Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I'll give you a word of the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag 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.

We have many executive sessions. We have the Linden Terrace Scholarship. It's based on strong commitment and involvement in the community, and they are here in the Matthew David Angelo from the Sunco Haven Area School District. Sophia Feigley from the Pine Grove Area School District. And they're receiving this today. I'll let the women who care explain a little bit about what they do.

We're hoping that all people take this one. Oh, OK.

Hi, we're Women Who Care. We are a charitable organization that does work for, and we do the scholarship. And the scholarship is on volunteer work, most of the times within the community. And we get about 40 applications a year. And it's always hard. And these are our two winners, Matthew and Sophia. Sophia Feckley, she's from Prime Road, and she's going to go to Lebanon Valley. And she's going to study neuroscience and athletic training. And let me tell you, this girl is something else. She's in the band. She plays the flute. She plays a bear's hat. She's in the Daughters of Revolution. She's been doing that with her mom since she was little. And she does a reason called America. And she plays volleyball. She does swim. She does coaching. And you're wrestling too, aren't you?

Can you believe that? Awesome, guys.

And she does a lot with Special Olympics and JROTC. And one of the things from her essay was, volunteering is the glue that holds together our community. Honoring our veterans and supporting the needs of our community is important service. I will not end at high school, but will continue to evolve to something more. And so this is Sophia. And then Matthew. Matthew Angelos, he's from Schuylkill Haven. He's going to Lockett College, and he's going to do environmental engineering, and he's an Eagle Scout. He did a lot with the trout community with raising the trout and things like that. He does youth leadership, and he loves the environment. He loves to go fishing. He did a lot with his father, and he wants to honor his father by doing that. And he loves the environment, and he wants to use his knowledge and ideas to make the world a greener place, which I think is wonderful. And I love that he's going to environmental engineering, because that's where my husband is. So it's great. And both of them are just wonderful students that we have here, wonderful children, wonderful community members. And we're just so proud to be able to honor them in this way.

So Mr. Chair, thank you. And just all we remember, Schuylkill County is your home. Go out, get your education, come back, make Schuylkill County yours. Okay?

Yes, thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to talk to the junior advisory group, John and Roland, a couple weeks back we had the youth summit, and this is so much fun, so pleasing, so rewarding to see these young people do so well. to be leaders, to be movers and shakers, to make the park feel good. So congratulations. Mr. Hess and Mr. Dorff, I'll tell you that there will be a lot of things that aren't much fun. This is fun. This is great. This is the celebration. And by the way, the fellow engineers, welcome to the group.

And congratulations, ladies. Thank you very much for putting this on recognizing our youth here in the county. Appreciate it. And again, I don't know how you used to do it. You have a more busy schedule than I do. And it's nice to see that young people giving back and volunteering. That's what it's all about that makes a strong community. So congratulations and good luck to you in the future.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for always giving this recognition to our students. Thank you. Can you get a picture? Yeah. You don't want to be here, buddy. Let's come over here and move your chair. Josh is directing. So you had to put seven in the front row and two in the back? Switch places. Because you're taller. Now she's directing. Josh is directing. Hold on. Hold on. Josh.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you very much again. Thank you. Thank you.

For Krasnowski, Plattsville, Pennsylvania, Schuylkill County, there is a legal distinction between public comment at meetings and the First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances. Though they frequently overlap according to the Supreme Court and the ACLU, Other legal analysis, public comment is a government-created limit.

Laura, I can't hear you. Tilt the microphone down a little bit. It's taped. Tilt the mic. There you go. Should I start over? If you want to. Speak into the microphone. OK.

So I will start over. Can I reclaim? You can start. You're fine. OK. There's a legal distinction between public comment at meetings and the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Frequently, these two overlap, but according to the ACLU and the Supreme Court of the United States, public comment is a government-created limited form subject to reasonable time-matter rules while petitioning is a broader fundamental right formally complain to the government, with redress being to request that you make changes. I am not here to make a public comment. I am here to exercise my First Amendment right under the United States Constitution, Article I, right to petition the government for a redress of my grievances. Pennsylvania law, 43 public statute, section 1421, whistleblowers law requires the reporting of wrongdoing, waste and abuse, while it may not be a personal duty to the public for you to personally intervene, employees must report misconduct or face potential disciplinary action according to the governor's code of conduct. Wrongdoing includes waste, fraud, abuse in state, local and federal government. For years, I have been coming before this body being told that I'm making a comment. I am not making a comment. I'm filing a grievance with you. I have been here with documents which were presented to the court, which were presented to the tax office, which have been presented practically everywhere, to the city of Pottsville, and no one, no one has taken any action for the wrongdoing. The wrongdoing consists, in part, of also engaging public employees in the long run through creating taxes from two different entities on one property. And when you collect that money and you distribute it to the employees in this room and other people, you are engaging them in the illegal conduct that was created by creating two different deeds to two different people with each one paying taxes on the same lot. I have asked the court for a number of years, Judge Russell in particular, who tells me, you have to pay your taxes before we can sort this out. And I stood there and said, excuse me, we need to figure out what the meets and bounds are so I know what I'm paying taxes on. 15 years later, it never gets into court. It just gets kicked around up there. At any rate, so after we have it all kicked around and everybody's been presented with Deeds, including Judge Jim Goodman. I usually call him Benny Goodman, but that's wrong. Jim Goodman. You see these deeds sometimes. Excuse me?

You're three minutes is up.

Excuse me. I'm not here for public comment.

You're three minutes.

I'll tell you what.

Well, then this is the time for public comments. If you're not here for public comments.

It's the only time. It's public comment.

Three minutes is up.

Excuse me?

You're not here.

