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1 SCRANTON CITY COUNCIL MEETING
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5 HELD:
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7 Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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9 LOCATION:
10 Council Chambers
11 Scranton City Hall
12 340 North Washington Avenue
13 Scranton, Pennsylvania
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CATHENE S. NARDOZZI- COURT REPORTER
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2 CITY OF SCRANTON COUNCIL:
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MS. JUDY GATELLI, PRESIDENT
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6 MS. JANET E. EVANS
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MS. SHERRY FANUCCI
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9 MR. ROBERT MCGOFF
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MR. WILLIAM COURTRIGHT
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12 MS. KAY GARVEY, CITY CLERK
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MR. NEIL COOLICAN, ASSISTANT CITY CLERK
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15 MR. AMIL MINORA, SOLICITOR
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1 (Pledge of Allegiance recited and
2 moment of reflection observed.)
3 MS. GATELLI: Roll call.
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans. Mrs.
5 Fanucci.
6 MS. FANUCCI: Here.
7 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
8 MR. MCGOFF: Here.
9 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
10 MR. COURTRIGHT: Here.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
12 MS. GATELLI: Here. Dispense with
13 the reading of the minute.
14 MS. GARVEY: THIRD ORDER. NO
15 BUSINESS AT THIS TIME.
16 MS. GATELLI: Before we go into
17 Fourth Order I have a few announcements, I
18 gave out the website address several weeks
19 ago about Christmas cards for our soldiers
20 at the Walter Reed Hospital and I was
21 watching television the other evening and
22 they had a report on that, Walter Reed was
23 not accepting any cards for the soldiers and
24 for people not to send cards to that
25 address, which is unfortunate, so I went
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1 onto NBC's website, and if you go on there,
2 there are several places where you can send
3 packages, post on message boards to the
4 soldiers and there was a new address. The
5 Red Cross is going to distribute to the
6 cards personally and the new address for
7 that is, "We Support You During Your
8 Recovery, Care of the American Red Cross,
9 Post Office Box 419, Savage, S-A-V-A-G-E,
10 Maryland, 20763."
11 I'll ask Kay to have this put on
12 Channel 61. I do apologize for the
13 thousands I'm sure and millions of people
14 that received that e-mail and have sent
15 cards over the last several weeks, but that
16 is the new address and if you go on
17 www.NBC.com you will see the article and
18 there are several places where you can send
19 packages or, like I said, post different
20 messages for the soldiers.
21 MS. GARVEY: I did talk to Melissa at
22 61 regarding that today and she said she was
23 going to take care of it as soon as
24 possible.
25 MS. GATELLI: Thank you very much.
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1 The other thing I have is the Scranton
2 Public Theater is having a production of
3 Snow White for the children for Christmas.
4 It will be this Saturday the 15th and
5 Saturday the 22nd at noon at the Old Brick
6 Theater on Market Street next to Stirna's.
7 You can get tickets at the door or you can
8 call 344-3656.
9 Neil just handed me a fax that just
10 came in, Pennsylvania American Water will be
11 completing a maintenance on a 16-inch water
12 main on Luzerne Street this evening. The
13 work will begin at 8:00 p.m. with crews
14 working throughout the night. It is
15 anticipated that water service will be
16 restored by 4:00 a.m. They have water
17 tankers stationed at two locations.
18 The following streets will be
19 affected, and please bear with me because
20 there is quite a few: Amnick Court,
21 Arlington Way, Briggs, Christopher Drive,
22 Crisp, Dale, Deerfield Division, Fawnwood
23 Drive, Forest Glen, Francis, Frank, Frink,
24 Glinko, Horatio, Hudson, Jackson, Jamesway,
25 Keyser, Lafayette, Lauer, Linda, Loop,
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1 MaryAnn, North South Road, Newton Road,
2 Norfolk Way, Norton Avenue, Oakwood Drive,
3 Overbrook Circle, Park Edge, Patterson,
4 Phyllo, Price, Quay, Ridgeview, Swetland,
5 White Birch, Whitetail, Williamsburg Lane,
6 Winchester Way, and the Stauffer Industrial
7 Way. Customers may experience low water
8 pressure, cloudy water or a temporary
9 service outage. When service is restored
10 the residents should turn their water until
11 clear before use.
12 To ease the inconvenience, water
13 tankers will be placed at the Keyser Valley
14 Community Center at the corner of Keyser and
15 Jackson and at the Beverage Store at the
16 corner of Keyser Avenue and Loop Street.
17 Customers are asked to bring their own
18 container when visiting the tanker for
19 drinking water. Any further information
20 1-800-565-7292, and I'm sure that will
21 probably on the 11:00 news tonight, but for
22 people that are watching now the work will
23 be starting at 8:00.
24 And I just have two more items, I'd
25 like to wish happy birthday to my grandson
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1 Joey, he is at seven years old today, and
2 his friend Isabella, she will be 11
3 tomorrow, so just happy birthday to them.
4 Does anybody else have any announcements?
5 MS. EVANS: Once again as I did last
6 week, I'd like to inform everyone that the
7 Community Intervention Center will be
8 holding it's second annual denim drop this
9 Saturday, December 15. Anyone wishing to
10 donate new or even slightly used men's
11 clothing to benefit the homeless in Scranton
12 is asked to bring all clean clothing to the
13 Community Intervention Center at 537 Wyoming
14 Avenue, Scranton, PA, between the hours of 9
15 a.m. and 12 noon. All clothing collected
16 will go to directly to the homeless in the
17 Scranton area. Items needed most include,
18 but not are not limited to, pants, shirts,
19 socks, and all types of winter clothing. If
20 you have any questions or need further
21 information please contact Jason Griffiths
22 at 558-7133 or e-mail him at
23 JGriffiths@CommunityInterventionCenter.org.
24 And just one more announcement,
25 there will be an exit conference concerning
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1 the independent city audit for the year 2006
2 on Wednesday, December 12, that is tomorrow,
3 at 12:30, and the conference, the exit
4 conference, will be presented by
5 representatives of Robert Rossi and Company.
6 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Anyone
7 else? Just one more thing, I did talk to
8 Jeff Brazil about Forest Glen Drive and they
9 are there at least 4 or 5 times. He fills
10 it with modified and it keeps sinking. He
11 had the Office of Surface Mines there, it is
12 a mine subsidence. They are going to try to
13 work it out amongst themselves because
14 surface mines said if they do it, it would
15 take at least a year to repair.
16 MR. COURTRIGHT: They were there
17 this week and they did fill it in, it hasn't
18 sunk yet, so they might have gotten it
19 fixed.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yeah, it is a
21 subsidence. All right. The first speaker
22 is Mr. Sbaraglia.
23 MR. SBARAGALIA: Andy Sbaraglia,
24 citizen of Scranton. Fellow Scrantonians,
25 7-C, I brought this up last week, this 501
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1 project over there, I think it's South
2 Washington Avenue, it's called 501, are they
3 in litigation for bankruptcy? Does anybody
4 know?
5 MS. FANUCCI: I know that if they
6 were in litigation for bankruptcy that they
7 could not comply to get this loan. They
8 would not in compliance so, obviously --
9 MR. SBARAGLIA: They are in default.
10 You are taking the loan and you are actually
11 erasing it off the books. Okay. There is
12 subordinate, a subordinate loan to a bank
13 you would never say -- you are going to say
14 this loan and say it's -- they satisfied it,
15 and that was $250,000 bucks.
16 MS. FANUCCI: Right.
17 MR. SBARAGLIA: Okay, and are they in
18 litigation? Is this loan being defaulted to
19 litigation?
20 MS. FANUCCI: I don't believe
21 that's --
22 MR. SBARAGALIA: Or for some other
23 reason?
24 MR. MINORA: I think I looked into
25 that for you last week and explained to you
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1 that they have personal guarantees. The
2 loan was issued on personal guarantees, so
3 any individual's personal assets are at risk
4 to pay the loan. The releasing of this
5 property which is being sold at an amount
6 way below what the bank is owed which is in
7 front of the us as far as the loans is
8 concerned is virtually meaningless to the
9 city because the sale or foreclosure would
10 amount to a zero in any event. This way it
11 keeps the property on the tax rolls and in a
12 productive capacity and maintains personal
13 guarantees by the people that took out of
14 the loan years ago.
15 MR. SBARAGLIA: I asked this question
16 before, if they are selling the building
17 that means you would have to sue to get your
18 money back if they give a personal
19 guarantee, is the city going to sue these
20 people?
21 MR. MINORA: The loan is current.
22 MR. SBARAGLIA: Is it completely
23 satisfied? You said it wasn't satisfied.
24 MR. MINORA: The loan is current,
25 it's not in default.
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1 MR. SBARAGLIA: It's not in default,
2 but you are satisfying it now so they can
3 sell the property.
4 MR. MINORA: No, we are releasing the
5 property as security for the loan and
6 maintaining the personal guarantees of the
7 loan.
8 MR. SBARAGLIA: In other words, they
9 are still paying on this loan like you said,
10 in other words?
11 MR. MINORA: I'll be glad to talk to
12 you about it later, you are way past your
13 two minutes.
14 MR. SBARAGLIA: I figured that much.
15 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mr. Quinn?
16 MR. QUINN: Ozzie Quinn, President
17 of the Scranton Taxpayers' Association.
18 First of all, did you receive, Judy, any
19 comments from PEL on the mayor's 2008
20 budget?
21 MS. GATELLI: No.
22 MR. QUINN: I'm glad because I'm
23 hoping that they will incorporate Mrs.
24 Evans' budget into the mayor's 2008 budget.
25 The Taxpayers' Association commends
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1 Mrs. Evans for this good, good proposed
2 budget to help the taxpayers in the City of
3 Scranton. You are commended even though,
4 you know, already at the caucus I know it's
5 not going to go anywhere. Okay, last week I
6 was here and I was talking about House Bill
7 1275 also known as the School Property
8 Elimination Tax of 1970. Our local
9 representatives Shimkus and Smith have not
10 signed on for this here and this will
11 eliminate all school and property taxes
12 forever, okay, and eliminate all debt that
13 school district currently has forever, and
14 it will eliminate the wage tax, the city's
15 wage tax. The city's wage tax will come
16 down 1 percent under this bill.
