 10 years, 11 years. He's never, nothing's ever been lost, and he had to go to the place, two different places. Also Sherry, like she said, she'd never, her provisional ballot, I don't know if she said that, never got counted. I have an uncle, Michael, who lives in Avoca. He's eight years old. He got his ballot two days before the election. I don't think he could slap a stamp on it then. So, but luckily he's fine. He was able to drive down to the election board in Castus and turn in his ballot. And this is just what I witnessed. So you can imagine like people asking, you know, like what happened? I mean, I know you witnessed five people or one person dropping off like five ballots. Well, you saw one person. I saw tons of people at the Pittston area library dropping off ballots. I didn't see them stuffing them. Plus there's cameras on them. But I didn't witness, you know, a lot of other things going on in 2024, including, you know, the five weeks before the election of the moving of the polling places. And I'm glad you're here, because I do want to ask why that happened. And it only seemed to have happened in the blue wards. And maybe I'm wrong, but you can look it up. Or if you could let me know, I would appreciate it, because I thought it only happened in the blue wards. And because of that, a lot of people did not know where to go. On election day, I stood outside passing out stuff, you know, on election day and people were like, oh, I went to the library and it's at the church now. And I had people stationed at the library and they told me that, like, there were so many people that said, we didn't know it changed. And they were supposed to, you know, have been let know, you know, receive the information and You know, how many people didn't vote? Like I said, we lost a lot of democratic votes, you know, was it just that they were too lazy or whatever? I don't think so. You know, I mean, people show up to vote, but you know, if they can't make it, if they have to run, if they're on their way to work or on the way home because their child's home alone or whatever, they can't run to other places and run all over the place. Thank you.

Sorry, thank you. There are instances when we have to change polling places, and sometimes it happens at the last minute, believe me, it's a burden for the Bureau to try to change or have to change polling places. So sometimes we're told that there's renovations renovations aren't completed, we have to find other spots. So I know there was none at where I am, there was no renovation. Well, I can tell you this for certain. Absolutely 100%. That polling place was not changed, because it's a quote, blue polling place. That's not how we operate. Well, I would hope not. They just seem that way. I'm going to finish. Okay. So that's not how we operate. I will get your contact information, and I will find out specifically why that polling place was changed. But I can tell you there was a reason outside of the Bureau that that polling place was changed because we don't, unilaterally decide to change polling places because it creates extra work for us right but i will take your contact information okay and i will find out that information as a matter of fact if you uh want to speak uh to our director uh of the bureau i'll set up a time and you can meet with her okay i it is a difficult job to get the polling places. And there are times when we have to do it without much time left. And we do try to notify those voters in the area, because that's our job, and we do that. But there was no intention. That I can absolutely tell you.

I just have one question, if that's okay?

Could you get with the county manager in the break? Pardon? When we break? Oh, sure, sure. Meet up with her and give her your contact info and any other questions you may have. All right. Thank you, Ms. Hopkins. Next up, we have Ms. Holly Spies. Name and municipality for the record.

Hi, Holly Spies from 44th. Thank you, Council, for allowing this opportunity. I wanted to provide a real quick update on the work that Susquehanna Warrior Reserve has been advancing to support our promotional wraparound program for corrections officers. We secured a $6,000 private donation to fund some of our restorative luncheons. These luncheons will be designed to build trust, listen directly to the officers and challenges that they face, and then connect them, the resources, and the people who understand their unique stress and trauma associated with their work. I also recently met, had the opportunity to meet with Warden Ferdutic. I think I was saying your name right. I'm so sorry if I am not. and Dave from the guide app who provided the demonstration of the platform and how it could actually give officers and their families confidential access to wellness resources. We have since shared guides pricing proposals with the county leadership. Rather than asking the county to whatsoever cost, which I know you guys are doing already incredible things. I would love the opportunity if you allow me to write your LSA grant to support this work for free. just because it's truly something on my heart. And then today I actually had the opportunity to meet with two gentlemen from Lehigh County who have been developing resources to support first responders and corrections that may have a whole slew of resources that they shared with me today. Our emerging wraparound program model would focus on three areas, a vetted network of behavioral health and wellness resources, trusted peer support, and resiliency and post-traumatic growth training. We also explored resources and training connected to Boulder Crest Struggle Well Program, along with peer support policies and confidentiality standards, really strict, and provider vetting. Our immediate focus is corrections. but our long-term goal is to build a sustainable model that could eventually support our law enforcement, our fire, our EMS, and all our first responders in Luzerne County, and also our veterans. The people who spend their careers taking care of us and everyone else's emergencies deserve to know when they need support that there is someone there for them as well. Thank you.

Thank you. uh holly i just want to tell you that michelle sperich is our grant writer and we appreciate your offer but there are issues with the lsa grant i don't know michelle if you want to explain that luzerne county cannot apply for luzerne county funds we have to go after statewide funds so we do what we already are partnering with two of our municipalities who are going to submit applications on our behalf

Thank you.

Thanks, Holly. Thanks for everything you do for me.

Next up we have, and I'm sorry, I'm going to butcher this, Julius Zuckerwar. Please state your name and could you spell your last name for me?

Julius, last name spelled Z-U-C-K-E-R-W-A-R from Pittson Township. I want to address the county with legit Wilkes-Barre has an over overwhelmed violent crime rate of approximately 431.6 incidents. That's not including the other incidents like robbery, theft, car stealing. I mean, the crime rate for this county, excuse my English, sucks. We need to get more officers out there patrolling. Stop getting all these landlords from out of state coming in and just renting to anybody. Like the drug dealers and all that. Get harder on these drug dealers. The laws need to start getting harder. If we really want to try and wait to go down in this county, we need to work together. And that means all of you guys, just as well, along with us citizens. It is a we in this county. We must work together. If we don't, the crime rate is going to wipe this county out. And I'm not saying that I'm in recovery. I am not ashamed to say that. I'm coming up on 23 freaking years. And the crime rate in this county is outrageous. You guys need to think about this. The county has the money. I know that for a fact. Train these officers to get out there. Watch that DMV. Patrol more. And I know all you council people know where the bad areas are in this city. And there's not... There are many patrolling going on. That's why the crime rate is so high. Thanks for letting me share.

Thank you. Next up, we have Mr. Arno.