Okay, so in other words, you're asking me to take legal action under USCA 1983 because you're federally violating constitutional rights. Thank you.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Chris Molesky, Norwegian Township. Of course, I would ask that you refrain from any comments until after my three minutes. Today, I want to address the issue of data centers and zoning in Schuylkill County. My question is simple. Why does Schuylkill County still not have a countywide ordinance or clear policy relating to data centers? Across Pennsylvania? Very nice. Across Pennsylvania, municipalities are actively working to adopt ordinances to protect their residents, protect groundwater, protect neighborhoods, protect farmland, and preserve the quality of life before these projects arrive. They are planning ahead. Of course, you're shaking some papers there. So my question was, so why is Schuylkill County waiting? How many municipalities in the county fall under the county zoning ordinance or the zoning board? About half. And that would be about 50% because if the county oversees such a significant portion of the county, then the county should be responsible and be the leader on this issue. Not sit back and wait until the applications are ready on the table. So my next comment was, what's the holdup? Apparently there is no holdup because you have some paperwork in front of you from the zoning board.

Now, this is a Kennedy policy that we were working on and we're going to present it with zoning, but zoning was instructed a couple weeks ago to start looking at zoning procedures and planning for data centers because there is one project that started already in Client Township. Correct. But they have their own planning and zoning. They're under their own salary. So the only thing we get is a review, and it doesn't matter what it's like.

Okay. So of course we all know artificial intelligence is something that's not some distant future concept anymore. We all use AI and technology every single day. Data centers are coming whether people like it or not. The question is if they are coming. It's not if they are coming, it's where and how they are developed. So let me be clear, I'm not against data centers. I'm against poorly planned data centers being dropped into residential and environmentally sensitive areas where they negatively impact the quality of life of the people who already live there. I support reasonable development where local government identifies appropriate industrial locations, establishes protections, creates clear ordinances, and puts residents before corporate interests. Of course, Chairman Padora, you publicly stated that three data centers would give Schuylkill County and generate a million dollars in tax revenue last week. A lot more than a million dollars. Okay. Well, let me rephrase then. So you said about a million, but it could be a lot more than $1 million.

A lot more.

Well, the people in the county hear this statement like that and they get concerned because many residents already believe the county government treats taxpayer money like a blank check. You get it and you spend it.

Okay.

So if data centers are truly about helping taxpayers, then I hope you are prepared to stand here publicly and commit to no tax increases for multiple years. Of course, this goes back to your comment, though, for multiple years, if the revenue ever becomes reality. But more importantly, understand this. The people of the county are paying attention. From the north, south, east, and west ends of the county, They are watching how the board responds to legitimate concerns about zoning, transparency, planning, infrastructure, water usage, and environmental impacts, especially the quality of life. They hear your responses, they see your reactions, and they will remember them. Some of you may not be sitting in these seats forever, but voters will absolutely remember who listened to them and who ignored them when election time comes. Thank you for your time. Thanks for the information. Is that a public document yet or is it in the draft state?

No, I was going to share it because we're going to put it on officially for a work session, but I'm going to share it today. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I think I addressed most concern with data centers for baseload, water consumption, to location, to impact the local communities. I am sorry the county, my stance, and I believe my fellow commissioners are, there should be no learn for data centers. They should not have a tax incentive or a tax break for a data center. And also, I instruct our accounting solicitor that if there is any property that is being considered for a data center that has a LERTA, we are looking at if we can pull out of the LERTA. Because if it's going to come here, they're coming here because we have space, power, and water. They're already making decisions that come from, like, one client housing. So this document, and if there's... Like, I'm fine with sharing it if there's anything else that, like we do with the ICE detention facility. Brianna, she came up with some really good points. We put that into our presentation to ICE. It's the same with this. But I think we worked and tried to cover every concern that we could. And now something new can come up. Like, I can't. Everything's going to change, yes. But I think we addressed all the issues that it can impact repairs. They must contribute to base load.

I think one of the concerns also with the LERDA would be if the tax revenue is not coming in, what if? What if there is a tragic emergency? What if the building goes up in flames? Whose taxpayer dollars are supporting the volunteer firefighters that have to address that? So those are things that clearly, it sounds like you guys are on board and trying to move forward with this. So again, thank you for your time and I look forward to taking a look at that.

I'm going to read some highlights of it, but it's like a three, four page one.

But we have all day.

We could be here.

We're good. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. David Platschko, St. Clair. Retaining the brads. What else? Section 504 of the Pennsylvania Solid Waste Management Act sets forth specific tools that the county can use to object to places like brads. It It states that permit applications must be reviewed by the appropriate county, county planning agency, host municipality, or any other related agencies. The county may recommend to the department, that being the Department of Environmental Protection, conditions upon revisions to or disapproval of the permit for specific causes cited. So it gives you the tools that you can use to object to places like Brad's. Now, we searched the online clearinghouses. We searched the Pennsylvania Bulletin, and we found zero objections.

No, we have. That's not true. Dave, I have a letter here.

All right. You could provide that, and I'll get it through Mr. Dogger or whomever. But we searched the online databases. We did not find any objections. We didn't find any public comment or county comment or anything set forth under Section 504. If you have it, I would like to know why. Hold on. If you haven't, I would like to know why it's not in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

So hold on a second. I'm going to give you your time. Don't have to worry. So yes, we did send a letter objecting to the permit renewal. We have that letter. We have the email chain and everything. Why it didn't show up, I've talked to somebody else about that, and we don't know why. But we did. This county has consistently, two counties since the inception of Brown's Land, voted against it. But also, I believe Blake Township, where it's at, has their own planning and zoning also. I don't believe it falls under the county's planning and zoning. And the way a saldo works in a planning and zoning issue is they come to us for a review. If it doesn't matter, we can say, no, we're against it. And if they have their own planning and zoning, they can go, okay, and just move on with it. So if it's in our planning and zoning, yes, we have more control over that. But if it's in they're all planning and zoning, it makes it hard.

So you're saying that you objected to the waste types, the tonnage, the hours, the operational practices, you objected to all of that stuff?

We objected to that they can't I can't remember exactly what it was.

It wasn't the things that there was a thing there.

It was about back then. It was the smell about when they were coming here that they can't control their smell. They can't. You're so we enlargement. And I don't think it wasn't a large. So that's we can't find that they went for an alarm expansion. But we did try to get an expansion at one time. We can't find it.