17 So, please, the mayor should be
18 riding the front horse on this here, okay,
19 because this is unbelievable. It's an
20 opportunity to do something to really reduce
21 the people's taxes out there, you know, if
22 you get rid of that school tax which we all
23 know and all of the legislators know is very
24 archaic, okay, and it's not meeting it, they
25 realize that the sale's tax because it was--
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1 the idea of the sale tax when it was adopted
2 was to school -- fund the schools. Now,
3 that's what they plan on Act 1275 to fund
4 all schools equitably and fairly across the
5 state, the 501 districts equitably and
6 fairly with the sales tax, so please, please
7 arrange a meeting with and help us
8 taxpayers. Thank you.
9 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
10 MR. COURTRIGHT: Kay, I meant to ask
11 you this before the meeting, and he just
12 jogged my memory, I know you met with PEL
13 and I don't know if you have met in the last
14 couple of weeks, but do they have an opinion
15 on the budget, have they --
16 MS. GARVEY: No.
17 MR. COURTRIGHT: -- made any mention
18 of it?
19 MS. GARVEY: They mentioned here and
20 there throughout some of the meetings, but
21 nothing in particular in that.
22 MR. COURTRIGHT: No approval or
23 disapproval.
24 MS. GARVEY: No.
25 MR. COURTRIGHT: Thank you.
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1 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Spindler.
2 MR. SPINDLER: Les Spindler, city
3 resident. I want to talk about the budget.
4 Mrs. Fanucci, Mrs. Gatelli, and Mr. McGoff,
5 the three of you should be ashamed of
6 yourselves. Last week while you were
7 passing the budget on the Seventh Order to
8 be okayed this week you were okaying a
9 $13,000 raise for two men that sit behind a
10 desk while our brave firemen and policemen
11 were fighting a general alarm fire in the
12 freezing cold temperatures risk their lives,
13 and you are passing along a $13,000 raise
14 for people that don't do anything. It just
15 shows you have a lack of appreciation for
16 these people and you just do whatever the
17 mayor wants you to do.
18 Now, I have a comment on some things
19 the mayor said in the Doherty -- Mayor
20 Doherty said, "My budget is fair. If you
21 make cuts she asked for," meaning
22 Mrs. Evans, he said, "Maybe it will save a
23 million dollars."
24 A million dollars is a lot of money
25 to the people in this city. He makes it
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1 sound like it's nothing.
2 Next thing he says, "When I came in
3 there were three secretaries and seven
4 janitors." So he cut a few secretaries and
5 a few janitors, but he hired Ray Hayes, he
6 hired Mark Seitzinger and he hired other
7 people along with consultants which comes
8 out to a lot more than a couple of
9 secretaries or janitors.
10 He goes onto say, this is the
11 seventh budget he's produced where as hers,
12 meaning Mrs. Evans -- well, Mr. Evans had a
13 good budget last year and the Doherty three
14 wouldn't even look at it and the same is
15 probably going to happen this year. Thank
16 you.
17 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Bolus.
18 MR. BOLUS: Good evening, Council,
19 Bob Bolus, Scranton. It's kind of a shame
20 you only get two minutes to talk about the
21 future of the City of Scranton, but I'm
22 looking at this budget here that I believe
23 Mrs. Evans work right on top has the sale of
24 the golf course, that is using the proceeds,
25 the balance that's left, well, wasn't it
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1 squandered last year, 1.5 million went down
2 the toilet and now we are going to get rid
3 of the rest, it never accounted for any of
4 the interest on all of the money it accrued.
5 I would definitely be adamantly against any
6 more money from the golf course being done.
7 It's Council's responsibility to guard that
8 money and you didn't do it last year, don't
9 let it happen this year because that
10 belonged to the people. That's what it was
11 put there for and if needs to be in trust
12 then make a motion to put it in trust,
13 that's where you should have put it, you are
14 the guardians of that money, you put it out
15 last year, you put it on the table and you
16 squandered it, it didn't go for any set
17 purpose, any justification. You gave it
18 away.
19 As far as this budget, you didn't do
20 the due diligence here, you didn't represent
21 the unions or the people in the City of
22 Scranton, and this is the whole council.
23 You should have brought the unions here, sat
24 them down publically, put the mayor her, the
25 council here and let us go home, turn 61 on
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1 and watch who said, she said, and get the
2 real truth instead of hearing this back and
3 forth, back and forth nonsense. It's not a
4 professional way to do it, it's not
5 representation of the city or the people in
6 this city and I think you are wrong if you
7 pass this budget without doing that first
8 because you are only pointing in one
9 direction. You have many directions in this
10 town. You got KOZ's, you got nonprofits,
11 you have a lot of other areas for revenue.
12 In a time when the whole country is cutting
13 back you people are passing the budget with
14 the mayor to raise it higher. Where are we
15 going? You are taking us backwards. When
16 prudent, intelligent business people world
17 wide are making cuts you people are
18 squandering the future of this city.
19 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
20 MR. BOLUS: And I think you should
21 think hard on it tonight before that budget
22 is passed.
23 MS. GATELLI: Mrs. Franus.
24 MS. FRANUS: Fay Franus. Mrs.
25 Gatelli? Mrs. Gatelli? Well, let it be on
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1 the record since everybody has been speaking
2 here that Mrs. Gatelli has been scribbling
3 away up there and not looking at one person
4 when they speak and I'm asking her a direct
5 question that I don't get answered. I'm
6 going to say it again, Mrs. Gatelli, are you
7 not even going to consider Mrs. Evans'
8 budget? Is there anything on there that you
9 are going to consider?
10 I think that people elected here as
11 Thomas Jefferson said, the people get the
12 government that they have and, Mr. McGoff, I
13 might add, bad politicians are elected by
14 people that do not vote, so the people in
15 Scranton do deserve what they get, the three
16 of you. So, I'm sorry to say that they
17 should have got out and voted differently,
18 but you are a total disgrace to this city.
19 You have nothing to help the people, the
20 mayor has high wages for his high
21 administration and your friends, you are
22 taking care of your friends, your deals,
23 your corruptness, your thievery,
24 Mrs. Gatelli, Mrs. Fanucci, and Mr. McGoff,
25 and the nerve of you who is supposed to be
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1 representing the people in the City of
2 Scranton to look down and not even look up
3 when I'm speaking to you and for you to
4 ignore me when I'm asking you a direct
5 question, you are disgraceful, and it there
6 is too bad that there is not a law that says
7 you cannot hold this office, you should be
8 impeached. It's a disgrace. Mrs. Evans
9 worked so hard on this budget and you
10 totally ignore it again. She is the only
11 person up there who cares about the people
12 in the city. You, who laugh at the people
13 in the city and make sure all of your
14 friends and all of your family get taken
15 care of, that's the deal, give Mr. Doherty
16 what he wants and we'll get what we want
17 from him. Just pass, pass, pass. You do
18 not care for the people you never did.
19 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
20 MS. FRANUS: Now you're surely say
21 your time is up, the next person.
22 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Dobson.
23 MS. FRANUS: You're an ignorant
24 person.
25 MR. DOBSON: Good evening, Council,
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1 Dave Dobson of Scranton. As part of our
2 recovery plan I feel we need new voter
3 input. Any plan, good or bad, needs an
4 evaluation from time to time. Six years is
5 a little long when we elect our officials
6 for four years and here we are six years
7 later and nothing is said. I'm not even
8 going to bother to point a finger at
9 anybody. Efforts should be made to settle
10 the union contracts as Democrats or other
11 elected officials, in fact, as Americans we
12 should be concerned with the well-being of
13 each other and not trying to deprive the
14 next guy of something that we don't have.
15 That's what we find in common in situations.
16 Partly we should not assume deficits will
17 not harm us either in the future. If not
18 spent wisely at all times high taxes, low
19 quality service and debt will dog us for
20 years to come and, in fact, drive down the
21 property values and the value of our city
22 and inhibit population growth.
23 Cities once considered overbuilt
24 will come full circle in my opinion and
25 thrive because of their energy efficiency in
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1 this energy deficit world economy. Please
2 vote to regulate future debt and fairness to
3 all affected parties. Thank you and have a
4 good night.
5 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
6 Mrs. Schumacher.
7 MS. SCHUMACHER: Marie Schumacher.
8 When I complete I would like Mrs. Evans to
9 explain the basis for the reduction in the
10 parking authority citation issuers and the
11 increase of an animal control officer, a
12 housing inspector and a health inspector. I
13 want you all to know that per the business
14 administrator who I thank for getting
15 answers to some of the questions back for me
16 that I have asked on the budget, the paving
17 of the police parking lot is not in this
18 budget nor is the Veterans' memorial the
19 mayor announced just last month. And then I
20 would like to go back to December 14th the
21 night I believe of the last the budget was
22 passed last year. Mrs. Gatelli said, "I
23 think a small increase is necessary as a
24 permanent revenue to help us get out of the
25 financial hole that we seem to always be in.
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1 I'm also working for next year on another
2 revenue item that we think can bring in
3 $1.5 million. It's a new rental
4 registration program. All properties will
5 be registered including single family homes
6 that are nonowner occupied. At $100 per
7 vacancy according to the city data, that
8 would have brought in $1.5 million, but,
9 Mrs. Gatelli, I would also like for you to
10 tell me that why that revenue is not in this
11 budget.
12 I would also like to go back to
13 June 21, 2007, where Mrs. Gatelli had a
14 colloquy with a citizen.
15 Mrs. Gatelli said, "No, I don't
16 intend to vote for anymore borrowing.
17 "THE CITIZEN: Anyway, I just hope
18 since you put it on the record that you are
19 not going to give anymore money, I'm going
20 to hold you to that."
21 "MRS. GATELLI: You can hold me to
22 that."
23 Well, there is $11 million worth of
24 the borrowing in this budget over and above
25 the two TANS so I trust we can hold you to
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1 the fact that you won't vote for this.
2 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mr.
3 Hubbard?
4 MS. EVANS: Mrs. Schumacher, I can
5 address your questions under motions when I
6 go through my budget.
7 MS. SCHUMACHER: You're welcome.
8 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Hubbard.
9 MR. HUBBARD: Good evening, Council.
10 Daniel Hubbard, Mr. Courtright, this is for
11 you. While I was in a meeting with
12 Mr. Parker and Mrs. Fanucci discussing the
13 flood project and the levies Mr. Parker and
14 I decided to -- I was just discussing flood
15 protection grant program with him, which
16 basically DEP stated that they will
17 reimburse the city up to 50 percent of the
18 cost of purchasing equipment to maintain the
19 existing levies in the city. Mr. Parker
20 said that this grant problem, this grant
21 wasn't necessary to maintain the levies
22 because they put the grass cutting work out
23 to bid. So, if the grass cutting on the
24 levies is being put out to bid by the DPW
25 then why could we need the three guys that
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1 are getting paid to cut the grass and the
2 levies when they don't actually do it? You
3 know, they are three pretty much useless
4 positions I think in the budget that need to
5 be cut.