Yeah, I was here last meeting and A girl came up here, and she challenged, and she said a bunch of stuff that I did. Now, what happened was I challenged Congressman Bresnahan and his family for their actions for years, all right? OSHA violations, labor law violations, PennDOT violations, federal aviation violations. They intimidated people to... for workman's compensation fraud and unemployment fraud. They intimidated people to do that. And it was many other greedy and moral issues. For that, I was wrongly terminated. I was defamed with libel and slander, maliciously prosecuted and unlawfully arrested. I was arrested on December 23rd, 2020, charged with up to 15 years in jail. Well, two days later, I got a call from Koharchuk. And Bresnahan's two days after I get out of jail. All right. They offered me a Harley Davidson. Just disappear, John. Just disappear. All right. I went to the police and I told them to stop him from calling me. All right. A call from Walker Hartrick on December 29th. Rob wanted to meet me. I received a letter from Bresnahan's attorney telling me to cease and desist and my actions and I might get my job back. I'll be laid off. I was only laid off. I met Robert Eichelhardt on December 30th, after I was a terrorist. He apologized for his actions. I told him I didn't want these lies in a newspaper. He stated he controlled the newspapers and controlled the police. He asked me how I wanted to continue this. I told him I was going to sue and be a whistleblower. He says he changed and begged me and not to go to the authorities and keep the attorneys out of it. I agreed to give him a chance. Whistleblower protection only lasted 30 days. Well, after 30 days, here they come. All right. I did seven months in jail, pleaded out because I was looking at 15 years in jail. All right. My family was scared to death. All right. I went to Emanon on November 23rd. While waiting for the head groundskeeper, Jason, a car pulled up. Walter Kaharchuk got out of the car. I told Jason I couldn't talk to him. He offered me a job. Two years after, I was in jail for being a terrorist. He offered me a job. I told Jay I couldn't talk to him or I might end up spending 40 years in jail. When I was a business agent, I had contacts. I was a Delaware business agent, Philadelphia. Joe Biden and my father were good friends. All right? Now, I tried my best to get that shit over with on January 6th. All right? All they had to do was shake hands, Biden and Trump. All right? It would have been nice. Okay. It would have been nice if that happened. All right? Can you blame me for trying? Thank you.

Yep. All right. Anyone else in the audience? Mr. Iches?

Nate, each is Butler Township and back to the LERDA and the data center. I want to give more quick context of what's happening in Salem Township. I'm not sure if you know, but if you've been in the Salem Township meetings, but a lot of these residents who are now in on the buyout, they were approached by the mailman. And actually, that's a federal offense if you're approached by a mailman, federal government worker who was actually working with the data center developers, that's actually how it all started. So if you said no, they just went right around you, and then they just circled you. And then they said, oh, well, this whole row of houses doesn't want to be on the buyout, but everybody else does around it. And then they started to circle everybody. And then they really forced everybody to be in on the buyout. And it's Mr. Sordoni, Mike Cabell, former state representative, USDA Rural State Director of Pennsylvania under the Trump administration, leveraged his platform. He's supposed to sustain and preserve farmland. And he's made $1.3 billion now if this deal goes through these 4,000 acres. And their attorney representing the landowners, Mr. Karpovich, who's also the attorney for Baja, who also, he's the owner of 90 Colitti Road in on the buyout. the attorney for the data center landowners, 90 Colitti Road, LLC. He bought it for 200,000. He's gonna make 900,000 this year. Donald Karpovich needs to be investigated. He's my solicitor in Butler Township, remove the noise ordinance. And so he's gonna protect us from data centers in Butler Township, but he's gonna work with data center developers on the other side. You gotta be kidding me. I'm piecing it together for everybody because I've been to these meetings. And I'm not coming at you. I'm here to be the messenger. I want to help connect the dots and you guys can do your job better. But this is ugly and it's worse than I ever thought. But all I did was show up and then the corruption exposed itself. And so unfortunately, I hate to come up here and be the bearer of bad news, but this is ugly and you got to start going to some of these meetings. I know a lot of you are in Northern, not everybody's in Southern Luzerne County and a lot of the deals are in Southern Luzerne County. So, you know, stop turning your shoulder and go to these meetings. But I wanted to give context because it's really bad and I have a lot more to discuss. And I know my three minutes is about up and I'll come back next time and I'll have another full story for you on, because I have a lot that I have not discussed. Like Mr. Karpovich represents the, the 30 landowners in Hollenbeck representing the landowners that want to switch their land from ag to industrial overnight. So he's working with developers on that side. And he's but he represents my municipality to protect us because he because Butler Township. We did it. We did the six month moratorium right to allow no data centers and for six months. Well, guess who's gonna protect us from that? Donald Karpovich, who's on the other side. Thank you for doing the dirty deal. Thank you.

Anyone else from the audience? Mr. Granteed?

Joe Granteed Plains Township. We put these systems in place. You want to put more drop boxes out there. Somewhere in the system, a part of that system is missing. And that's when there's something that is done unethically or illegally, there is no investigation. We've tried to initiate investigations over the last six years here. Nobody wants to deal with election fraud. I'm suggesting that if you want to put more drop boxes, you set up a commission with citizens on both sides of the aisle. And we could investigate any complaints. And I think that that would be one way that maybe fill in the absence of what the investigators in the office across the hall are supposed to be doing. because they don't want to hear anything about election integrity. I'd also like to address Julius' issue with crime in this area. He mentioned that out-of-state landlords are renting to anyone. Julius, if you haven't been around for the last eight, nine weeks. On June 9th, this council passed an ordinance that protects the criminals and the illegal aliens so that they can't get evicted, so that they can't be denied residence in this area. So they don't have to show you where they get their money from. Don't give me that face because that's exactly what the ordinance did. You can shake your head, but we know different. I look forward to being on the ballot because it will be on the ballot, that ordinance. Thank you.

Anyone else from the audience? Seeing none. Mr. Masekera. Can you unmute yourself? Speak up.

I'm going to try. Can you hear me, Mr. Chair?

Yes.

Okay.

All right. You said louder.

Louder? Oh, I could do that. All right. I'm sorry. We are really, truly struggling to hear you.

Can you hear me? Is this better?

It's actually getting worse. You know what?

I do want to. I do agree with Mr. Grantee. Rarely do I, but this time I do. For a while now, it's very hard to hear anyone on Zoom. But for a long time, we could hear very loudly, very well. I think something has happened with this system over the last several weeks.

You restart this time.

Oh, no. Yeah.

Just look at your lungs.

Can you hear me? All right. I'm going to I'm just going to go ahead with it. If you could hear me. Great. If not, well, all right. Whatever. First, I'd like to just prove that I can be kind to Republicans. I want to thank Harry Haas for being a stand-up guy. I don't always agree with him, but I would like to point out, in terms of the Lurda issue, last year I believe he was the only one that did not vote to give them basically a blank check. So he did have the foresight on that. I really wish I could live in the Mayberry-like existence of his mind that he describes when he talks about ballot boxes, but a man can just continue to dream. But onto my fellow Democrats. I would like to congratulate those on council that did fight for the ordinance. That would be Denise Williams, Joanna Bryn Smith, Chris Bellis, who did it publicly and unflappily. Some of you, when you were presented with 15,000 signatures on the petition, you ran to the newspaper and you said, oh, I never stood in the way of the petition. I would never do something like that. you know, it's true. You never lifted a finger to look at the signatures that apparently 58.2% of them look like they're at the very least able to be challenged. And we'll find out, you know, if it's that bad, but thank God for those that actually did the work and didn't run to the paper and say those very dumb things. Thank you and have a good night, everybody.