I mean, we searched the last permit application. for an extension, and we didn't find any objections. Yeah, we responded to the renewal. You responded to the renewal, but did you file an objection under this Section 504? Sending a letter is one thing, saying that you're against it, but... That is our comment. That's our comment. It's a comment, but you have to file a specific objection, and then that creates a hearing, a necessity for a hearing, and then the DEP has to then justify why they're overruling you.

No, we have no authority over the DEP. We have no authority over DEP.

Your point's well taken because when we reviewed the renewal, we were not listed among those that commented because typically they will include the comment.

Well, if I can see the section 504 objection, I appreciate that. Second thing is this county really needs to adopt the conflict of interest policy. If you're sitting in any capacity, and you're weighing in on some of these projects and you have a conflict of interest with an owner or whomever that's involved, I think that conflict of interest really needs to be divulged immediately. And that person should remove themselves from any deliberations. Anybody on a planning commission, authority, board that has a conflict of interest needs to set forth that conflict immediately so we can avoid some of the problems that we have today, especially with brats. And lastly, I'll wrap this up. I have here pictures. This is not pertaining to brass. I need these back.

I'm sorry, what is this?

The pictures that you have, that's the red ash. It's right outside of Shenandoah. Mr. Hetherington, you probably drive past it multiple times a week. It's from a red ash pile from burnt coal. Red ash, of course, as you know, is full of lead, arsenic, mercury, all kinds of toxic substances. It causes respiratory problems and all kinds of other bodily function problems. My friends from Shenandoah, Monty City, Monty Plain, Points North, Tractville asked me to call this to your attention so that when you're meeting with the DEP secretary, you can relay their concerns because neither we nor they are invited.

Can you get us copies of them so we can give them to the secretary?

Okay, thanks for your time.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. Police have on on Pottsville, and I would appreciate going through this without interruption. Since the Sheriff's Department has a 287 deal with ICE, I'm kind of concerned about the Pennsylvania County's risk pools decision, which takes effect June 1st, not to cover law enforcement agencies and lawsuits stemming from their participation in proactive ICE operations. And since Chairman Padora took issue last week with my calling, for calling what DHS wants to poised on Tremont Township, a concentration camp, I just want to bring up some points. This project certainly fits the Merriam-Webster definition of a concentration camp, a place where large numbers of people such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority are detained or confined under armed guard. It's a term that's often been used in describing the Nazi slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust. but it was first used in the late 1800s during the Spanish-American and Boer Wars. And since I was indirectly accused of antisemitism, I should tell you that my father, Joseph Lilienthal, was the solicitor of this county at the time of his death, but for nearly all his life, neither he nor his family could join places like the Country Club, or the Pottsville Club, It was antisemitism. It wasn't what the European Jews had to contend with, but it was antisemitism nonetheless. And even though I wasn't raised Jewish, growing up with my last name here, I encountered a little bit of that too. And when I saw the movie, The Diary of Anne Frank, and read the book when I was in middle school, I was terrified. And the only thing that reassured me was when adults told me that something like the Holocaust would never happen again, and certainly not here. But something resembling it is. To me, DHS's arbitrary quote is, people who've done nothing wrong are being swept off the street like garbage and too often dumped in places described as a living hell. These concentration camps are not death camps. But despite DHS's denials, they're brutal and humane, and members of Congress have even been barred from making unannounced visits. And it's important to remember that the Nazis didn't start out by racking up the Jews and exterminating them. First, they demonized, marginalized, and restricted them. Doing what the Trump slash Project 2025 regime is doing or trying to do to all sorts of people now They're just finding more success with immigrants, documented or not. As I mentioned last week, a man who was DHS chief of staff under the first Trump administration stated that there is no need for detention space of the scope that his former department wants if the only goal is to get rid of violent and dangerous illegal immigrants. That's why I think it's important to call these policies what they are, even if the words are emotionally loaded and maybe especially because of... If more German people had opposed the Third Reich's early attacks on various groups, maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't have been a Holocaust at all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning. Not here to talk about ice today. I'm going to talk about your meeting with Secretary Shirley, specifically with the biosolids stuff. Two points that I'll try to get to. First of all, we are at like a really interesting intersection of attention on Sewell County, on Tremont, as well as timing as to the contract that Tully Environmental has. Tully Environmental owns natural soil products and they have an $80 million five-year contract with New York City to haul sludge from New York City to their facility in Tremont. That contract is up this year on October 31st. And they could probably renew it. And I think maybe we could ask Secretary Shirley to pick up the phone and call New York City's DP and say, hey, can you consider rebidding the contract with additional terms or letting them know about all of the things that are happening in Tremont with NSP, it seems like they don't know. New Yorkers don't know that their sewage is going to Tremont, Pennsylvania. Potentially they could ask, you know, if there are violations, we can switch to another vendor. There are four total sewage haulers in New York City. So there are alternatives. And for a contract of that size, I feel like they'd be motivated to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on additional reporting or additional monitoring, more sensors and things like that. in particular, because I know that we are not New Yorkers. We don't live in New York. With the Mondani administration, I think they're probably more motivated to care about environmental impacts. Just a thought. They're more motivated to, I don't know how you feel. Yeah, but they did run specifically on environmental concerns. And this is an environmental justice.

Yes. Because we have Dr. Portland stopped and some other information out of the west end of the county, but I'd be happy if you could put it in some succinct order.

Yes, absolutely, with links. And present it to them.

Yeah.

And put in a contract with them.

Yeah, and I can give you the contract number. I don't have the actual contract because I'd have to file a request.

Just give me the contract number.

Yeah, and the other one is maybe because we hear that we have so many environmental concerns here, I pulled some data from PA EnviroScreen. Have you seen that website? It's really cool. It's a big map tool. of different environmental issues. And as you know, DEP's regional office is the Northeast, it's 11 counties. The three counties that have the most environmental justice communities, so like the most environmental concerns are here, North Hampton and Lehigh, which are all at the Southern end of their Northeast district. So everybody is like the most affected communities live over an hour away from their office. And I think we can advocate for opening a satellite office or moving their office further south to actually serve the needs of our communities. Thanks.