6 Now, Mr. O'Hora is the assistant
7 coordinator and he is involved in the
8 project heavily, so I see him as a necessary
9 part of the flood control office. Anything
10 other than him I see as an unnecessary part
11 of that office at this point. One this is
12 project is done that office probably
13 shouldn't even exist. So, you know, my
14 question is is why are we paying these guys
15 $30,000 a year to do nothing and why is
16 nobody saying anything about it?
17 Also, one of them drives an F-Ford--
18 an F-350 from the flood office, and that
19 truck is seen daily on Sanderson and
20 Delaware every morning and every weekend it
21 is parked in the same location, so is a city
22 employee using a city vehicle as a personal
23 car because it's at his house everyday?
24 Mrs. Fanucci, you can probably turn off
25 your text messages. Thank you. I'd
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1 appreciate that. I'd appreciate it.
2 MS. FANUCCI: I'm not obligated --
3 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Hubbard, that
4 really is none of your business.
5 MS. FANUCCI: It really isn't.
6 MR. HUBBARD: It is actually not
7 city business, therefore --
8 MS. FANUCCI: Mr. Hubbard, let me
9 answer your question so we can get to
10 business --
11 MS. GATELLI: Answer it in motions.
12 MS. FANUCCI: Oh, in motions. Sorry.
13 MS. GATELLI: There is someone else's
14 whose name is here, I can't understand the
15 writing.
16 MS. GATELLI: As a matter of fact,
17 if in everyone in the audience would put
18 their cell phones on tax instead of ringing
19 we would appreciate it.
20 MR. MORGAN: Good evening. I'd like
21 to talk on 7-B and my first question is 2008
22 budget proposal by Mrs. Evans, number one,
23 sale of golf course, and I'd like to ask
24 this council in total is this going to be
25 included in the budget? That's my question
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1 because that's the last of the money from
2 the golf course and I really don't think it
3 belongs there and that's not a personal
4 attack against you, Mrs. Evans, not at all.
5 But, you know, I really didn't waste
6 any time reading this budget to be
7 truthfully honest with you because these
8 budgets haven't been real for the last
9 20 years in this city and that's why this
10 city is in the shape it's in. You just have
11 to look at 6-B and 6-A, we are just
12 borrowing and borrowing and then all through
13 the year we come up with all of these ideas
14 of how we are going to save this city, and
15 it's just not working.
16 So, I mean, we have meetings here
17 that Mrs. Gatelli called where the tax group
18 came and we would have a great start on a
19 new budget and a new direction for the city
20 but, of course, our ideas weren't wanted
21 because we weren't political and we were
22 looking to save the city and to be bluntly
23 honest, I think this council spends too much
24 time in politics and really that's why we
25 are where we are because we are just worried
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1 about politics and we're not worried about
2 people and I expressed that to Mr. Wayne
3 Evans when he came and he talked about the
4 counties reassessment. There is no reality
5 here on this council at all. I mean, look
6 at the borrowing that is going on here.
7 Look at this budget. We didn't even have an
8 audit and we have a budget. There is
9 something upside down here. Think about it.
10 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Anyone
11 else?
12 MS. KRAKE: Good evening, Council.
13 My name is Nancy Krake and first I would
14 like to thank Mrs. Evans for once again all
15 of her hard work and perseverance on a
16 budget that I'm sad to say I didn't hear
17 many of your colleagues back you on many of
18 the issues. I would like to address some of
19 them now in the short two minutes that we
20 have. First of all, they were not too sold
21 on your idea of three and a half million in
22 delinquent wage tax, they had no problem
23 voting for MRS which is three and a half
24 million for only three years of delinquent
25 real estate. The three and a half million
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1 collection of delinquent wage tax is based
2 on the fact that delinquent wage tax has not
3 aggressively been collected since at least
4 the years 2004, 5 and 6. When the Single
5 Tax Office, and specifically the auditors,
6 who were not allowed to come here tonight by
7 their boss, Ken McDowell, it was their job
8 last to collect the delinquencies, we had a
9 1.7 million revenue for '98 through '99,
10 that's in her budget, delinquent -- that was
11 the delinquent business tax, excuse me,
12 that's reflected in the budget and we had
13 1.8 million in the Year 2000 added up from
14 receipts in that office where they could
15 find them because of most of them have been
16 misplaced quote/unquote.
17 For delinquent individual wage tax
18 the circumstances surrounding the collection
19 of these revenues in '98 and 2000 reflect a
20 similar situation we have now, that is to
21 say many years had gone by in which
22 delinquent wage tax had not been
23 aggressively collected. The three and a
24 half million is a very conservative amount.
25 I think Mrs. Evans, as I'm saying the record
.
29
1 what you said -- I'll have to finish after.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. GERVASI: Hello, City Council,
4 here we are again. I'm not surprised, but I
5 was here and attended the caucus beforehand
6 where Mrs. Evans laid out 84 different
7 points in her proposed budget. I heard
8 excuses because I only heard seven or eight
9 of them being spoken about, but I heard your
10 typical PR that comes out of the mayor's
11 office. You know, I have learned not to get
12 mad over this anymore just because I think
13 Mrs. Evans next year when they ask to do
14 this again they should hand you a piece of
15 paper and some rabbit ears and beat your
16 head against the wall because that's all you
17 are going to accomplish. They are under
18 orders from the mayor, that's his budget
19 even though it's $7 million more, even
20 though our debt is going deeper, and I'd
21 just like to ask this council, who many of
22 friends are mine, you know what, I think
23 it's too late to begin with, but somebody
24 has to start soon if it's going to be
25 straightened out the city's problems and if
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30
1 you pass this budget the way it is, the
2 mayor's budget, please don't insult us next
3 year when they knock off 38 firefighters to
4 pay for all of these debts that he created
5 and please don't complain and want to do
6 petitions when firehouses close, and please
7 don't say crime is up and we need more beat
8 cops, and please don't say we need more
9 money for fire trucks which is almost in a
10 crises situation now, and please don't
11 complain that the cops are still driving
12 garbage because all you are doing is what
13 the mayor wants you to do and you know what,
14 there is nothing really you can do until
15 election day, but thanks a lot.
16 Mrs. Evans, I want to thank you for
17 all of the time you put in trying to save
18 the city money and trying to do something
19 prudent, try to raise revenues, try to get
20 different ideas into this budget process, I
21 really feel for you, I really, really feel
22 for you because you might as well beat your
23 head against the wall, it's useless. Thank
24 you.
25 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else?
.
31
1 MR. ANCHERANI: Nelson Ancherani, I'm
2 going to talk on 7-B, the agenda. Since
3 2001 the majority of city workers are still
4 working at 2001 salary levels. In fairness
5 to these city unionized workers who have
6 endured the six-year wage freeze and fair
7 being fair, the fair and proper thing to do
8 would to be reduce the selected favorites
9 wages back to 2001. And since we didn't
10 need to create any new positions in 2001
11 then we don't need them now. In fact, the
12 city did without those newly created
13 positions for decades, so we can do without
14 them now.
15 On studying Mrs. Evans' budget,
16 there is savings just eliminating some of
17 these -- the savings is $785,074. If we
18 eliminate the public safety department,
19 assistant grants manager in the police
20 department, business administration, senior
21 accountant, financial analyst, flood
22 positions, human resources a confidential
23 secretary, information technology, the IT
24 manager, and the network systems manager.
25 Professional services. There is a few
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32
1 others, but with two minutes we don't get
2 much to say. How about reductions? It
3 could reduce the salary of the confidential
4 secretary in the mayor's office, the chief
5 of police we can reduce that $14,145. Fire
6 chief, $12,830. City clerk, legal advisor
7 in the clerk's office, controller's office,
8 solicitor, controllers office, confidential
9 secretary, business administration the SPA
10 citation issuers, controller's office,
11 deputy controller, there is so many. Human
12 resources, the director salary reduction
13 $17,000 okay, we'll get the rest later.
14 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Anyone
15 else?
16 MR. DOLPHIN: Council, Dave Dolphin,
17 city resident/taxpayer. One question is do
18 you feel in your heart that it's fair to
19 give some employees raises and not others
20 because the raises do up the budget and when
21 are you guys going to do something about it?
22 And I think Janet Evans' proposal is very
23 fair and I wish you guys would seriously
24 consider it. Thank you.
25 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
.
33
1 MS. JENNINGS: I'm just here to
2 thank Mrs. Evans for the hard work that she
3 did on the budget, and also thank her for
4 attempting to try and lower the wage tax,
5 the low to moderate income in this people
6 and for the people who haven't had a raise
7 in six years, everything else is going up
8 accept our money.
9 I sat here and I heard all of the
10 discussions among everyone and I certainly
11 hope that there is cooperation among the
12 five of you, and I just want to impress upon
13 the five of you how bad the morale in this
14 building is. I know that you don't work
15 here, but I want you to understand that. I
16 know that you are sitting here and you are
17 justifying giving out raises and that's
18 fine, but the morale among these union
19 workers is terrible. You need to help that.
20 You know how.
21 MR. JUDGE: How are you doing? John
22 Judge, city resident, taxpayer, also the
23 secretary for the Scranton Firefighters. I
24 have watched you guys many times on TV and
25 listened to everything that takes place here
.
34
1 and I always told myself I would never come
2 and speak here, but just to give you a
3 little history of myself, I worked for the
4 police department before I went to the fire
5 department so I kind of know both sides of
6 the public safety here, I have friends on
7 both sides still and I can tell you
8 Mr. Gervasi talks about the morale and the
9 clerical union here, there is no morale left
10 in the police and fire department. You are
11 getting ready to pass a budget that's going
12 to give the police and fire chiefs a
13 26 percent raise. Think about that,
14 26 percent raise. Do they deserve a raise?
15 Absolutely. I think they are underpaid for
16 what they should be in comparable to
17 departments around the state, but it's just
18 not prudent for you to be doing that with
19 the way we are strapped at this point.