Any other public comments on the Zoom? Seeing none, motion to adjourn.

I'll make a motion.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, abstentions? Let's reconvene at 10 after.

I don't want to keep you away. I just have a question. So it's not me being, so that's not me being like that.

There's a lot of horrible things that are tossed around this room and across this neighborhood. Well, what can I, I think I want an apology because basically they call me Lisa.

It's actually nice to have you here.

Hi, honey. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you guys. No, I wanted to talk to you. Yeah, apparently. I think he owes people an apology. I'm getting an apology. I think he owes everyone an apology. That is unacceptable. But...

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, that's on me. I forgot to change the word. Thank you. i'm already in enough hot water everywhere i go Am I driving you nuts too? I'm sorry. Oh, yes. Right. So. Not him directly because he had to run to Philly. So Brian, but we did discuss.

SWR and how we can incorporate it to some other things that we're trying to put together with Black Lives Matter. And he said that the Senate will definitely help.

That's fantastic because when I was with PA Sands Up that day, I was advocating for affordable housing.

I was talking with his one chief of staff or whatever, and we were talking about the need for- Council, this is your two-minute warning.

Yeah, yeah. So we're trying to come up with a solution for that too. I can't talk about it yet, but I'll tell you about it. Okay, okay, okay. Hello.

Thank you.

Does anyone have a USB-C charger? Asking for a friend. USB-C charger, anyone? No? All right.

Council members, let's reconvene. Everybody wants to know about the LERDA ordinance. Brittany wanted it. All right, let's get the work session going. We've already had the pledge in the moment of silence. Ms. Lawrence, will you do roll, please?

Mr. Bellis?

Here.

Mr. Coslett?

Here.

Mr. Haas? Here. Ms. Krishnas? Here. Mr. Lombardo? Here. Ms. McDermott? Here. Ms. Simmons? Here. Ms. Smith?

Here.

Ms. Stevenson. Present. Ms. Williams. Here. Mr. Sabatino.

Present.

You have 10 of 11.

Okay. Are there any additions or deletions from tonight's work session agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt?

Motion.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, abstentions? We have an adopted agenda. Number one, receive and discuss division reports. County Manager, please take it away.

Thank you very much, and I will be checking into the sound system, but everybody needs to be patient, because I don't know what the answer is because I am technologically challenged so i'm going to give you an abbreviated update. i'm responding to Councilman houses question from last week. about campaign finance and the software. We are using EasyVote, which is working very well, and we're up to date.

EasyVote?

EasyVote.

That's the name of the... E-Z vote. E-E-Z?

I put E-A-S-Y, but it could be E-Z. I can find out.

Thank you for checking up on that. Yeah.

The next thing I want to bring to everyone's attention because they grabbed my attention has to do with administrative actions and GIS mapping about plotter services. So I did ask when I looked at this document, I asked Dan, what is a plotter? He gave me an answer, but Dan, do you want to come up and explain what a plotter is?

Yeah, Plotter is a large format printer. It's like a big inkjet printer on steroids. So the one that we have is about 12 years old. It threw a belt last month, which, you know, that's the first time it's ever had an issue like that. We've had print head issues in the past, ink issues, but we got it fixed. But we're going to be moving that. We're going to retire the ones that are up at EMA, have them, we're trading them in. We're getting a new one for the GIS department. And it's going to be smaller. Because the one that we have in there now is about 66 inches wide that it can print on. We never print anything that large. So we're getting one that's significantly smaller. Yeah. We're moving the one that we currently have that got fixed. We call it Harry Plotter. So, and we're moving it up to EMA and getting a new one.

You win tonight? You win tonight. I win tonight? You just win tonight. Okay. Yeah.

I think 12 years for, what did I say went, it was obsolete in 2018 and we tried to get it fixed by a lot of local companies and no one would touch it because of how out of date it was. So I reached out to my other GIS directors around the state, found a place out of the Lehigh Valley and they came up and fixed it. So great. Thank you.

So I'm assuming that everybody has learned something new today.

Harry Potter.

Yeah.

for an attempt to get second place for winning tonight, I would just like to say for the record that I too threw a belt last week.

No. Sorry. We're going to let Dan have it all by himself. We're going to move number five up because we have somebody here that is coming from a great distance online. Okay. So, Ms. Montgomery, are you with us?

I am.

Can you take it away for us? Discussion regarding the ordinance establishing penalties for real property owners for failure to comply with 68 PA CS section 2502 related to maintenance of a county property contact information.

I want to just introduce Kristen, you're the director of our assessment office. And she is extraordinary. She is uh, just a font of total assessment information. Uh, when I ask her a very stupid question, she gave me, gives me a very elaborate, uh, answer and we are very, very fortunate, uh, to have her, uh, on our staff and leading, uh, that department.

Well, gosh, thanks. You can't convince them, confuse them. I I'm told so. Okay. So it's otherwise known as act 29. It was passed in July of this year and its effective date is September 18th. So they didn't give us a whole lot of time to tell us that we now have to start collecting names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers of any non-owner occupied properties that are purchased from the 18th forward. The intent I'm understanding is because the municipalities are trying to get a, they wanted to have a contact list for landlords that aren't repairing their houses and blighted properties and so on so they can be contacted why the county got handed the duty versus the municipalities i do not know but now it's a law and i have no choice so um a lot of the assessors questions were well how can we force them to do this what if they don't give it to us but there and we did we did lobby against having this having to do this by the way but didn't go anywhere um So, and it does say section 2507, which is the last paragraph in law, the second to last paragraph in law. It says that the county may levy a fine of up to $500 against a real property owner or the owner's representative that intentionally or knowingly provide false or incorrect contact information or intentionally or knowingly fail to update contact information with the county chief assessor as required by this chapter. And Harry tells me we can't do that until we pass an ordinance. And that's where you come in. So I believe we have an ordinance ready to be accepted. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Any questions for Ms. Montgomery? The fine is $500, because I know there was anywhere between $100 and $500. Go big or go home.

Well, it's additional revenue, and if someone really doesn't want to do it, then that's what they'll pay, I guess.

Yep, we'll take the money. Mr. Haas has a question.

Hi, Ms. Montgomery. Thanks for tuning in. Does this $500, are we a collecting agency for the state, or does this go to Luzerne County?

I don't think the law really says. I think it's ours, because we're the ones responsible for the list. And it doesn't say it has to go anywhere else, so I assume we get to keep it.