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Roseanne Weinrich. I was here a few weeks ago discussing data centers. I'm from Ashland, actually Butler Township, and we're We're in a state of limbo right now because no one is telling us the truth. BPNL and Mr. Zukas, well, BPNL and you have stated that there's a data center coming to the High Ridge Industrial Park. Meanwhile.

As far as I know.

Okay.

We're not 100, like I haven't seen documentation, but that's where you go.

Okay. We've not been told that by our supervisors and by our solicitor. They've denied that anything is happening. It's like, well, we don't have anything official. Why do we have to wait? I mean, I feel like we're getting snowballed and out of left field, all of this stuff is coming at us at work 10. One issue that I'd like to discuss, last time I was here, I think... Mr. Padora, you spoke about the closed loop system and not requiring water.

No, it doesn't require as much water.

Correct. It does not require as much, but the trade-off is more heat is released and more energy is necessary. So the people from Gordon, who are parts of the Schuylkill Municipal Water Authority, have received notification that they're being asked to conserve three to six gallons per day per person of water. Mr. Zoukas has promised the ghost entity who wants to build a data center of 30,000 gallons of water per day. This adds up to about 11 million gallons per year, and that's just from one data center. Obviously, people are concerned about the loss of water resources, as we're guaranteed by Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The problems that we see, and again, I'd like to reiterate what other people have said. We're not against progress, but I really think we need to take a step back. And before we go over the cliff, we are surrounded by environmental problems here. We have biosolids issues. We have pollution from coal mining from over 100 years ago that we're still trying to clean up. Who's going to clean up potential problems from data centers? I did do some looking into county ordinances, and this is not my wheelhouse at all, so forgive me if I misspeak, but I think that in section 603 of the county ordinance, there's illegal performance standard violations with sound. Regarding sound, what kind of sound studies are going to be performed? Are we going to have a hydrogeological study of the water tables and what potential harm can come from that? What potential harm from increased temperatures of 6 to 16 degrees surrounding these data centers and extend six miles from the data center? There are just so many questions. And last time I was here, I asked you to sign. my moratorium petition, which I delivered to Governor Shapiro and Senator Argyle and Representative Torczyk and Harrisburg last Tuesday. I just have another here in section 104. The purpose of the board is to guide or regulate the orderly and efficient integration of land development, which I totally get, like we need, you know, we have roads that need to be improved, we have infrastructures to fix, But the other part is the general welfare of the citizens. That's us. And I feel as if no one is representing us. And I know that you feel your hands are tied. Everybody tells us, well, there's nothing we can do. We have to go to the state. The state says, well, that's a local thing. So really, what do we do? I mean, it's just so frustrating.

Well, that's why we put together this plan. Then we're going to present it to the planning zone so they can look at it. where we control planning and zoning to make some rules and regulations pertaining specifically to this entity. But I don't see the difference between a data center and any other inductor use. Our two state prisons use 300,000 gallons a day of water. Just for a big reason. Our federal prison uses about 500,000 gallons of water a day. How many people do they employ? How much sound do they generate? Well, with Bell and Evans, when you drive by Bell and Evans, the air conditioning systems that are on Bell and Evans to cool it are equivalent to what a data center would have. We had a frozen food warehouse in Hyderabad. So all those are considerations, but you can't have a knee-jerk reaction to, if they're done at the right location and get the stipulation that we have, you can't overlook the tax benefit revenue. of what would create, it would stabilize our tax revenue for the county for years.

And there's no other use.

I have to say this, Joe, and I know this is... We've got to move on to the next person, because we do have a ton of meetings today.

Okay.

Just finish the statement. Well... I know you don't like that. Who's St. Paul? I would like you to... lead the way and follow other. So the public comment is, I'm going to go over some of the bullet points that are in here and not read the whole thing. Like I said, I think we addressed everything. And if there is other stuff that people think should be added, we will consider it just like I did with the DHS stuff. Because people came with some stuff, we added it to it and went to DHS with them. Okay.

Would there be a public hearing? Would the people have a chance?

If it's going into an ordinance, yes. Okay. Once we get that we instructed our person to start looking at performances from other counties that have data centers which there's not a ton of Pennsylvania. So we're looking at other states to see what it says they have in place and zoning. But like I said, if it's under county planning and zoning, we have some control over if it's in the municipalities townships. planning and zoning, yes, they have to come to us and say, here, we give you this, we're reviewing it, and we can say, no, we're for it, no, we're against it, and it doesn't matter. Because they have, under our law, they have their own salad, their own planning and zoning. Okay.

Well, thank you. I would like to file a right-to-know request. Can I give you a copy of that? Does someone in here get that? Because I know that I need to take it to Lois Lebo.

You can give it to me, and I'll take it to Lois.

Okay. I have three copies, one for me, one for you, and one for Lois.

Thank you very much for your time comment.

Thank you for stating that guys. 7 elected officials not here at 930 this morning, all collecting about 100,000 dollars. Benefits and salary package on the miss Stevens and that debacle. Uh, multiple right to know requests over the last year and a half to get this information. I'm not sure why it's so secretive or protective. Mr. Opaque said that he received a decision from the attorney general's office stating they weren't pursuing it.

It was then instructed to file another right to no request to ask for that.