20 I would just hope that, you know, I
21 understand Mrs. Evans has spent a lot of
22 time preparing this budget, first time I
23 ever looked at it was when I came in and saw
24 it on the seat today, 84 points on there,
25 and I would just hope that you would be at
.
35
1 least willing to consider some, even if it's
2 a minute amount of money that can go towards
3 helping us with our cause. You know, our
4 cause is to protect the citizens of this
5 community. Our equipment woes that we deal
6 with on a daily basis, if there is something
7 you can find in there to help us. I mean, I
8 think that's what your task to do there,
9 that's why you are elected and placed in
10 those positions, so I would just hope that
11 you look past the political overtones of
12 everything that what happens in this city
13 and see it you can find it in your hearts to
14 do what's right and I'd just like to thank
15 Mrs. Evans for, you know, at least trying
16 and I hope that everybody else will do the
17 same just put forth the same efforts. Thank
18 you.
19 MS. SIMMONS: Good evening, Reverend
20 Kathyrn Simmons, Scranton resident. I came
21 hear tonight to ask that council consider
22 supporting the firemen and the policemen.
23 My only belief is they should receive the 9
24 percent increase this year and if you are
25 against that you need to go and discuss with
.
36
1 persons who were present at the humongous
2 fire over in west side last week. Our union
3 members put their life on the line and they
4 didn't stop to ask either chief if they were
5 getting a raise before they tackled the fire
6 which could have been a neighborhood
7 catastrophe. They did their job. Now, let
8 us do ours, support them.
9 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else? Mrs.
10 Evans.
11 MS. EVANS: Good evening. When
12 Mr. Doherty ran for mayor in 2001 he
13 promised to lower the wage tax among other
14 goals. Tonight I would like to keep
15 Mr. Doherty's promise for him and announce
16 that my budget includes a wage tax decrease.
17 It also eliminates over $6 million in
18 additional borrowing. Mr. Doherty has
19 stated that Scranton is gaining national
20 recognition, undoubtedly and particularly
21 through frequent mentions on a TV comedy,
22 "The Office." However, Scranton is also
23 famous statewide for it's oppressive wage
24 tax of 3.4 percent. If this tax can be
25 gradually lowered we can succeed in not only
.
37
1 retaining our residents, but also attracting
2 new citizens which will increase our tax
3 base.
4 A city resident from West Scranton
5 spoke to me today about the annual incessant
6 borrowing that the mayor engages the
7 taxpayers in. He told me this, and I
8 thought this was well worth repeating to you
9 tonight, borrowing is the cowards way of
10 increasing taxes. Borrowing is the cowards
11 way of increasing taxes. The borrowed money
12 must be paid, but like future councils and
13 future mayors as well as future generations
14 worry about that, like this learned man I
15 believe that the current council and mayor
16 have the obligation to begin to correct our
17 financial problems now to provide for a
18 brighter financial future for the next
19 generation, our children and our
20 grandchildren.
21 And now I'd like to read quickly and
22 explain briefly my 2008 alternative budget
23 for the record. On the revenue side, the
24 sale of golf course the proceeds from that
25 sale totaling $1.5 million. A collection of
.
38
1 delinquent wage taxes. I had invited two
2 auditors from the Scranton Single Tax Office
3 in evening to attend a budget caucus of
4 Scranton City Council in order to explain
5 not any private information, but the
6 collection process of the delinquent wage
7 taxes within our city. Mr. McDowell forbid
8 these individuals to attend the caucus.
9 Now, I based the projection of
10 $3,550,0000.00 for the collection of
11 delinquent wage taxes on the following:
12 When these taxes were actively,
13 aggressively collected last in 1988 and 1999
14 a budget shows revenue of $1.75 million from
15 that effort. In addition, $1.8 million in
16 receipts for individual wage taxes, the
17 $1.75 million I'll back-pedal for a second,
18 that was coming from business wage taxes.
19 Individual wage taxes delinquent
20 $1.8 million, and the situation fairly well
21 mirrors what we face today in that
22 delinquent wage taxes have not been
23 aggressively collected in the City of
24 Scranton during the budget years 2004, 5, 6,
25 7. For some unknown reason that has been
.
39
1 stopped. Prior to that very little was done
2 in the way of collecting those taxes after
3 the year 2000, so these are not pie in the
4 sky numbers, these are based on hard cold
5 facts.
6 In addition to that, PEL recommends
7 aggressive collecting tax delinquencies.
8 Now, I think we also need to consider that,
9 as I said, these are very conservative
10 numbers that auditors take great confidence
11 in because they do not include the interest
12 and penalty accrued on the years of these
13 delinquencies and, folks, that is
14 compounded. That was not even included in
15 the total.
16 An increase of in lieu of taxes,
17 $731,750.00. Currently, our state
18 legislators will be entertaining House Bill
19 2018. Our local representatives, Mr. Smith
20 and Mr. Shimkus have both cosponsored this
21 bill which would provide financial relief to
22 Act 47 municipalities, specifically, the
23 City of Scranton by means of a state grant.
24 I included a very conservative figure in the
25 hopes that that will be realized within this
.
40
1 year. I do believe money is out there to
2 provide for this, and that it certainly is
3 not an issue of such controversy as, for
4 example, a smoking ban which has been
5 languishing in front of our state
6 legislatures for far too long.
7 In addition to that, the city needs
8 to take a more aggressive approach to
9 collecting payments in lieu of taxes itself.
10 For example, in Johnstown, and if you will
11 give me one minute to locate that
12 information, I will read to you briefly what
13 is most pertinent in this situation: "Both
14 Memorial," and that would be a hospital,
15 "and the financially distressed City of
16 Johnstown filed appeals in county courts and
17 the stakes are huge, hundreds of thousands
18 of dollars more to be paid in taxes annually
19 or not by the hospital giant, Memorial is
20 challenging the November 2 decision of the
21 County Board Assessment Appeals to strip the
22 properties of their long-time tax exempt
23 status. Some of the 21 properties are taxed
24 entirely, some only partially."
25 Now, this particular hospital had
.
41
1 already been forwarding payments in lieu of
2 contributions to Johnstown, but Johnston
3 took the bull by the horns in terms of pilot
4 contributions and went to a county
5 assessor's office and they are fighting this
6 out in Court now because they stand to
7 triple the amount of money that this
8 hospital is voluntarily donating and I
9 believe it's long overdue that the city
10 approach those entities who have never made
11 a payment in lieu of taxes to this city or
12 have not done so in many, many years. It's
13 disgraceful that the small nonprofits
14 contribute annually what they can afford
15 and, granted, they are meager amounts, but
16 they mean a great deal to me, because that
17 small amount turns out to be a large portion
18 of their operating budgets when we have at
19 the same time entities, multi-million
20 dollars entities who escape any payment in
21 lieu of taxes.
22 Land payment from the Ice Box
23 $600,000.00. We have been waiting for that
24 money for years and will probably still be
25 waiting for it when we are all on social
.
42
1 security.
2 Scranton Times rental of newspaper
3 boxes throughout the City of Scranton,
4 $6,000.
5 In the mayor's office, confidential
6 secretary salary reduction for $6,688.00,
7 someone was recently hired to fill the
8 position that the prior secretary had
9 resigned from.
10 Public safety, eliminate department,
11 the department, that is a total of
12 $150,769.10. PEL itself recommended that no
13 public safety department be created, but
14 what has happened under this administration
15 is not only the creation of the public
16 safety director, which is a duplication of
17 services, if you will, but most recently the
18 creation of a deputy director of public
19 safety as well as secretarial positions.
20 Now, it is my belief that a police
21 chief and a fire chief can very competently
22 handle these duties and those salaries
23 should be increased, but they cannot be when
24 we are spending $150,769.00 for job
25 creations, unnecessary job creations. Even
.
43
1 PEL recommends against them.
2 And, again, I am just going to tell
3 you one quick story, another person said to
4 me today, her mother's home burned down in
5 2007 and when she was called that evening
6 about the fire and thankfully, you know, no
7 one was in the home and her mother was
8 already deceased, it was the fire
9 department, Scranton Fire Department who
10 appeared and police officers. There was no
11 public safety director or deputy public
12 safety director and the fire reports she
13 tells me were done by I believe a Mr. Shawn
14 Flynn, and the police, a police officer did
15 the report. Nothing, not in the evening of
16 the fire or at any time afterwards, nothing
17 was run through the Department of Public
18 Safety vis-à-vis Mr. Hayes.
19 The difference here is the mayor
20 believes in downsizing at the bottom, the
21 workers, the people who provide the services
22 to all of us who pay the taxes. I, too,
23 believe in downsizing, but I believe in from
24 the top. When you have a bloated
25 administration with untold job creations and
.
44
1 raise after raise after raise for those
2 individuals over the period of the last six
3 years while this city continues to languish
4 in distressed status, do you realize soon it
5 will be two decades in distressed status?
6 How dare you, how dare you not consider
7 downsizing. What is nonessential? But, we
8 see quite the opposite. It's going up, up
9 up, the opposite direction each and every
10 year.
11 The police department, reduce travel
12 and lodging, $5,000.00.
13 Police department, reduce dues and
14 subscriptions, $500.00.
15 Police department, reduce
16 professional services, $1,600.00. That
17 would leave $400 in that account and we
18 still have money left in the dues and
19 subscriptions accounts.
20 Police department chief of police
21 salary reduction, $14,145.66.00.
22 Police department, eliminate
23 assistant grants manager, $15,000.00. We
24 have a grants manager, we don't need an
25 assistant to the grant's manager.
.
45
1 The fire department, fire chief
2 salary reduction, $12,830.90.
3 City clerk, eliminate travel and
4 lodging, $1,000.00. None of us on city
5 council have used that money during fiscal
6 year 2007, and those who have attended
7 conferences have done so at their own
8 expense.
9 The city clerk salary reduction,
10 $4,000.00, and I have nothing but great
11 respect, admiration and gratitude for our
12 particular city clerk, Kay Garvey, who
13 serves everyone on this council
14 extraordinarily well, but in good conscience
15 I can't selectively choose any one person
16 and say, you may have this, but all of the
17 rest of you, no, you get nothing. That
18 doesn't work in a household, that doesn't
19 work in a school, that doesn't work in a
20 business and that is not working in this
21 government.
22 The city clerk, legal advisor salary
23 reduction, $20,000.00. That is the salary
24 that was paid to the previous solicitor,
25 Attorney Walsh, for a period of two years.
.