And so, if I could, Mr. Chair, so this is Is the state isn't is requiring us to do this is a state requirement. You got a call from the state or the municipalities? How did?

Well, the law, the law stipulates that the that the chief assessor must keep this information and disseminate it to any municipality that gives us good cause to give it to them. As far as the list is concerned.

I'm just seeing here on July, it was passed just months ago. Yeah. And I don't remember, anybody on CCAP, I don't remember hearing anything about this whatsoever. This is, you would think this would come across our desk somehow. And I'm all, I don't know. Should we get with Frank Maza and ask him? Say it again? Mr. Maza? Yeah, yeah, Frank Maza would be great. But I'm just wondering where exactly this came from and what sparked something like this.

It's already a loss. So I don't think there's much we can do about it except for abide by it.

Um, but statutory, right.

We're going to collect the $500. Right. If they don't give me the information. Yes. And we're going to have, I do have the form ready to go. It's on the website, I think. And if not, I'll put it on there tomorrow. Um, but there was in the, it was in the agenda information that they gave you. Um, unless you want me to add something to that, that's the form I intend to use. And then we'll collect it and we'll have it at the pincer window. We'll give some of the recorder's office. We'll get the word out to the title agencies and realtors, and then we can email them the form. It'll be on our website. So they'll be certainly accessible and easy to fill out. So there's no reason anybody shouldn't do it. Stevenson?

Yes. Sorry, Ms. Montgomery. We're struggling to hear you a little bit, so hopefully I caught some of that.

Well, that's the first I think I've ever heard that.

It's great to have you back. So, Michael, I know that we briefly discussed this last two weeks ago with Mary Roselle, but the $500 fee that comes in is the county's, and what pot does that fall into, county manager, if you know?

Mr. Steen has his hand up.

It's not a fee, it's a fine. A fine, my apologies. So we're doing that, and that's why we need the ordinance. So if there's a person who's a landlord, they don't live in the property, so hence they would be a landlord. The state wants to collect that information, so if there's complaints about that property, the tenant has a problem with the property, the property's being run down, it's blighted, they know who to contact. So it's a requirement now that the assessor's office will collect all that information, and then if the municipality has a problem, and they ask for the information, and they've given us false information, then they could be fined.

Okay, so my question was, because I understood as much as that, where does that money go? Where is it being held with the county? It would be general fund, ma'am. Thank you. seems like actually another question who is I think miss Montgomery just mentioned this but who's going through the process to follow up with that information to make sure we're either getting it or it's being stored and documented properly with the county or that municipality miss Montgomery you're the one right you got it all right thank you very much is miss Montgomery it's uh councilman sabatino is there a way that we could include this in the closing documents or real estate

Well, that's my intent to get it to the title agents and the realtors. Perfect.

Just for the public information on this, my understanding is this is not retroactive. This is going forward from the day it's been enacted. And anyone... purchasing a property going forward. So you're not going to go back through the roles and update or do anything like that.

No, that was also a very big concern of other assessors as well. And after speaking to several attorneys involved in our association and some other outside sources, they all agreed that it doesn't discuss any retroactivity. So we just need to go forward.

Just for your edification, If it was retroactive, it would have to be in the statute.

Any other questions or comments on this one? Thank you, Ms. Montgomery. Have a good evening.

Thank you. You too.

All right. Circling back to the number two discussion was regarding resolution requesting a Luzerne County local share account grant from Commonwealth Authority financing through Dallas Township for lower demands road phase two disparage.

Good evening. So we requested permission from Dallas Township. Their board approved it last Tuesday. I was at their meeting. They will, because the county cannot apply for LSA funds, they will apply on our behalf. I did just get confirmation after I already sent my agenda items to Sharon that they will be asking for an admin fee. So we can take up to 3%. So we will also reimburse the $100 application fee. So the total... that we will be spending out of our pockets is $100. And then if the grant is approved, they will take the admin money from that grant. And this will complete what we've already started.

And to clarify something, if the county wanted to apply for LSA money on its own, we could go through our redevelopment authority. But considering everything that's going on with our redevelopment authority, it's easier for us to go through the local media.

And we can apply for statewide funding. Those applications are due the end of November, but we can go for local sheriff funds, the statewide account. Those we can apply for directly.

Mr. Haas? Yeah, thanks, Ms. Barrett. You know, I'm a big fan of Loretta Munns Road, and I sent that email. You guys are doing a great job. Thank you for doing that on behalf of all the people who use that. One thing I think, to my knowledge, and Ramilda probably knows, is I think we only got, the county got one LSA, I think, for the courthouse rehabilitation. Wasn't that right, Ramilda? I think that were, maybe Michelle, you were on that too at that time.

I believe we did. I know for sure we did get a PHMP application funded for the courthouse. That was several years ago. Right.

Because I'm looking, thank you for doing that. Partnering with the township with SLA access. I think, I know Manager Pedry really started the buyback program with the municipalities, which we still continue doing. Hats off to Butler Township. They do a great job partnering us with that. But perhaps if the word got out more for the municipalities that have our county roads, that they're probably getting as much feedback from their citizens as we are, would be a great partnership for them to have. access that and then come with us and help in a team effort get these roads paved. I mean, I think we need all hands on deck. I think the people would really appreciate that. And I don't know how we can get the word out. Well, we tried. We tried.

And we did go to various locations that we have roads in. And even though they get more liquid fuel monies, because it's a different formula than we use, that we're required to use. We didn't get a lot of,

they weren't eager i think they're strapped as well exactly and because they're not either they're not eager perhaps this would be a better approach saying hey look we want to pave your roads as soon as possible can you help us out apply i know that lsa money is very coveted money for municipalities however so are quality roads so i think the municipalities could see you out where they work for dallas township perhaps Other municipalities can do the same.

We can try. But I also want to be cautious with how many applications the county is actually putting in. Because then we'll be competing against ourselves.

And this group is really very good to work with and eager to work with. We don't get that all the time. No. But we're going to keep trying. And we're trying to think of different ways to use different monies. to get projects done for the county.

Wonderful.

Thanks, Ms. Barrett. Thanks, Bill.

Rolling right into the next one. Discussion regarding a resolution requesting a Luzerne County local share account grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority through Hanover Township for the emergency services bundle.

Yes, this application will be going through Hanover Township. They actually are going to pay for the application fee on our behalf, and they aren't going to take any admin money, but it's going to be used for... a sheriff's vehicle, a prison vehicle, an EMA drone program, and also a coroner vehicle. So I do have those respective department heads here to answer any questions as to how those items would be used.

I would love to know how the EMA drone program is going to work.

something I'm actually very passionate about and I've been involved for about 10 years.

Could you introduce yourself?