He said he couldn't release that. This is the official document from the attorney general's office dated February 27th, 2025. That's how long this has been going on, even prior to that. This just states that they're not releasing it. but it is up to the county to decide and go by their policy, their formal policy on releasing it. So it's 100% up to Mr. Opaque to release that. So I will be, I'm not sure if you guys know what the formal policy is on that, but I would like to know because I just don't understand why everything's so secretive and why everybody protected her. She was given a two week paid suspension. And as somebody said earlier about whistleblower, it's tax fraud. I mean, the way that she ran this payroll scheme, it's straight up tax fraud. It should have been reported to the federal government. I don't believe it was. And now you guys allow her to work, not through the county, but from a third party, I believe as a legal assistant of all things, in the county building that she did this payroll scheme. She works for the state. That's what I just stated. It's a third party. So we'll look into that, but I'd like to know the formal policy on that if anybody can get me that because here's the attorney general documentation. Ms. Gaffney and her FMLA claim she's nowhere to be found like usual. Just want to keep stating that until she comes up here and explains to the taxpayers why she claims she was on FMLA when she was not, and she was instructed not to state that. Moving on to the appointment that you're about to make today for the tax assessment, another shady backdoor deal. I was promised that position again by three people. Also, Larry, way back in the day when you were running, If you remember, hang on, hang on.

Stop the clock. You asked, and I always told you, it would take two votes.

I'm not even on that subject. I'm not even on that subject. You mentioned that last week. I'm stating that if you recall, the time that you recall. Now I know why other people get pissed off at you because you keep interrupting them. Just let me speak.

Yeah, because you're lying. You're saying I said something to you personally.

Hang on a minute. You're not even letting me finish this. I know what I'm saying to you. What am I going to say? What am I going to say? Because I have this text message. Do you remember the text message? Do you remember the time that we met down at the STS building? Yes, I did. In the back and sat on the bench? Yes, we'll have it. Okay.

And I said I'd be willing to take a chance on you, but it takes two votes.

No, it had nothing to do with two votes. And that was for Kent Hatter's job that Chris had done. Correct. Okay. Okay. So at least we're going there. That's truthful then. Okay. But this position itself that yous are voting on today was promised to four different individuals. Two were actually on the agenda and four individuals were promised it. So again... That's just the type of shadiness that goes on in this building. Let's continue with the shadiness. Follow the money. Again, I mentioned it last week, but it was in the second half. Some people didn't realize that. Boots, you received over $12,000 from Where America Started PAC, $500 from Kotler, $1,500 from Kramus. Larry, you received $15,000 from the PAC, $10,000 from John Rich. Together, jointly, you received $250 from Kramus.

$10,000 from Brian Rich. John Rich gave you the joint PAC.

John, right, okay. Okay. John Rich, yep, 10,000 jointly, PAC 27,000, and Kramus 250. So again, yeah, because they're trying to get in your pockets, like I said last week. So what I'm doing is I'm formally requesting you, both of you, to reimburse that money and not be paid off by these people and their projects that are killing the environment. So that's what I'm doing. Redevelopment Authority, I brought this up last week. $1.5 million snuck in in a cryptic agenda item. No application process, no list of meetings online, no board members able to be found. Nobody knows anything that goes on with this redevelopment authority, but $750,000 was promised to Metzinger for his project, over $200,000 to CopaLinux for their project, and there's $500,000 that's out in the air that nobody knows how to apply for, what it's for, and when the board meetings are, or who's on the boards. So I'd like to know how that occurs if you're telling me there's no backdoor deals. Mr. Argyle, and I believe Mr. Verdier, who's here, I believe they were both wined and dined at Costa Rica with the Metzingers. So if that's the case, this just shows more shady backdoor deals. Larry, you told me that money came straight from the senator and was instructed on how to be given out. Okay.

But now things have changed.

Yeah, because people go to Costa Rica.

It is in the redevelopment department, and we are in the process right now of listing the meetings. I looked at our website, and they were. And they got a list together of everything, which I'm reviewing right now, to be able to post on who are on all the boards. and who are on the 180.

Well, then you better do some digging today because according to the right-to-know request that came in conveniently at 426 p.m. and 431 p.m. on the 30th day, like usual, this stuff sits there for 30 days, it states, list of board members appointed by commissioners, list of members of each board, current terms of each member, and policy for appointing board members. Your response through the county, there are no records in the possession of the county to respond to this. So you're kidding me that nobody knows what boards there are when they're appointed, but you're trying to put this on an online thing, but you're giving out $1.5 million that we're already promised behind the... You told me they have to funnel it through you as the person to distribute it, correct?

Things have changed.

So those numbers are no longer... Their numbers are no longer active. Okay. So if I got to go to Costa Rica and buy a house to get money for my building, then I will.

Lastly, the...

I will.

Okay.

The investigative position that's on the salary, or the salary board.

Can anybody?

And the raises and the solicitors, I thought there was a hiring freeze and no raises. I just, if you can comment on that.

Okay, well, we'll get the salary board. Okay, thank you.

Melinda Divert, North Mannheim Township. Okay, let's get to it. Brad's Landfill. Let's look back at the inception of Brad's Landfill with the likes of the Blythe Township Supervisors, who at the time were led by Chairman Albert Labinsky and the company FKV, made up of Steve Field of Wiener Iron and Metal, living in West Brunswick Township. William King, he has all sorts of things to his resume, real estate, development, whatever, you name it, he's probably done it, of Princeton, New Jersey. And Dave Ventresca, former owner of Pottsville Sanitation. Oh, and let's not forget their attorney, Paul Dottie, Name sound familiar? You betcha. That's right. He's our county solicitor. The environmental issues across this county are far and reaching. Poor Shirley Wagner has been fighting issues in the West End for over 20 years now. In the West End of this county, we have NSP, At the very least, they are an irresponsible biosolids processor. Stavola textiles and quarry, CES landfill, et cetera. Let's look at what's going on in Archbold Borough in Lackawanna County. I don't know if you guys have been paying attention to this, but I'm going to read you a little bit about what's going on there. Archibald, a town of roughly 7,000 people, being asked to take on the infrastructure equal to 51 Walmart super centers. That's not development. It's full-scale industrialization. And like always, it's rushed through with promises of jobs. while locals deal with the real cost, land use, water, power, and losing the character of their town. When council members are resigning and the community is split, Boots, are you okay? That's not progress. That's a red flag. And it should warrant serious discussion. At some point, At some point, we have got to ask, why are small towns being treated like dumping grounds for big tech infrastructure? Because you know what? Once it's built, there is no undo button. Can't go back. Some of the comments, I'll try to scurry it up, Larry. So I can't get my three minutes of public comment? Already? I think we have it on speed dial.