46
1 That had been lowered by the mayor from
2 $40,000 to $20,000, now it's popping back up
3 to 40. If, you know, if that isn't
4 political maneuvers I don't know what is and
5 it's absolutely nothing against our
6 solicitor, but, once again, I can't pick and
7 choose who is more worthy of a raise and
8 look into the eyes of everybody else who
9 works so hard day in and day out and say,
10 but, you, you are not worthy. You can work
11 8, 10 hours a day, you can risk your life,
12 you can serve the people of the city whether
13 it's in a treasurer's office, whether it's
14 in a fire hall or a police department or a
15 cruiser, but you aren't worthy. Your
16 counterparts are everywhere else in
17 Pennsylvania, but you are not? I don't
18 think anyone, anyone with a modicum of
19 intelligence and compassion would be able to
20 make that statement.
21 The controller's office, solicitor
22 salary reduction, $5,200 controller's
23 office.
24 Controller's Office, confidential
25 secretary salary reduction $5,749.00.
.
47
1 Incidentally, this is a new hire because the
2 previous secretary resigned recently.
3 Controller's Office, deputy controller
4 salary reduction $5,900.00.
5 Controller's Office program monitor
6 salary reduction $900.00.
7 Controller's officer, performance
8 auditor's Salary reduction, $5,900.00.
9 Business administration - travel and
10 lodging reduction $1,500.00.
11 Business administration - training
12 and certification reduction $1,000.00.
13 Business Administration - SPA citation
14 issuers salary reduction $670,664.00. Now,
15 only five citation issuers are employed by
16 the Scranton Parking Authority at an hourly
17 rate of $12.79. You do the math, folks, it
18 doesn't come out to over $800,000 that we
19 are paying the Scranton Parking Authority.
20 Now, granted, we do have an agreement for
21 on-street parking whereby 10 percent of the
22 revenues realized have to be turned over to
23 the Parking Authority for management of that
24 program, but I suggest to you those of you
25 with common sense what is 10 percent of
.
48
1 $800,000, is it $800,000? Because that's
2 exactly what we are doing. And I learned
3 tonight from my esteemed colleague that the
4 Scranton Parking Authority is much in need
5 of this revenue. They can't make ends meet
6 without it particularly since this council
7 voted for a $35 million bond issue and
8 thereby pledged your full faith and credit,
9 your taxes, to paying this off. I did not
10 vote for that because I knew it was a very
11 fiscally unwise move.
12 MR. MCGOFF: Excuse me, one moment,
13 I did not say that.
14 MS. EVANS: Well, that was how I took
15 it, but I'll let you discuss it under your
16 motions, Bob.
17 MR. GATELLI: Don't interrupt, Bob,
18 please.
19 MS. EVANS: No, I'm not saying don't
20 interrupt, but we do have a good deal to get
21 through and -- -
22 MS. GATELLI: No, I asked him not to
23 interrupt.
24 MS. EVANS: Okay, but I don't mind
25 you interrupting. Business Administration -
.
49
1 BA's salary reduction, $8,100.000.
2 Business Administration - Finance
3 Manager salary reduction, $4,000.
4 Business administration - eliminate
5 Senior Accountant, $37,400.00.
6 Business Administration - eliminate
7 financial analyst, $35,00.00. Now, that
8 would mean we are retaining the business
9 administrator and the finance manager, both
10 of whom I feel are most capable, both of
11 whom are most capable of handling the city's
12 finances.
13 Business administration - eliminate
14 flood positions. I have eliminated those
15 positions at a cost of $158,005.00. It
16 appears that, for example, the person in a
17 full-time position under these -- under the
18 category of these flood positions earns half
19 of what the part-time person does and yet no
20 one is really quite sure what any of them
21 do, but in the event that this is essential,
22 I have added in place of the elimination of
23 those flood positions a flood relocation
24 clerk at the salary of $23,946.00 as
25 compared to the administration costs of
.
50
1 $158,005.00.
2 Human Resources - reduce
3 professional services by $36,000.00. The
4 remainder of that account has been left
5 intact because I do believe it is necessary.
6 I eliminated $36, for ADP which is a payroll
7 service the city employs. Prior to this
8 administration payroll was done in-house by
9 two payroll clerks who are still in the
10 city's employ. We could very easily and
11 more efficiently, in fact, produce a payroll
12 and save $36,000.00.
13 Human Resources - eliminate travel
14 and lodging, $1,000.00.
15 Human Resources - Director salary
16 reduction $17, 100.00.
17 Human Resources - eliminate
18 confidential secretary - $32,000.00. Now,
19 within that department three other positions
20 have been retained.
21 Information technology - eliminate
22 IT manager, $55,000.
23 Information technology - eliminate
24 network systems manager, $45,000.00.
25 Information technology -- computer
.
51
1 support specialist salary reduction of
2 $5,000.00. So, I have eliminated two
3 positions and retained one.
4 Information Technology - eliminate
5 professional services $40,000.00.
6 IT - Eliminate dues and
7 subscriptions, $150.00.
8 IT -eliminate travel and lodging
9 $2,500.00.
10 IT - eliminate training and
11 certification $15,000.00.
12 Now, those cuts within IT amount to
13 $157,500. Quite coincidentally in 2007,
14 $155,739.00 has been transferred out of that
15 department into the SPA citation issuers'
16 account, so it would appear that not only is
17 that department bloated and these dollar
18 amounts are unnecessary, on the other hand,
19 one really has to wonder how all of this has
20 been paid for when the money was siphoned
21 out and put elsewhere.
22 City treasurer -treasurer salary
23 reduction, $14,433.00.
24 OECD there are -- let me see, there
25 is a salary reduction for the executive
.
52
1 director of $2,884.50.
2 Eliminate the deputy director,
3 that's a duplication of services $45,000.00.
4 Eliminate director of finance and
5 compliance $49,000.00.
6 Eliminate one economic development
7 specialist and keep one, that's a savings of
8 $32,000.00.
9 Eliminate the environmental
10 coordinator, $32,000.00, and the city
11 planner salary reduction of $4,000.00.
12 However, these salaries do not directly
13 impact the general fund. I'm assuming these
14 are HUD funds, in my opinion they can
15 certainly be used toward projects that
16 better address the needs of the people of
17 our city, but, as I said, since they have no
18 direct dollar impact on the operating budget
19 I would not have been adverse to retaining
20 any or all of them.
21 In addition, I eliminated in that
22 department I believe four positions, but I
23 kept ten.
24 LIPS - eliminate deputy director of
25 safety and conservation.
.
53
1 LIPS - zoning officer, return to
2 union with a salary reduction of $6,012.00.
3 Law Department - eliminate
4 professional services, $200,000.00.
5 Law Department - eliminate travel
6 and lodging, $2,000.
7 Law Department - eliminate training
8 and certification, $1,500.00.
9 Law Department - solicitor's salary
10 reduction, $7,200.
11 Law Department - eliminate first
12 assistance city solicitor $40,000.00. That
13 was a job creation in 2004.
14 Law Department - eliminate assistant
15 city solicitor full-time $36,900. I would
16 be retaining the part-time solicitor.
17 Law Department - eliminate a
18 confidential secretary at a salary of
19 $32,000.00, however, I have added one
20 administrative assistant at a cost of
21 $23,946.00. So, again, you can see the
22 differential between the salaries.
23 Traffic maintenance - foreman's
24 salary reduction, $6,200.00.
25 DPW - director's salary reduction
.
54
1 $25,200.00. Our DPW director no longer
2 performs the duties and responsibilities of
3 the city engineer, hence, it is no longer
4 necessary to pay a salary that has been paid
5 previously for one individual performing two
6 jobs.
7 Engineering - city engineer salary
8 reduction (part-time). I believe $50,000.00
9 had been plugged into the budget for a new
10 city engineer, it was my hope that perhaps
11 the city could find an individual who may be
12 retired with, of course, a wealth of
13 experience and engineering credentials who
14 might be willing to work for the city on a
15 part-time basis and a salary of $35,000.
16 DPW/highways - foreman's salary
17 reduction $6,200.00.
18 DPW/refuse - foreman's salary
19 reduction $6,200.00.
20 DPW/refuse - recycling coordinator
21 salary reduction $6,200.00.
22 DPW/Garages - fleet manager salary
23 reduction $3, 200.000.
24 Single Tax Office - Tax Collector's
25 salary reduction $4,150.02.00 and that, of
.
55
1 course, would come only from the city's
2 portion of the tax collector's salary, we
3 all know the school district pays the other
4 50 percent.
5 Single Tax Office - Chief Clerk
6 salary reduction $4,896.28.
7 Parks and Recreation - eliminate
8 travel and lodging $1,000.00.
9 Parks and Recreation - eliminate
10 performing arts $12, 500.00, and as I
11 indicated earlier I am a great fan and
12 advocate of the performing arts, however, I
13 do recall that this council forgave a loan
14 to the Scranton Cultural Center in order to
15 provide for the cultural health and benefit
16 of our citizens.
17 Parks and Recreation - Capital
18 Expenditures reduction, $149,800.00. That
19 would leave $14,200.00 in the capital
20 expenditures line item for parks and
21 recreation. I do not believe that we need
22 $100,000 for greenhouse renovations. There
23 is a Nay Aug conservancy which I learned
24 this week is a private nonprofit
25 organization about whom I can't obtain any
.
56
1 information, but I'm assuming they are doing
2 all of the fundraising or most of it in
3 conjunction with the recreation authority
4 for Nay Aug Park.
5 In addition, some of that money
6 would go up to Connell Park, I think though
7 it certainly has merit we have been spending
8 a good deal of money in that area and I
9 think really we can afford to downsize that.
10 Parks and Recreation - Director
11 salary reduction $10,200.00.
12 Parks and Recreation - eliminate
13 parks and recreation specialist, $38,000.00.
14 Parks and Recreation - eliminate
15 recreation specialist $38,000.00.
16 Parks and recreation - eliminate
17 program manager, $38, 000.00. We have in
18 the mayor's budget five management positions
19 for eight workers. That seems to make
20 absolutely no sense, plus one secretary. I
21 fully believe that the parks and recreation
22 director is more than capable of handling
23 parks and recreation and recreation and
24 programs.
25 Contingency - reduction of
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1 $1.1 million as per Mr. Courtright's
2 request. He had indicated he would like to
3 see that amount of money removed from the
4 contingency where the administration had
5 placed it for the potential settlement of
6 union contracts, and Mr. Courtright felt
7 that until such time as those contracts were
8 settled that money should be not sitting
9 unavailable for other purposes.