I'm Dave Lewis, and I'm with EMA for about a year and a half. Charlie Cromis. Have they seen the proposal, or is this all?

No, they have an agenda item to summarize it, so just you can just explain what's in there.

Just a quick explainer. a lot of ways that this could be used to help municipalities, from damage assessment for a flooding event to protect first responders for radiological or hazardous materials events. It's so much better with the technology. I'm putting a drone up. An example would be a hazmat event, getting it in there prior to a first responder going in there. And the cost related to life safety, I think, is enormous. is so minimal, it would be a shame not to be able to have a resource like this available to us that we could help all of the 76 municipalities in Luzerne County. Thank you.

Not all the drones, even drones that the county has, has this capability. This would be something.

One of the ones and something that I have a lot of experience with are mapping drones. And we could cover large areas in minutes. and provide live data to first responders. If there was a flooding event, and there was a large area, hundreds of homes that we needed to go out and do damage assessments, it would really expedite our ability to help people much faster. And still, with boots on the ground, helping people going door to door is what we do. But to gather that information to best help the citizenry, I think it's an invaluable resource and the technology has come a long way.

Thank you.

Absolutely. Talk about damage assessment. When Pima, when a disaster or an event occurs, they want a quick window assessment within 24 to 48 hours. And a quick way for us to do it, get the drones up and get an assessment, at least give them an estimate of what the amount of damage is done. And then they go further with that. It still is going to be knocking on the doors to find it out later. but it'll cut out a lot of the time and we get a quicker report into the state. And with the ice jams, it also helps with ice jams and also pre-planned events. It just helped in the 250 festival over at Kirby Park. They flew it, they've got it mapped out for them, and Wilkes-Barre City was very grateful for what we did for them.

It took three minutes to map a 60-acre property. And it was a real-time event, so... Google map data is great, but pictures of Kirby Park look different than they did five years ago.

Thank you. Ms. Stevenson.

Charlie, are you guys offering any more trainings towards the end of the year for UMA?

Good question. I just brought that up today. We're probably not at the end of this year, but the beginning of next year, like January.

I really enjoyed the training that I did with you guys last year, so I'd love to do that again.

Seriously, we will get it out to everybody. The way we're booked up, actually, we have a tabletop exercise for the airport. We have a federally evaluated talent drill in October. We have a lecture day after that. And so... up until then you know we're going to be pretty jammed with our stuff but uh come january the new schedule uh when i put the training schedule out i will be doing that i'll look forward to that one other thing if i may and mr reese brought up about the plotter how how helpful it is for us the wildfire up in mountaintop a couple about three years ago or four years ago they needed mapping to determine if an evacuation was going to be needed so DR went out and they did their knock on doors, but that mapping helped them. I called Dan, and within four hours, he had all of our maps that we needed, and we took them down to him. So plotting is very important for us also. I just wanted to bring that up.

Thank you. Harry Potter saves the day again, Dan. Any other questions for any of the other departments that are here for this bundle?

want to note again how mapping is working with ema and we really are it's a concerted effort that we're getting we're trying to get all the departments to work with each other so that we can bring better services uh to the county residents

Thank you, County Manager. And thank you all for coming and enduring with us tonight. Number four, discussion regarding the ordinance establishing procedures for county participation in local economic revitalization tax assistance programs.

Mr. Chairman, before you go, could we revisit number five real quick? Sure. Just because I'm, I don't just, there's something doesn't quite set well with me. We're going back, if we could, Council. Sorry for causing the extra time here. The penalties. Council passes this. It's going to go into effect 15 days later. How are people going to get this? And I guess it's a question for Milda. Do we mail this out for the 125,000 properties? I apologize.

She did say that she was going to get it out to all the title agents and realtors.

And it's going forward. So it's not a retroactive thing. So as new property transfers happen, they'll get this form.

So it's just transfers. Because I was thinking, could we send it out in the tax duplicate in the new year, save the postage, and pop it in there for all the properties?

Yeah, it's not retroactive.

It's only with new properties. Right, moving forward.

And it'll be attached to the application as well.

Yeah, okay. All right.

I guess I'll waste time.

I'll send some other. I don't know. I'm just going to think about this more, but thanks for indulging me. It's a good thought. Yeah, thank you.

Well, Mr. Ritzik, while you're coming up here, I would like to note for the whole world that I forgot to change the word to shall. present to council. It was a recommendation that the committee made before referring it to council and the buck stops with me. I forgot to say shall instead of may present. So that was on me.

Yes, it was a friendly amendment of mine during our community and economic development meeting this past week. That was a definite- What page and letter? This is under section four review process. it says, quote, County Council may require a public presentation by the applicant prior to any vote. I requested that it be mandatory that whoever, any developer coming to Luzerne County must come to the County Council to present if they are seeking a learner from the county at that time. So sorry for the short mistake there. I know that was a huge concern for many, and it certainly was a major number one concern for me during this past week's meeting, along with a few other things that I know Mr. Ritzig will absolutely address.

Take it away. All right. Thank you, everyone. So I'll be as short as I can because it's after 8.30. All right. The Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance LERDA Ordinance establishes a clear and accountable framework for Luzerne County's participation in tax abatement programs that are designed to stimulate investment in deteriorated or underutilized areas. So the proposed ordinance ensures that county council has an established process and is better informed in their decision process on the making of ALERTA abatement. So the ordinance governs the form and the framework of future requests, and it's not a fixed schedule that would limit in any way council's ability to act. So under this structure, the county acts only after municipalities and school districts have formally endorsed participation, ensuring that the local partners are aligned before county tax revenues are considered. Please note to everyone that under LERDA's enabling legislation, if you are, Keeping track, that's Act 76 of 1977, Section 4A. It is the municipality, not the county, not the school district, that designates the initial area for the LERDA with the school district and the county abatements to follow. So put very simply, we don't designate the area. We do not pick the spots. The school district does not designate the area. The school district does not designate the spots. That is solely in Act 76 designated to the municipal entities. We have no power to make that decision. It is done on the municipal level. So in seeking county abatement, applicants must provide comprehensive documentation ranging from zoning consistency and planning validations to economic modeling, fiscal impact analysis, job creation projections, community benefits, and public service impacts. prior to a required presentation to Council, the developer will be required to meet with representatives from the Division of Community Planning and Economic Development to ensure that the application is complete and as many questions as possible are addressed. That's also where if there's any concerns over numbers or data provided, that we will have the opportunity to address them with the developer and, you know, if need be, challenge their numbers. Finally, following the approval of a schedule, the ordinance establishes robust accountability measures through annual reporting requirements. These track employment outcomes, wages, benefits, local hiring levels, and project changes throughout the exemption period. That enables the county to verify continued public value over the abatement window and track developers' performance over time. Now, the nice thing about this data set is it's all going to be ultimately public, and that information is also going to be shared with the municipality. So as we do this, we'll also be building a data set for municipalities to make more informed decisions and determine if they want to, you know, work with certain developers for LERDAs or declare areas, as is their right under Act 76, as deteriorated as well. So with that, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to answer any questions on the proposed ordinance before you today. I know Mr. Coslett has one, and then we'll go to Mr. Haas.