Okay. You think I'm going to go back and look at these times? Those IT people who would be filling this building

You think we're going to have tons of people feeling that it's going to be all kinds of jobs. You're incorrect.

It's not a hundred.

Many of the... It's not a hundred. You're talking construction.

No.

Many of the jobs that are related are maintenance, landscaping, and construction.

Okay.

Those same jobs are found everywhere. Thank you. And they pay as little as possible.

Thank you.

Pennsylvania... We'll give any company tax breaks and millions of dollars.

But you've given already.

Other people who have spoken here today, you have given them five minutes or more.

You're being disruptive.

I'm not going to ask you to leave. Go sit down before I ask you to leave. You don't have to yell. And you come up on the salary board and you can finish.

No, sir. It's 10.49. I know.

I mean, about a minute. Is there any other comment for public comment? Go ahead.

I don't have a comment, but I have a letter here I would like to present to each of you on occurrences that happened last week. And rather than embarrass myself or you guys on some of the comments that were made about the ice facility, I wrote a letter and I will give that to you later.

Thank you. Is there any other public comment? So this... We're calling this the Schuylkill County Responsible Infrastructure Development Fund. It has, like, numerous things in here, but it actually interests, you know, this is based off of Governor Shapiro's, it's called a grid plan that he came up with. Based off of that, and this is so that we can, like, some of the goals are identifying responsible investment, prioritized projects, being private capital, strength and tax-based, school county industrial corridors identify county comprehensive community development development plans require new load and new power not that they train power that they contribute to base blow uh try to use if i try to identify all ground fields and sites that can't be used for anything else so they're not taking farmlands or right next to communities because data centers can be in the middle of nowhere they don't need to be on 81 or 61 on the quarters because they're not trucking, they're not doing anything else. Protect the water and try to make sure they do all their geological studies on water consumption, water rates. I've heard of one now using mindful water. Some of the mindful waters that are discharged, there's one mindful water that has discharged 60,000 gallons a day of mindful water. And they talk about using a geothermal system that exchanges into the mine pool water. But I know of numerous places where they're just charging hundreds and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, of mine pool water. So that's a provision. Some of these data centers now are going to be distilled water. I don't know the reason why, but that's some of the information that's out there. We want to know what jobs they're going to create locally, how many jobs they're going to create locally, and if they're going to pay locally. Avoid tax incentives. We have no large consideration or tax incentives for any project by the data center, which have a negative impact on local communities and resources, outweighing any benefits of the policy. So we will not, there's no alert, there's no tax incentives for the county. I can't speak on what a municipality or school district will do, only what the county will do. We identified some of our areas, some of the higher-end industrial sites, some of the areas, Like what impact will they have on school district, legacy, land conservation, former mines, brownfields. We have an end of life thing in here that if the data center closes up, it has to be cleaned up. It has to be taken down and the land returned to where it was. So we try to address everything we possibly can with the data centers. Because if they come here, if they're going to come here to Schuylkill County, they need to benefit Schuylkill County as much as possible. with the tax base and with everything needed. But we're trying to get Penn State Extension, I believe we reached out to Penn State Extension to do a seminar on data centers. And they've gone by as Penn State. Penn State is their extension. We wanted somebody that's not involved in a project, that has nothing to do with a project, that can just come and talk about the latest generation of data centers and how they work. Let's say I want them everywhere. So they made a comment to me, would you like one in New England? If we have the land for it, the power for it, and that they're not going to impact the town 100% of it. Because if we're on the Ringo, I would pay no garbage. I would pay no sewage. I would pay no taxes. I'm in the Blue Mountain School District, and they need to tax revenue in the Blue Mountain School District. You can stabilize the tax revenue in the Blue Mountain School District, and you won't believe me. So if it's done responsibly, how about saving $100,000 in school accounts? Fuck it for you. three in this county is what I would see would be feasible for this county. Maybe four if they can identify land and agree to that, but I think at least three. So we're trying to address it the best we can. And I don't learn off farm lands, that's why we're identifying brownfields, because we don't learn farm lands developed in inner farms. One question and I'm gonna go up to you, go ahead.

Is there any plans for decommissioning?

Yes, I just said that. There has to be a decommissioning plan. If it's DMOX delete or anything, that they have to put in some kind of performance bond or do something for the end of life. So we're trying to address everything we possibly can with the data centers. There's another thing that we're working on, but I'm not going to get into that today. I'll wait till next week because we have a lot of time with this. There's another thing that we're looking at together.

This is getting moved over to planning.

Yeah, we're going to make sure that it's informing the work. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to formally adopt this as the commissioners will be on the work session. Then it'll be on a regular meeting. And then planning and zoning is already going to be given to start looking at our planning and zoning. We have 50% to start adopting ordinances and planning meetings that coincide with this for the weekend. So that's what we're trying to do.

County ordinance review is a specific element.

Yeah. County ordinance review is a specific element in this that if they're under county review, then they specifically have to have county ordinance review. So we're going to work on all that.

And don't it have to be just more than a review? It should be locked into as an ordinance.

Correct. The ordinances are going to be reviewed to determine how they need to be revised.

Yes, we have to revise and amend our ordinances just like they did with solar, just like they did with wind.

We're also approving the feasibility study today as well, which factors into this.

Which factors into this also, so.

Well, I would talk about the decommissioning very important. I put it in Los Angeles, Texas. There's a windmill there that was shot. It was the one putting up with all the decommissioning. The windmill was falling down in Los Angeles. We made that a very big part of our plan. It was all offset. Some of that Yeah, it's not going to mess with my farm or a channel that you want to go to the bottom of the mission. That's very important. Yeah.

So we're trying to move destination. Okay, so let's move on. Can I have also approved the minutes from the meeting? Second. Second. Yes. Yes. Yes. Approved the minutes from May 16.

Second.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Any questions? Commissioner Fedora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Hathaway?