10 That gives us a total revenue of
11 $9,488,137.80.
12 On the expenditure's side, and this
13 is much briefer, I propose to reduce the
14 Wage Tax by 2 tenths of a percent. The
15 city's position of your 3.4 percent wage tax
16 is 2.4 percent. I had proposed to reduce it
17 to 2.2 percent.
18 Reduce the 2008 Bond Issuance. I do
19 believe in refinancing the 2005 bond series.
20 However, I eliminated the additional
21 $6,013,100.00 in additional borrowing.
22 Amusement Tax - reverse funding.
23 The mayor had placed an amount of $100,000
24 in his proposed budget from the amusement
25 tax and since council has not approved the
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1 amusement tax I eliminated it from my
2 budget.
3 Create Line Item - funding for
4 Scranton Today $50,000.00. This is the
5 organization that provides the life
6 broadcasts, live and uncensored broadcast of
7 all government meeting, school district,
8 city, county, and I became very concerned
9 when I heard the county commissioners
10 meeting at which one of the commissioners
11 stated that he would really have to take a
12 look at this because it didn't seem to be a
13 great priority to be funding this in 2008,
14 and so I had hoped that the city would step
15 up to the plate and make up that difference.
16 In the licensing, Inspection and
17 Permits Department, add one animal control
18 officer, $24,441.47. I think we all know
19 the animal control officer is overwhelmed
20 and cannot keep up with the number of calls
21 he receives daily.
22 Again, in LIPS - add one housing
23 inspector. Blight has always been a
24 tremendous problem within our city, yet we
25 don't have enough housing inspectors to
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59
1 sufficiently address the situation.
2 LIPS - add one health inspector. We
3 have only one health inspector who is
4 expected to do a good 5 to 10 Jobs all
5 rolled into one job description and that's
6 physically impossible for any individual to
7 perform.
8 Business administration, in that
9 department where I have eliminated
10 management positions, I added as I noted
11 earlier one administrative assistant two at
12 a cost of $25,586.36. Again, the BA's
13 office, add one flood relocation clerk in
14 place of those jobs that, in fact, no one
15 can track.
16 The law department - add one
17 administration assistant I at a salary of
18 $23,946.35. And, finally, the quick
19 response service, this is what I would call
20 a value added service, the start up cost is
21 zero dollars. The fire department or rather
22 individuals within the fire department have
23 spoken with state representative Ken Smith
24 who assures them that monies, grants, can be
25 found for the start up costs for this
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1 program that would so benefit all of the
2 residents of the City of Scranton at zero
3 cost.
4 The total expenditures $7,687,881.40
5 for a surplus of $1,800,256.40. Now, that
6 surplus would be used to in a myriad of
7 ways, for example, if council would have
8 deliberated over items on my budget and
9 decided against them those items could be
10 placed back into the budget and this
11 $1.8 million would cover those costs.
12 On the other hand, money could be
13 used to pay down the debt service or the
14 money could have been used for additional
15 tax decreases, the mercantile tax, to help
16 our city businesses, a decrease in the
17 property taxes to help our city residents
18 and senior citizens. That concludes the
19 budget presentation, but I have a bit more.
20 I also wanted to address related issue
21 tonight and that is delinquent property tax
22 collection. Council passed an ordinance in
23 2007 which I opposed to increase the fines,
24 fees and cost and penalties for the
25 collection of delinquent property taxes.
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1 Now, some members insisted that outstanding
2 delinquent bills would not double or triple
3 if paid fairly quickly thereby avoiding
4 these aforementioned Draconian measures.
5 I have an example, maybe it's a
6 little Christmas story, if you will. I'm
7 not going to name the names of the poor man
8 involved in this, but he received a letter
9 dated November 26, 2007, and I'm assuming
10 this must be from NCC and it's certainly a
11 good thing to get a reminder about your
12 delinquent taxes because the wise thing to
13 do is to pay these off as soon as possible.
14 Now, the face amount of the
15 delinquencies for tax year 2004, 5 and 6,
16 $186.77. Now, that $186.77 just became
17 $436.65. How? Well, we tacked on $53.93
18 for NCC, $160 for legal fees, $7.00 for
19 certified mail fee. A penalty much $28.95
20 and you come out with $436.65.
21 Now, the final statement in the
22 letter sent to this 88-year-old man was
23 this: The attorney fees and additional
24 costs can be avoided if the delinquent
25 amount is paid within 30 days from the date
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62
1 of this letter. That's a good offer, a
2 generous offer, so this elderly man
3 accompanied by his nephew went immediately
4 to NCC to pay his $186.77 according to what
5 had been written in the letter. They were
6 refused that payment. NCC will accept
7 nothing but $436.65 which I told you
8 includes legal fees, and if this amount is
9 not paid by December 26 he will now owe,
10 December 26, 2007, $2,036.00.
11 That's what this council has done,
12 and I think it's why sometimes you need to
13 put yourself in somebody else's place and
14 think about what you are doing and who are
15 you hurting.
16 Finally, Kay, I'd like a letter sent
17 to Mr. Baker of the Scranton Housing
18 Authority acquiring a definition for the
19 word advance. The $900,000 received by the
20 city from the SHA is listed as an advance in
21 the mayor's budget, so I would like to know
22 specifically this is an advance on what
23 payments or items and, further, from what
24 source was the $900,000 taken, was there a
25 surplus in the housing authority, was a loan
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1 taken out possibly and I would request a
2 response on or before December 18, 2007.
3 That's it.
4 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mrs.
5 Fanucci.
6 MS. FANUCCI: Obviously we are going
7 to address Mrs. Evans' budget, which happens
8 to be -- well, it's about 96 percent exactly
9 the same as it was last year, so I know that
10 everyone was concerned about how much time
11 we gave it to look at the budget, but really
12 the numbers have only changed. She brought
13 everyone back to the salary, all of the cuts
14 she brought back to 2002 which,
15 coincidentally, is the same time that the
16 unions have not been able to settle their
17 contracts, also. I understand the reasoning
18 behind it, I understand that she is saying I
19 don't believe anyone should have anymore
20 money, the unions didn't get their money,
21 the administration should not get their
22 money. I don't want to go back to 2002 in
23 Scranton. I don't want to be there again.
24 When I look around this city and I see where
25 we are now and where we came from I don't
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1 want to be back there again. The money that
2 was saved in this we will be spending. We
3 will be spending. We would be spending on
4 not complying with a lot of our already
5 commitments that we have.
6 We will go to the garage, the SPCA,
7 the money that we are saving from them will
8 make us default on the bonds and, therefore,
9 we will still owe money, this is not going
10 to save us any money. We are going to spend
11 a lot of money on attorneys, attorneys to
12 defend the Ice Box because they came before
13 us saying that they would spend $33,000 a
14 year and pay us, council turned them down.
15 They went back to their original contract
16 and I believe it might be a dollar a year.
17 They have it. We will have to fight that to
18 get the money, so that is nothing but a wish
19 list. It's a wonderful wish list and I hope
20 some day we do receive that, but as to plan
21 for it, it's like planning to win the
22 lottery.
23 The collection of delinquent wage
24 tax, I'm only going to address the big
25 budget items because, quite frankly, the
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1 other ones are not worth addressing again, I
2 did that last year.
3 MS. GATELLI: Excuse me, but could
4 you please be quiet in the audience?
5 MS. FANUCCI: The collection of
6 delinquent wage tax, we would have to know
7 that people are making 150 million dollars
8 more so that we can get the amount of money
9 we need to get out of them for that proposed
10 wage tax. Collection has to be done. We
11 would need the compliance of not only the
12 owners and the business owners as much as
13 the workers to both say, yes, I've been
14 getting money and they're both going to have
15 to say, yeah, yeah, I've been paying this
16 guy and we have not been paying our wage
17 tax. You know, Pennsylvania has a hard time
18 doing it, and yet Scranton is going to take
19 it on, and do I believe we should take it
20 on, absolutely, let's get the money, but am
21 I ready to put it in a budget, no way.
22 The flood coordinators, we need the
23 flood coordinators, we had to have them to
24 be able to secure our bonds. It's sort of
25 like OECD a certain amount of money you take
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1 out you have to have the coordinator is part
2 of the deal, they need them in there to
3 secure it. You want to get rid of them,
4 fine, you default on your bond and you owe
5 the money. Where is that money going to
6 come from? So a lot of these have not
7 really -- you know, the parks and
8 recreation, another one, do I want to go
9 back to where we were with parks and rec?
10 No way. And I understand that not everybody
11 wanted improvements in the park, it is the
12 number one reason businesses look at, how is
13 your entertainment, how is your parks and
14 rec. The first thing that they look at when
15 they are coming here, that's it. First
16 number one thing, whether you like it or not
17 it's the first thing, and there aren't a lot
18 of business owners out in the audience, so
19 maybe that's why you don't understand.
20 Also, the increase in lieu of taxes,
21 great, go for it, I'd love an increase in
22 lieu of tax. Is it necessary, like, are we
23 definitely getting it? Do we know who is
24 going to pay us? Can we budget it? This is
25 like saying I am going to spend all of this
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1 money in my house, but I really don't know
2 where it's coming from. I want it to be
3 there and I'm hoping it's going to be there,
4 but now I just caught out of the lawyers out
5 who are going to help me get it because they
6 have all been cut.
7 Let's go to professional services.
8 Professional services are lawyers who
9 obviously we hire to go after whatever
10 lawsuits we have going on. Maybe it's a
11 union contract, maybe it's something else.
12 They also are in charge of our health care,
13 and I want to make sure I get this right,
14 the health care and worker's comp out of
15 professional services. So, does that mean
16 that we should not have that either? Should
17 we not worry about professional services?
18 Well, of course, Dave, of course you think
19 so, of course, you are a union guy. I would
20 believe that.
21 MS. GATELLI: Please.
22 MS. FANUCCI: What? I don't have any
23 statements here. Okay, let's just put it
24 what it is, this is wonderful for 24 percent
25 of the people who voted for the recovery
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68
1 plan. This is great for you guys. This is
2 your budget and I am so happy that you have
3 it and I think you deserve it, but for the
4 76 people who voted for the recovery plan
5 all we have to do is stick with where we
6 came from and let's go to 2002 in that
7 department.