Yeah, mine's not so much a question. Mine is, I believe we should have an amendment in these LERDAs that we allow 10 years of know low taxes working our way up to a full scale but after two years they sell out they have a profit well i want them to pay the taxes on the word of time they use before they sell out um i i really believe that after three or four years if you're going to sell a warehouse and you're going to make several million dollars we should get what we gave you back you didn't hold your end of the bargain to stay for 10 years That's fine. You can move on. But you should pay those first five years of taxes in full what you would have paid without the order back to us. If you want to give the new owner the option to keep running the order, that's on a case-by-case basis. But I do believe that in the event that we gave you a tax break to build your business and then you're going to turn around sell for profit but we see nothing out of it we gave you free money and i don't know i'm sorry but i think if you again if you go to a gas pump and they say we're going to give you a dollar back for your gas are you going to say no so i think we need to take these the first you know however much time went by from the build

to the sale if you didn't hold your end of the bargain with the entire order that we gave you you're not going to run away with our tax money we have to see something back on these if you sell out of profit i'm happy to do that as a friendly amendment but with the proviso that it's legal that we do something like that so between mr ritzik and the office of law if you guys can get together and give me an opinion on that if we can do it i'm happy to put it in as a friendly amendment

Go ahead.

Mr. Haas.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. Welcome, Mr. Rizzi. Again, thanks for the great work you're doing. I really appreciate you. And for the committee as well, I apologize I couldn't make it. And thank you for having me on there, Mr. Chairman. I looked at over this, and this is such a wonderful step forward. And me coming from somebody who's been always skeptical of LERDA and I haven't voted for a lot of them in the past. John Potter, If if we can look at page 48 Council at section six it's on page 48 out of 55 to tell county discretion preserved. John Potter, And I like this how the spirit is that it says look it's the county council's purview to accept reject or except in part of the learning. John Potter, And I was wondering if we could move that as close to the top as possible, because for future Councils who may not be aware of the process or. John Potter, For anyone who wants to apply for a letter for the public at large, really the buck stops here with this body, and if we could perhaps combine it or put it immediately after section two which, if you look at the very bottom of page 45. John Potter, It says section to order of county action. I appreciate that, too, because it really codifies that the county has is the last step in the process, which we've kind of been doing that stumbling through the process all these years. Right. So it's a lack last night. Who's learned proposed exemption and then B and C? I think perhaps with Section six be best put right under there so that we let the people know up front what kind of council could reject this. And I've always said for many years as well, we're to still go through without council's approval because they get They get tax abatement from the school district and from the municipality. So we are tasked with governing the county at large. We want to be fair to everybody in the county, not just a couple of municipalities who are looking for a benefit through our businesses. So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying, could we move that?

I'll take it as a friendly amendment if it's appropriate.

Just to make it a Section D under that?

Yeah.

If I could get you on this. I just have one more at this point. Thanks, Mr. Cowles. I don't have a problem with that. Maybe we could put in for the next session or just to consider. We can word submit it. When North Point was here last time and They talked, it was a much better scale and it was a much better, they had the community benefit payment that they offered out as well. And traditionally, it's been hard to keep track of tasking with monitoring the development of different learned properties. So sometimes just like, I appreciate what Mr. Kozloff talked about too, about holding them accountable with that end. But as they develop, remember that it's a sliding scale that's contingent on the abatement. And I think we've always evaluate, evaluate or assess the property after the 10 years have been up and then retroactively applied the benefits. Is it a possibility if we could do a year by year analysis and assessment analysis of the property. So we can see, look, if they've made 50% improvements on the property, well, that's part of the money that should be coming back in the county coffers. So I don't know if I'm being long-winded here, but is there a way that we can do that so that we don't have an appeal go through, which happens quite a bit with these properties after they say, well, look, we built this property, but it's actually should be assessed at less than what we'd originally signed on for, therefore costing, County taxpayers' money.

Councilman Haas, I believe in the letter it does state that we are requesting an annual report.

It looks like Section 5, but I don't think it quite says that, Ms. Stevenson. It says it shall submit a written annual report to the Division of Community Planning for the duration, but that's their word, that's not ours. And I think if the assessment office can really be on site and complete an assessment then, then we'd have language cut and dry.

That's very true. I did actually say the same thing like that. It would be us taking their word for whatever data that they wanted to supply to the county. How would we be able to hold them accountable? Absolutely.

And then there's a question of cost and how much does that cost our office to go do that? But yeah, I mean, I'm happy to have that to that go forward, but I think we need to be able to turn that one.

So basically instead of yearly reporting, yearly assessment requirements.

Attorney's scheme?

Yeah. So what Steven suggested earlier, he and I discussed one time, and that could all be taken care of in the contract between us and the person who's requesting alert. Traditionally, that contract is prepared by the person asking for alert because it's custom to what they're looking for. We could change that and alter the contract in such a way that it would say, if you sell this within the first You know, the year, you know, you could change that. That was the issue that had come up in the Blue Cup, the Blue Cup, the one that's at Wilkes-Barre Township. What had come up with that one is theirs expired, and it was in the agreement that it would expire. But that development itself, they're looking to get all the approvals and then sell it. So our LERTA would go with that to whoever is the new buyer or developer.

And then that creates a problem with the reporting because the reporting should be in the contract to be sold with the LERTA rights, right?

You would be able to have that, whatever you're putting in there, if the developer does, or the person who obtains all of the... Planning concessions and request alert of municipalities. If that person sells it, you could have the next person would be bound by the agreement, which I think is the case in most of them any transfer. They're bound by that agreement.

Okay. We would control the language of the word. So,

It's a negotiated agreement. Generally, theirs comes in. We have made changes to it before if council wanted to change it. But they generally prepare it because they're the ones missing.

I guess my question is, why aren't we preparing the agreement for them? Well, I mean, the exceptional amount of work that you do in the Office of Law, I get that. But if we have more of a standard LERDA agreement that could be based off of this ordinance, And then they can recommend changes to us. And if we choose to accept them, we do. But if we don't, we don't.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, I was going to say, this, as I mentioned earlier, is a form and function perspective, more geared towards reporting. I think a good consideration for council to make would be, as you mentioned, a second ordinance possibly as a follow up to this, or a resolution as a follow up to this, outlining a sample agreement. And that way you have a plug and play kind of sample agreement that the county has made official action on stating this is what we're looking at, you know, doing in general. And if you would like to make proposed changes to this, you're welcome to as part of your individual LERDA ordinances that are governed by the form and function of reporting in this ordinance. But, you know, each request is going to come in front of council in a unique way. And this just governs how you're going to receive it.