Yes. Finance Office? No items of interest today, only the request to approve a motion to approve that.

Motion approved by the Finance Office. I'll actually submit it. So moved, sir. Second. Commissioner Fedora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington?

Yes.

Commissioner Hathaway? Yes. Can I vote to approve a presentable with a motion to approve a presentable by the county administration on property.

We'll move to the second. 5-0. Commissioner Cadora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Hathaway? Yes. Human Resource Office.

Commissioners, in the Human Resource Office, we have the promotion of Elaine Pucci as the Senior Benefits Administrator slash Investigator at a rate of $57,723.52. That's a 5-18 from the Senior Benefits Administrator. And in Tax Assessment, we have the appointment of Chloe Turner, As a field appraiser, at a rate of 17.5736 per hour, effective 5.26. Rate is per the UG contract. Do you want me to keep going?

Yeah, just do the information.

Okay, information on district attorney appointment of Zoe Holden as a clerk intern, effective 5.2626. Controller's office appointment of Thomas Kearns as an unpaid intern, effective 5.1826, and that will end approximately 8.7. Adult probation, the appointment of Paige Cook and Riley Berniski, adult probation interns, effective 6-1-26, and that will be for 12 weeks.

Thank you.

And all appointments are pending drug deaths and physical and all actions involving salary or for positions being created on pending salary board football.

Do I have a motion to approve a resource and tax assessment for the appointment? So moved and seconded. Seconded. Commissioner Padora? Yes. Commissioner Hillington? Yes. Commissioner Hatton? Yes.

New business, on behalf of the groundwater approval of a change order number one for each $1,000 for a contract with the Portable Construction Develotion LLC for Develotion at 40 North Main Street, Long City. This will increase the contract from $37,000 to $45,000. This is for repairs to the local wall and photo discovery on the Develotion. We need to get approval for that, so can I have a motion?

Motion to do a change order.

Second.

Second. Commissioner Fedora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes.

Commissioner Hackett? Yes. Just take note, there's no meeting next Wednesday. Next Wednesday, it'll be Thursday. On Thursday. Which one? Yep. Sorry. It'll be the 21st. 21st. Yep. Salary Board, before we make any executive decisions, public comment from the Salary Board. All right.

Melinda Divert, North Mannheim Township. So, okay, let's pick up where we left off. Going back to Archibald, Borough, and Lackawanna County and what they're going through with all these proposed data centers. And again, some of the comments there. And this is someone who worked in IT for years and years. I'm sure you can acknowledge that the number of people in the IT field is now shrinking. It seems people think those IT people will fill the buildings, but they're not. Many of the jobs are related to construction, maintenance, landscaping, and security. The same jobs that are found everywhere and pay as little as possible. This person does not see any benefit at all. Have local leaders, have even, have they been able to give us actual figures showing how much money Archibald expects to bring in? Is it in the tens of millions? No and no. So what is something that we know that will degrade the environment even further when this area is trying to dig itself out of the coal mine area. Sound familiar? Sound familiar to Schuylkill County? Yeah, I'm thinking so. Pennsylvania will give any company tax breaks and millions of dollars only for them to pick up and move somewhere else once they actually have to start paying. And the local community that says something to the effect of, we have nothing and this will make us all rich, so we have to do it. No, nope. That is what these companies are preying on. Pennsylvania needs to start respecting itself. So once again, I have to go back and point out the Brad's Landfill and the entities who started that landfill way back when. So I was actually on North Mannheim Township's planning commission, and we had to file an ethics commission complaint against a certain solicitor, Paul Dottie, because he was concurrently representing a developer, MGM4, who was proposing a 249 townhome development in our township while he was concurrently representing our township We filed a complaint with the ethics commission and guess what? Mr. Dottie had to remove himself from his position on that township. So once again, you think we don't have conflicts of interest going on in this county? Yes, we do. We have a current county solicitor who has never seen a conflict of interest. He can't try to tap dance his way around. We've had enough. The environmental issues in this county are far and wide. The people have had enough. Hope you're paying attention. This is gonna be the perfect storm. Thank you.

I just want to... See if I could get an answer to what I said about the Pennsylvania County risk pools decision to not cover 287G-related activities, ice-related activities.

We have the same concern. Excuse me? We have the same concern, Lisa. We're aware of it. And we're looking into it. We're looking into getting alternative insurance to cover the sheriff's office for that purpose. But you're absolutely correct. PCORP has taken the position that they are no longer insuring those contracts under their liability.

Because they believe the federal government will cover them. That's what they said. They have a different view of it.

So we're looking into it.

We're aware of the situation. Okay.

I mean, do we have to stay in this 287G deal?

Well, for that aspect of it, you're going to have to talk with the sheriff, because the sheriff.

The sheriff, and that's his line.

Our concern from day one has been.

Yeah, the county.

Originally, we were told that we did have coverage, but now within the last two months, their board has taken the position that they're not covering those agreements anymore. And you're correct that that is as of June 1. So it's an issue that has to be addressed.

Well, I'm glad that you have the concerns, because they are concerning.

Hello again, gentlemen.

Chris Molesky, Norwegian Township. Just a straight up comment. It's not the first time this has occurred with Chris' board.

but I think that if you're going to restrict the allotted time for your constituents to speak during their three minutes in public comment and it runs into the next meeting, maybe it's something you have to look at going forward, addressing the start time of those committee meetings or whatever meeting boards those might be on a go-forward basis. Spokane County already live-streams commissioner meetings And I give you kudos to that. The effort with transparency is appreciated. However, the public still deserves clarity regarding retention, accessibility, and accuracy of all the official public records. So the key questions for you guys, the commissioners, prior to 2-21-24, which is the first date I found on the YouTube channel for the county, were commissioners meetings recorded? If the recordings exist, Where can the public access them? So during the pandemic and the use of Zoom meetings, where were those meetings recorded? Were those meetings recorded?

As far as I know, I think the first time you could listen in to a meeting, it started during a pandemic. Because I remember I was working in a bakery and I went to aisle in. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Before that, I don't know. I wasn't there.