8 We voted PEL three times tonight,
9 let's go there and let's take our time and
10 say, okay, cap the health care, there is our
11 $5 million. Let's sit down, let's settle
12 our contracts. I want the contracts
13 settled, you want the contracts settled,
14 none of us here do not feel that way. This
15 is not against the unions. This is not
16 against anyone in the city. We all want to
17 have our people happy and we want the
18 contracts settled. I will state that from
19 now until they are done, but it is not our
20 fault the contracts aren't settled, it is
21 not the union's fault that the contracts
22 aren't settled and it is not the
23 administrations. They need to sit down and
24 come to terms, that's what unions and
25 administration do. It's a battle. That's
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69
1 what's going to happen and it's going to
2 happen until it's finished and signed,
3 sealed and delivered. It will not stop
4 until both sides are happy. That is life.
5 That is what you work for. That is why you
6 have your union representatives.
7 Am I going to stop and shut down the
8 entire city because of it and not function?
9 OECD we will not comply -- if we fire those
10 people and eliminate these positions we will
11 not comply with what OECD needs us to be.
12 We will lose over a million dollars of money
13 that will be invested in our area, so we
14 won't have to worry, I mean, we really won't
15 have to worry because no one will be able to
16 invest the money, but that's another thing,
17 they are jobs that are compliance for each
18 person who has a position there, there is a
19 reason they have a position. We are cut
20 down from when Mayor Connors had the
21 administration we are cut down a lot in
22 OECD. Would I love to say, okay, we'll
23 eliminate three positions and pave more
24 streets? Yes. But, guess what, it's going
25 to cost us. It's going to cost us a lot
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1 more money than the positions we are paying.
2 I am not going to sit here and give
3 this more than really it deserves. I
4 understand, I don't see where all of the
5 work went in, I have to say that. I mean,
6 last year's budget was exactly like this
7 year's budget except we took everybody to
8 2002. In fact, every highlighted area I
9 have are last year's same exact things as
10 last year.
11 MS. EVANS: Mrs. Fanucci, I took it
12 back to 2002 last year so obviously --
13 MS. FANUCCI: No, no --
14 MS. EVANS: You don't even see the
15 similarities.
16 MS. FANUCCI: Actually, I sat down
17 for the last four days and sat down with
18 every -- that's not true with your last
19 year's budget and this year's budget so
20 that's not accurate again.
21 MS. EVANS: Well, I think --
22 MS. FANUCCI: This is -- is this not
23 my time to talk? Didn't we just start with
24 motions? Yeah, we did. We talked about
25 motions and how you should -- yeah. Yeah.
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1 This is -- I'm not going to sit here and
2 fight with Mrs. Evans over this. We know
3 that some people can't work together. This
4 should have been something that council has
5 been sitting down doing together for a year,
6 but we never were privy to any of this until
7 two days ago. And you know what's funny?
8 Oh, well, I was -- I actually had last
9 year's budget. If I knew I would have just
10 went over that, but instead of working
11 together for the past year I don't know who
12 was working on the budget with you this
13 year, last year I believe Mr. Pilchesky had
14 some say, I'm not sure this year, you know,
15 so I'm not sure this year if he helped you,
16 but this to me is bogus and it is bogus
17 outside of this room and I understand I am
18 sitting here with all of the fans and there
19 is not one person who doesn't get up there
20 that doesn't praise you and I think it's
21 wonderful, but this is not good for our city
22 and, in fact, I never want to be in this
23 place, wherever this is, I don't want to be
24 there.
25 MS. GATELLI: Excuse me for one
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72
1 minute. Excuse me, I would just like to say
2 that everyone must respect everyone
3 speaking. We don't all have the same
4 opinion and that's okay, but please don't
5 laugh and ridicule the people who are
6 speaking here.
7 MR. GERVASI: You can't help it,
8 it's funny.
9 MS. GATELLI: You are not to do that.
10 MS. SPINDLER: We can laugh.
11 MS. GATELLI: And you are going to be
12 asked to leave the chambers if you continue.
13 MR. GERVASI: Are we asked to leave?
14 MR. SPINDLER: We have a right to
15 laugh.
16 MS. FANUCCI: I said before, I don't
17 want to think like any of you who are
18 sitting out there right now. I want to
19 think like the people at home who are
20 working, who are making this city a better
21 place, not the people who come in here for
22 their own personal agendas. You are not the
23 majority. The silent majority is home right
24 now knowing what we are know which is stick
25 with the recovery plan, we voted for it, and
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73
1 I will continue to push that issue.
2 For some reason in this forum and
3 other forums we believe that using words and
4 bashing people are the only way to get what
5 we want instead of working to do something
6 productive. Productive does not happen
7 here, I have been here for almost two years
8 now, I have not seen productive, what I have
9 seen is hate, people spewing their venom,
10 meeting out in the hall like little -- it's
11 hysterical, it's almost a joke, and when
12 people say at home that they watch this for
13 a laugh I get it. It is, and I said it
14 before it was Jerry Springer, Jerry Springer
15 would never go this low.
16 Last week I want to say one thing
17 also, somebody got up and said what was
18 going on, we had some disgusting, disgusting
19 behavior last week and some words, but
20 somebody got up and said they are just words
21 that somebody said. They are just words.
22 Well, just words start most wars. Just
23 words make some young wonderful little girl
24 take her own life because of what was
25 happening on the Internet. Just words could
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74
1 have stopped Columbine. Just words. Use
2 your words wisely. Be someone to stand up
3 and be proud of what you can say. Don't use
4 it in the other way and then wonder why
5 nobody listens.
6 I am finished with listening to
7 those just words. I'm going to listen to
8 the people who want to help in a genuine
9 real way, and that is it what I hope for all
10 of you when you leave this forum tonight and
11 you go to your family holidays that you sit
12 there and think if I am going to be
13 productive and I want to be productive I'm
14 going to come back here and do something
15 together, together, and not spend your time
16 making sure agendas are taken care of, and
17 that is all I have.
18 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mr. McGoff.
19 MR. MCGOFF: Just a couple of quick
20 things on what was presented in terms of
21 alternative budget. Just to reiterate, on
22 the revenue side I count the first four
23 items amount to $6,350,000 in revenue of
24 which much of it is questionable as to
25 whether it could be received, some of it is
.
75
1 I think impossible and some of it is I think
2 impractical. Now, that doesn't mean that,
3 you know, some of that would not be
4 realized, but I don't think that out of
5 those four items we'll realize $6,350,000
6 and if you can't then the three little over
7 $3 million that's realized from reductions
8 in eliminations would certainly not be
9 sufficient to find the expenditures that are
10 listed.
11 I think there are a number of things
12 that could possibly have been considered,
13 certainly that the collection of the
14 delinquent wage tax is one thing that is
15 interesting. I don't know that there is
16 three million, you know, three and a half
17 million dollars worth of delinquent taxes
18 out there to collect, but I would certainly
19 be in favor of making some kind of motion
20 that we pursue the collection of delinquent
21 wage taxes, not to put it into the budget
22 necessarily as revenue, but some motion to,
23 you know, an aggressive collection of that
24 delinquent wage tax with whatever is
25 collected being used against our debt
.
76
1 service at the end of the year, you know, to
2 reduce that. Again, not knowing what we
3 could collect from that it's -- I think it's
4 difficult to include that as part of the
5 revenue, but certainly we should pursue the
6 collection of the delinquent wage tax.
7 The other thing that I did want to
8 mention was the elimination of the public
9 safety department and I think that that is
10 an important department in our city, the
11 coordination of the efforts that go on in
12 the department do provide for the safety and
13 security of, you know, our citizens dealing
14 with crime, fires, blight, and other issues
15 are important and I think the expenditure
16 for the public safety department is well
17 worth the expenditure for the department and
18 I would, you know, in no way support the
19 elimination of that department.
20 Other items that I know I am
21 somewhat on record as saying that I believe
22 that, you know, there was a need for
23 elimination of some positions or, you know,
24 downsizing of city government, and I do
25 believe that, but I believe that the way to
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77
1 accomplish that is through attrition and
2 retirement and not through the elimination
3 of people's jobs and their livelihood, and I
4 believe that not only for, you know, what's
5 listed here but I also believe it for a
6 union positions as well. I don't believe
7 that there should be an elimination of jobs
8 other than through attrition or retirement.
9 And, on the other hand, with that said,
10 I think that we did have before us or we
11 have before us a budget that offers no tax
12 increase, with minimal borrowing and I think
13 it's a plan that has merit and I obviously
14 am in favor of it and thank you.
15 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
16 Mr. Courtright.
17 MR. COURTRIGHT: I'll just speak
18 briefly on the budget, we went line by line
19 and everybody had their opinion. During the
20 caucus I probably expressed my opinion more
21 than most on Mrs. Evans' budget. I stated
22 what I liked about it and what I didn't like
23 about it. The things that I liked about it
24 there doesn't seem to be enough people on
25 this council who go along with me so
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78
1 obviously they are not going to be
2 implemented and that's the way it goes and
3 there is not much I can do about it. I will
4 give her credit for taking the time to go
5 over it. Finances are a difficult thing and
6 sometimes even difficult to understand, but,
7 anyway, we'll see tonight what happens with
8 our vote and you will all get to see
9 firsthand how it goes.
10 Mr. Hubbard handed me this paper
11 here that when I first look at it, it looks
12 like a good deal for the city. There is a
13 program here to pay for a lot of the work
14 that's being done on flood control for the
15 jobs that will be remaining in the budget
16 and what I'll do is I will turn this over to
17 Kay and I believe he said he gave it to
18 Mr. Parker, so I imagine that -- I would
19 expect Mr. Brazil would have this, I'll give
20 this to you after.
21 As far as who is using the city
22 vehicle, I didn't even know they had any
23 city vehicles down there, I can ask you to
24 check, also, with Mr. Brazil to see if
25 somebody is using a city vehicle from there
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79
1 and if they are using it for personal use,
2 obviously, that's a no-no. Can we check who
3 it is, I had no idea who does have a city
4 vehicle in the flood control.
5 Yesterday and today I got two
6 separate calls, one was about barricades,
7 and I don't think that we have, and I know
8 you've got an awful lot to do, Kay, maybe I
9 will come in and try to write something
10 myself, they asked me if there is anything
11 on the books or the ordinances stating that
12 the barricades have to have reflectors or
13 lights on them because I believe it was
14 downtown here, maybe Franklin Avenue or
15 somebody said there is barricades up, the
16 police officer is shaking his head, yes,
17 somewhere downtown here I don't know if
18 somebody hit it or almost hit it, there is
19 no reflectors or no -- I don't know, there
20 used to be flashing lights on them, I'll try
21 to do that if you can point me where I look
22 for the ordinance I'll do it myself, but I
23 don't know the answer to that. If somebody
24 does maybe they can call me and let me know.