Right. So we could do a second ordinance with the sample contract in it. And then that way they could take our sample contract and they can propose changes to it. And then if we choose to accept it as a council, we can.

Chairman, I think it's a great idea to have the sample contract separate, especially because this really is setting the standard overall for the developers who are coming in to seek that letter, right? Even some of the languages here, it identifies the fact that we don't know and we won't have that information that they're going to give us. We don't know who's coming into that building. Most of that's always the question that we ask when they come to present to us what's going in the building, how many jobs will you have, et cetera, et cetera, even here in in section three K. This is a detailed project description, including scope anticipated timeline and the total capital investment. A lot of that, I'm assuming, will be estimated based on a developer who's coming to the table. So that language is intentional to leave room for who we're who we're dealing with, essentially. So I do think those documents should be separate. I think that the sample contract is a great framework for the developer to have immediate access to on the website to look at what exactly we want from them, or as at least as a guide.

Mr. Skeen, but follow up the Mr. Bellis.

Yes. I think what we're missing a little bit is the purpose of Alerta is to bring business in, and the developer who develops it, they might not necessarily know. They're going to develop a million-square-foot building and hope for somebody to come in. The person that's coming in has a net lease, so they have to pay all the taxes. The developer isn't going to pay the taxes anyway. The person who's going to pay the taxes is the tenant. So Alerta is... an ability for the developers to bring somebody in. So if you want development, the LERDA helps convince one company over another to come in and they get a tax break as outlined in the LERDA. So the development part of it is important if that's what you're trying to develop. Some people that were speaking today just did not like property to be developed. The county if you come across and say we're not letting you we're not giving anybody to learn it's going to be less attractive for people to develop. i'm not suggesting. But i'm saying that that's the movement behind it's not the developer that's benefiting because once it gets printed. it's going to be paid by, the taxes are paid by the person, right?

Well, the whole purpose of this is to keep it, outline a set process for developers to apply for the Lerna and get us information at the beginning of the process and on the back end of the process to monitor it, but leaving it open for a case-by-case basis. So we don't pigeonhole ourselves into, which was my mistake last year with the Lerna ordinance that I proposed last year, you know, pigeonholing us into types of development. This leaves it open for development, but I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Bellis.

No, you're good. I was nodding my head in agreement with you. So to your point, there is one thing I think that we should pigeonhole ourselves in with, and that is the excellent data that us and the municipalities stand to gain from all of this for a plethora of reasons that I've discussed at a previous meeting. But I do think that the privilege of getting a tax abatement attached to a project should absolutely be contingent upon full cooperation. And so I would like Right before section six that little paragraph that talks about failure to submit the required annual report. I would like for it to say failure to submit the required annual report fully timely and truthfully. You could insert other types of language if that's not the legalese, but you know it in a full timely and truthful manner would nullify the LERDA tax abatement and result in. All. taxes being owed from the inception. So therefore, if they don't provide, then they have essentially, you know, removed themselves. And here's why I think it needs to go back to inception. And this is, maybe it's not legal, but this is my thinking on this. If I have a 10-year LERDA and I get to year eight and I say, you know what? Things don't look so hot. I don't want to give you the information anymore. Well, now you're you're trashing our data that we're going to use to make future decisions based on, you know, maybe poor performance. And I think that, you know, having the full as full picture as possible I really would help there. Now, if it's not legal, I could settle for it stops the day that you stop giving us the data, too. I can. But I would like to make it as much of an incentive as possible for them to get us that data so that we can give the full 3D picture. And I'll leave it up to the lawyers to decide what is and isn't legal with that desire.

AGREED, CHAIRMAN BELLIS, COUNCILMAN BELLIS. I THINK THAT'S THE POINT. WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO COLLECT THIS DATA SO THAT WE'RE ABLE TO SHOW THE TAXPAYERS OF LAZURNE WHAT THEIR BENEFIT IS OUT OF THIS ALERTA AND OR HAVING THAT DEVELOPMENT HERE IN THE COUNTY. THAT IS THE TANGIBLE DATA NEEDED TO SHOW THE PEOPLE THAT IT'S, YES, WE NEED TO HAVE THESE BUSINESSES HERE AND WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO KEEP growing they have to be able to see that right and if these developers are coming in and they are not able to provide that information then it's on them and we i think we should have every right legal or not legal i don't know i'm not a lawyer but we should be able to get that money back and and it is what it is the people need to be able to see that and if we are able to provide a report at the end of the year saying great this is how much we've been impacted whether positive or negative by certain development or other development that's what the people want to see We need to have evidence. We got to put our money where our mouth is or take our money back, whatever comes first.

Can I third Mr. Bellis' amendment then?

I'm all for it. If it's legal, I'm all for it.

So you have some homework, Mr. Skeen? To temper expectations, I did look because that was alluded to at our last committee meeting when that was discussed and You know, obviously I can't look at every single letter ordinance that's ever been passed, but I couldn't find anything that necessarily had clawback provisions. There's some language for some things in Allegheny County, but I and again more research could prove me wrong on this, but I think the safest assessment to make on that idea is you are venturing into uncharted waters if you choose to do that. And maybe it'll go well and maybe we can find somebody who has already sailed those waters. But I don't know. I looked and I couldn't find anything is what I can say for now.

What about a forced escrow of some sort on the onset where Maybe it's not the full amount. Maybe it's 10%. You want your 10% back times 10 years. You do everything. Otherwise, the 10% stays with the county, something along those lines. I mean, there's got to be some kind of contract thing. I'm not the smartest person in the room.

I think it has to be a contract thing.

So I don't think it would be part of this ordinance per se. This is just to establish the procedures and policies for us to intake an application and get that information to council for review in the quickest possible. I think that's something we could visit for the second ordinance that we do for the sample contract.

Okay. I think I would still like it to be on here because we do have a failure to submit that the failure submit. uh at least describes the yeah yeah instead of saying like we're gonna look at it next time no no it's it's over this time you know um and and as far as on the case-by-case basis and I know I'm getting a little off topic here but I I would really like for everybody on Council And I am a fan of development, and I think that it's very important for this area to get development for a multitude of reasons. But I would like for us to examine the concept of not going for zero on year one, even if it's just 10%, even if it's just a little bit, because we're expecting the citizens of this county every year to pay their taxes. and we just last year expected them to pay a little bit more right and we may need them to pay a little bit more again and we may need them to do it again and again and it's just fundamentally i think if we could just ask for something if it even if it's just a token It's better, anything is better than zero. I had an algebra teacher that always used to say that anything is greater than zero. And so, you know, I would like for us to at least ponder that. And that's the end of what I'm going to say.