Right. So that's what I'm asking. Were they recorded? And are they available to the public? I know the YouTube channel dates back to 2021. They were there.

before the pandemic they were.

They're just minutes. So from the pandemic in 2020 till 2-21-24, which is the first recording, where can those...

It should be on YouTube.

Okay, because the first date I was able to find was 2-21-24. Oh, okay. Well, that's what I... So basically what I'm asking for is, is there a retention policy? And if that retention policy exists, where is it? So before meeting minutes are approved, does anyone review the typed minutes against the actual meetings?

And they, as in?

So I'm just looking from a standpoint of that we have transparency within the meetings and that there's a retention so that when you guys. God forbid something happens to you or somebody moves on from those positions or decides to get out of politics, that all that information is restored. So the public trust depends on the accuracy of the records for long-term accessibility, not just temporary viewing. Keep it short and sweet.

Thank you for your time, guys.

So real quick, just put it on a record for the salary board, the investigator position. Are there job duties for it? Was it posted? Is it something new, or did someone else have that position?

What this is, is this retains back for Shelby, Dave Ryan's...

I'm just saying about the investigator first, that position.

That position, she said, what's the investigator position? We added that to her job job extension because of the dissent decree requires us to have people to investigate Any allegations, they have to have a special training beyond the normal training for the county. They have to have special training, and then they spend a lot of time investigating if there's a complaints ban or anything like that prior.

So Nova held that position prior.

That's just part of her job description. They're all people that took the special training to be able to do the investigations that were required underneath the dissent decree.

And that's why the solicitors are increasing salaries?

They took the training, those two solicitors. I don't want to list everybody. That's fine. And that's why.

And lastly, touching on all these information about Archibald and data centers and, you know, the three to four might help the county or tax revenue. We were referred multiple times by these big corporations and tech companies as a sacrifice zone. That stuck with me for years that I've read that in articles and I've seen these companies classifying school county as a sacrifice zone. And that's what it's becoming. I mean, if you guys can't see that, you've got to go out and talk to the constituents in the West End. Go to the people that Mr. Plachko mentioned today up in Shenandoah area. Boots, if you're driving that way, you should be able to see. I know I see it when I go up to some of my properties. But it's slowly becoming more of a sacrifice zone. And I'm asking you guys, don't let it happen that way because when you turn a blind eye... for donors or previous donors or to line campaign contributions up, you're sacrificing the good people of School County. So that's what I'm asking you is don't let it continue to happen. Thank you.

Okay, we're moving on to the meeting. Is there any other call to action? Let's move on. Sorry, Mark. Approval of minutes from the start will be in April 22nd. So moved. Second. Question, 25th.

Commissioner Pandora? Yes. Commissioner Hedlington? Yes. Commissioner Hess? Yes. Controllor Pencek?

Yes.

I have a motion to approve the work cycle minutes from May 6th. So moved. Second. Ms. Barton? Commissioner Padora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Haas? Yes. Comptroller Hintze?

Yes.

All right. The Human Resources Office.

In the District Attorney's Office, we're setting the salary of Joey Holden as a clerk intern for $18 an hour effective 5-26. Human Resources, we're eliminating the position of Senior Benefits Administrator effective 518, and creating the position of senior benefits administrator investigator, also effective 518. In human resources, we're setting the salary of Elaine Pucci as a senior benefits administrator slash investigator at a rate of $57,723.52, effective 518. In the solicitor's office, we have two wage adjustments for Shelby Hostetter, David Rice, Shelby is the Assistant County Solicitor full-time. David is the Assistant County Solicitor full-time. Shelby's increase is $45,714.95. David is $86,052.26, both effective 5-18. In adult probation, we're creating a position as Adult Probation Officer 1 transfers, effective 5-13. And in adult probation, we're setting the salary of Paige Tuck and Riley Grunitzky as adult probation interns at a rate of 14.28 per hour, effective 6.20 cents.

Okay, can I have a motion for the district attorney to set salary? So moved, so moved. Second. I have a question. Commissioner Pandora? Yes. Commissioner Hennington?

Yes.

Commissioner Hepp? Yes. Comptroller Detention? Yes. District Attorney Opaque? Yes.

The human resources, did I do, Paul, can I do all of them except the adult probation as one?

Correct.

Okay, so can I motion for the human resource eliminate the position created for patients and set the salary and the two wage increases for the solicitor's office?

Second. On the question? Commissioner Fedora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Hess? Yes. Controller Yacancek?

Yes.

Can I have a motion for the two created positions set the salaries for the adult probation?

So moved. Second. No question? Commissioner Padora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Hess? Yes. Contrary Kensick?

Yes.

Judge Russell?

Any new business for salary board? No motion with judge. No moves for retirement board. Report of any exact concessions? None or no help. Public comment for salary board? Sit down. APPROVE THE MINUTES FROM THE MONTHLY MEANINGLY BREAK. SO MOVES FORWARD. SECOND. CONTROL OF THE BOARD. SPEED READS IN.

GOOD MORNING, EVERYBODY. SANDRA BASSANA, PENSION ADMINISTRATOR. DURING THE MONTH OF APRIL 2026, WE HAD TWO MEMBERS RECEIVE RETIREMENTS OF $328,572 WITH PRO RETA PAYMENTS OF $2,084. WE HAD FIVE MEMBERS RECEIVE REFUNDS OF $70,939. and two members received rollovers of $23,760. The market of three deceased, excuse me, three deceased retirees received pro rata payments of $856. And the market value of the retirement fund as of the end of April 30th, 2026 was $194,410,550. The total market value this morning of the retirement fund as of May 13th is $196,264,762. Thank you. I have to do a roll call first. Let me prove it on minutes because we skipped past that.

So roll call on approval of the minutes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, can I also approve the controller's report? So moved.

Second. On the question? Commissioner Pandora? Yes. Commissioner Hetherington? Yes. Commissioner Hess? Yes. Commissioner Pencheck? Yes. Commissioner Yegg?

Yes.