Well, I think that, and I could be wrong, county manager attorney scheme can correct me. that since 2024 we have an approved alerter that started out with zero or maybe if if there was one no no we didn't they were ten percent weren't they i think there was zero open okay so we just did one now okay yeah but uh to my recollection i'd be hard-pressed to think of any other ones blue cup is also a zero to start or no no they're not 20 24 and they're not But I think as we have become more aware of LERDAs and what they bring to the table as a bargaining tool, we've also become more aware of the sliding scale of, yes, there needs to be a little bit more at the beginning and a little bit less at the end. And we've tried to improve on that as a council over the last four years.

Yeah, I'm not saying that council has been I derelict in their duty. I'm just saying that I would like us to think about maybe a new standard going forward where there's something you know just as a rule, you know, Not, not, not a written rule, not one of them. Yeah, just kind of have the gentleman and ladies bargain that something should come in.

Maybe Councilman house remembers but North Point first learn that they did. We asked for, I think, $100,000 to basically a good faith payment from them before they got some sort of certification. I think that maybe one of the reporters can look that up. But I have a recollection of that, that they did pay us $100,000, that when they completed a certain phase, they did get the money back. So it wasn't contractual. It was in the ordinance, the resolution.

It might have been south of Hazleton, that zone down there, but that was only a few years ago.

I thought it was North Point, because it was the first time that you voted.

I was going to say, they got my vote, those buggers. I know they did. I think I remember nickels and dimes at the SoFu.

Yeah, but I can look that up. If my recollection is correct, and that may not be true, we've done it before. Asked for a certain amount up front.

Harry, just check the plaque on your wall when you get home with the date on it that they gave you for it.

Mr. Ritzig, I know that a lot of the things that we're asking are, like you said, uncharted waters, but maybe Luzerne County will be the first for many of these things. And I'm sure that between, you know, your insight, Attorney Skeen, and Manager Pergamon, I think we'll be able to figure something out before two weeks from now. So...

I think at the last one, Brittany, somebody said that we were sort of an uncharted waters, just asking for the data to begin with. I like these waters.

I like these waters a little bit too.

I think it's about time that county council does its due diligence. And we have to see if these LERDAs are doing what they say they're going to be doing. and hold people accountable to it, but within a certain framework of legality that doesn't put us in a position to be sued by people, so.

Mr. Chairman, and your self-described failure, I don't see it that way because I think that helped get us to this point that yes, this is a severe issue that needs to be dealt with, so. Kudos to you. You don't have to support that then, that product, but this is so much better. Again, thanks to the committee for Mr. Ritzig. I can't tell how much I appreciate it. I still think we need more work to do for this. I think, could we still have this on the next work session? Maybe make these changes? We still have, the community group brought this forward. I don't know if you're looking at this, but it's, there's a lot of good things here. I think a lot of it is addressed here. I mean, It's already, it's nine o'clock.

Yes, I actually went through the paper that Mr. John Zola left us and there are majority of what is listed here is mentioned in the LERDA standards as written. So I would suggest, I would make a suggestion that council do their due diligence. Please go back and review the LERDA

um that chairman has put forth and email your commentary or questions so that way we can move forward sooner than later do we want to make the amendments at a next work session or because i don't i don't think we want to do it at a voting session i'm all about doing this as soon as possible however i want to make sure we do it right how about we do it this way if there are any amendments you guys would like send them to me i'll compile them and put them out with the work session and then we can just

vote them in like kind of like what we did in february where i had like amendments listed when we created the new division and then that way you could just you could read them before the meeting You can understand them. I mean, I wish everybody would do the amendments that way, but I'm willing to be the key figure. Do you have the amendments that we discussed?

Can we get them to the Office of Law by a certain time?

What was that? Can we get them to the Office of Law by a certain time?

Yeah, so why don't we say any amendments to me by next Tuesday, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we'll give it to the Office of Law to review so we can publish it with the agenda.

So the friendly amendments that we talked about today, we're going to email to you.

No, those I got.

Those you got. Okay.

The ones that we talked about in the meeting, I got them.

Okay.

They're friendly. I'm going to change them. They'll be in the new document. Got it.

So anything we didn't talk about.

Email to me by Tuesday, and then I will get them to Office of Law for review. And then we will put it out as a document for the entire council and the public to see before the next meeting and we'll vote on it. We'll go through real quick and vote on them. And I would really like this to be the standard of how we do amendments going forward. I think Ms. McDermott had the right idea that amendments before kind of- Credit where credit is due.

Councilwoman McDermott did that. Yes. And it worked fabulously, so.

We're happy to give you, give you all the credit on this one. But, and I will read this and I will email amendments to both of you for review. All right. Is there any public comment? Oh, sorry, Ms. Williams, I'm sorry.

I just wanted to add, there was commentary earlier about the Salem Township and LERDA. And this council, I checked in between the voting and work session, and I don't recall this council ever, ever voting for a LERDA or anything in Salem Township. And so it was confirmed that this council, previous council, did not vote for any LERDA. The Salem Township, I'm sorry,

there was alerta but it was only approved by the municipality not by the school board and not by the council and since it wasn't approved by the school board it didn't come to council but we don't have anything written down that says that is the case so that's part of what this ordinance is and and just for context mr chair the uh the the taxes from the municipalities are are

normally greater than the taxes that the county has. The big one is the school district and the lowest school district millage is three times ours. And so it's really a minimal impact relative to the other taxing bodies that the county has as part of these projects, whether they choose to give the LERDA or not give the LERDA.

All right, is there any public comment from the audience tonight? No? Seeing none, Mr. Griffith, I see you have your hand up. Please unmute yourself. Yes.

Yes, thank you. Hopefully you can hear me pretty well. Can you? Yeah, pretty well. Okay, good. I just have a question for the Office of Law to determine if deliberating the amendments prior to a public meeting is not a violation of the Sunshine Law is my first question. And the second question is on the LERDAs. I did ask about a public hearing for LERDAs. I think that's really very, very important. to consider for council is when you're going to approve ALERTA and the introduction of the resolution or whatever way we do it at the front end, that there be provisions put in this statute or whatever we're creating here, this guideline, that allows for public hearing of ALERTA so that the folks who that ALERTA affects has the opportunity to come and question the developer as well as anybody on council for whether the LERDA will affect them directly or not. I think we miss a very important part of that. LERDAs are for 10 years, and they cause a lot of infrastructure damage or good for a lot of different reasons. And some people would like to probably come and talk about that as it affects their neighborhood and their municipality. So if we could possibly think about that, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Griffith. Is there anyone else on the Zoom? Seeing none, motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.