25 The paving of the police department
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80
1 lot, Mrs. Schumacher, I believe we sent a
2 letter on that, didn't we, Kay, and I didn't
3 get a response. Can we check and see who we
4 sent to and I'll call them and jog their
5 memory a little bit.
6 The other call and, you know, Mrs.
7 Evans when you brought this up I wasn't
8 listening to you I was reading the budget,
9 so I don't know what you said, I heard a
10 figure of $900,000, I got a call right after
11 our last council meeting about this and I
12 haven't been able to find anymore out about
13 it and I guess I got to maybe talk to the
14 housing authority, this person that called
15 me lead me to believe that that $900,000 has
16 to do with something for the management of
17 Park Gardens they are telling me. Yeah, I
18 don't know that's what they are telling me.
19 They are saying that that money might come
20 out of the management of Park Gardens and
21 they said back in the Connor's
22 administration that the housing authority
23 used to give money to them, the city,
24 something to do with Park Gardens and I'm
25 clueless as to what they are talking about.
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81
1 I guess I will -- I don't know who is in
2 charge over there, who is it, Billy Eagen, I
3 don't know. I'll ask them myself, but there
4 is --
5 MS. GATELLI: Ask Baker.
6 MR. COURTRIGHT: I can ask Mr. Baker
7 I guess, but they are saying something about
8 the $900,000 has something to do with the
9 management of Park Gardens and that's how
10 they got the money to use, so I couldn't
11 grasp what they were trying to tell me,
12 maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough in that
13 respect, but I believe that's all I have.
14 Thank you.
15 MS. GATELLI: Thank you,
16 Mr. Courtright. I just have a few comments
17 on the budget. If you were here for the
18 part of the caucus I was against the sale of
19 the golf course, the rest of that money. I
20 thought that we should save it for the union
21 settlements which I hope will be
22 forthcoming. I do understand that the
23 police were very close, but something
24 happened and it was squashed, so I don't
25 know if I have the right information, but
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1 some police officers were working on it and
2 were very close. I also knew some of the
3 details of this settlement and someone put
4 the kabash to it, I don't know who, but
5 that's what I heard on that issue. I don't
6 know if it's true or not, but that's what I
7 was told.
8 As far as the collection of the
9 delinquent wage tax, I agree that we should
10 collect that, absolutely, and I said that in
11 caucus, but I'm afraid to put that among the
12 money in there because we are not sure, you
13 know, it's just a figure, I don't have any
14 paperwork to show where it came from and I
15 do believe there is something there and,
16 like I stated before, if the people in there
17 were told not to collect that amount then we
18 need to do an investigation of that whole
19 tax collector's office and I would certainly
20 be in favor of that.
21 The increase in lieu of taxes, I do
22 believe that we will get something if that
23 house bill passes, however, I'm not too
24 confident in the House of Representatives or
25 the Senators in the state, they are very
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83
1 slow to move any kind of legislation, so I'm
2 not quite sure that that will come in time
3 for this budget either.
4 The land payment from the Ice Box we
5 are offered the money, I do believe that I
6 was the person that voted, no, also. I'm
7 not sure, but I'm pretty confident that I
8 voted, no, and I wish that I could take that
9 vote back because now we are not going to
10 get anything.
11 The Scranton Times newspaper boxes,
12 I don't know that we can charge them. I
13 think that we would have to do some type of
14 a zoning change or a fee to allow people to
15 put their boxes around the telephone poles,
16 they are not the only ones that I see around
17 telephone poles and I don't even like the
18 looks of them for the esthetics of the
19 community, but I guess they are allowed to
20 be there from Mrs Jennings said. Do they
21 pay a fee, Mrs. Jennings?
22 MS. JENNINGS: What?
23 MS. GATELLI: Do they pay a fee for
24 those boxes at all or do they get any kind
25 of permission?
.
84
1 MS. JENNINGS: Not that I know of.
2 MS. GATELLI: So, we need to look
3 into if anyone can write a letter to the
4 officer and attorney to check into that and
5 also those boxes that they put the clothes
6 in, I read a disenheartening article about
7 that. So, anyway, those first several items
8 are really the crux of the budget. The rest
9 is, you know, elimination of almost whole
10 departments which I don't agree with. I do
11 also want to keep the public safety
12 department, I fought hard for that when
13 Mayor Connors was here for PEL to keep it,
14 and the information technology, you know, I
15 don't think we can go backwards there with
16 computers. OECD I believe that when I
17 worked there there was 20 people, you know,
18 now there is only 10 or 11, and it is very
19 cumbersome over there, although, it does not
20 affect the budget.
21 Some of the salary cuts were part of
22 last year when some of the people gave up 5
23 percent of their salary, I know it's back to
24 2002, is that it?
25 MS. EVANS: Um-hum.
.
85
1 MS. GATELLI: But a small portion of
2 that would have been what they gave up last
3 year. Parks and Rec, I like what's
4 happening in the parks I like the Sunday
5 bands and the performing arts, so I wouldn't
6 do anything else in parks. I know that with
7 all of the development up at Connell Park I
8 don't go over there very often, but when I
9 do go there are a lot of children and
10 football league and we do have three housing
11 projects that are feeding that park of very
12 low income children from the three projects,
13 and I would like to keep that up there so
14 that they have a place to play, and there is
15 really nothing else that jumps out at me
16 right here.
17 I did talk to -- it was funny that
18 Mr. Schumacher brought about the rental
19 registration because Wayne Evans and I were
20 just discussing that today and it's just
21 stagnant, they don't have the wherewithal to
22 register the properties and Wayne and I are
23 going to make that a priority especially
24 Wayne with the Neighborhood Association and
25 the project going on in South Scranton. So,
.
86
1 yes, that is a problem, that is a very large
2 source of revenue, we just have to get it
3 done.
4 Just because the budget, and I am
5 going to be voting for the mayor's budget,
6 and just because I vote for the budget does
7 not mean I'm against the unions. I don't
8 understand why that's always part of the
9 equation that if you vote for this you are
10 against the unions. The union contracts are
11 not going to be settled in city council
12 chambers. We are not the negotiating team.
13 The mayor knows and we have all said it in
14 the paper, I think every single one of us
15 have said that we want the contracts
16 settled. Can we sit down and settle them?
17 No. Because if we could I'm sure all of us
18 would, so I don't know why that's always
19 equated with if you vote for the budget or
20 if you stick with the mayor then you must
21 hate the unions because that's not how I
22 feel.
23 I am a union member myself. I am a
24 steward in my union and I have never voted
25 against a union contract. There may be
.
87
1 people that have voted against union
2 contracts, but I'm not one of them and I
3 never will vote against a union contract
4 while I sit up here. I have fought for the
5 unions, I have had them at my home and I
6 don't want them in any way, shape or form to
7 think that I don't appreciate what they do
8 because I certainly do, but we up here are
9 not in a position to settle these contracts.
10 We can send the mayor another letter, we can
11 tell him we want to.
12 I met with Jay Schreiber and the
13 mayor several weeks ago, Dave and I are
14 going to go to Bethlehem and see what's
15 going on down there with the fire. So, yes,
16 we do want the contracts settled, but I'm
17 not going to vote for a budget when I don't
18 know where the revenue is coming from, I'm
19 uncomfortable about that.
20 And I appreciate Mrs. Evans doing
21 that, and I think that we should definitely
22 look at that 3.5 million because if it's
23 that's really there that's really scary that
24 they are not doing their job and if they
25 were told not to do it that's even scarier,
.
88
1 so I do appreciate that that's in there and
2 that's a tremendous amount of money,
3 148 million dollars worth of wages that
4 aren't reported and aren't collected is
5 frightening, so we will pursue that.
6 We will work on the rental
7 registration, I promise, Mrs. Schumacher,
8 and there are so many things when you are on
9 council to think about that sometimes some
10 of the things you forget about. We all have
11 full-time jobs except Mr. Retirement over
12 there, and it is difficult, you know, you
13 expect a lot of us and you should because
14 you elected us to represent you, but you
15 must remember that we all have full-time
16 jobs, we have families, we have other
17 commitments, and it's not always easy to
18 just focus on something and every week it's
19 a different focus, so, you know, you lose
20 your train of thought sometimes, I don't
21 know if that's happens to you, but it
22 happens to me, maybe that happens when you
23 are 56, but it's certainly going downhill.
24 The senior moments are becoming more
25 frequent, but, you know, it's hard to try to
.
89
1 do a job up here and know everything when
2 you work full-time. It is very, very
3 difficult, so just bear with us and I hope
4 that you can see where some of us are coming
5 from. Thank you. Mrs. Garvey.
6 MS. GARVEY: FIFTH ORDER. NO
7 BUSINESS AT THIS TIME.
8 SIXTH ORDER. READING BY TITLE -
9 FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 142, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE
10 - AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE AND SALE OF FIVE
11 MILLION ($5,000,000.00) DOLLARS PRINCIPAL
12 AMOUNT, TAX AND REVENUE ANTICIPATION NOTE OF
13 THE CITY OF SCRANTON KNOWN AS TAN SERIES A,
14 AWARDED TO THE COMMUNITY BANK AND TRUST
15 COMPANY; DETERMINING THE FORM AND TERM OF
16 SAID NOTE; AWARDING SAID NOTE; AUTHORIZING
17 AND DIRECTING THE FILING OF CERTAIN
18 DOCUMENTS; AND DIRECTING THE PROPERTY
19 OFFICIALS OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON TO TAKE
20 ANY AND ALL OTHER ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED
21 IN CONNECTION WITH THE ISSUANCE OF SAID
22 NOTE.
23 MS. GATELLI: You have heard Reading
24 by Title of 6-A, what is your pleasure?
25 MR. COURTRIGHT: I move that Item 6-A
.
90
1 pass Reading by Title.
2 MS. FANUCCI: Second.
3 MS. GATELLI: On the question? All
4 those in favor?
5 MS. EVANS: Aye.
6 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
7 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
9 MS. GATELLI: Aye. Opposed? The
10 ayes have it and so moved.
11 MS. GARVEY: 6-B. READING BY TITLE -
12 FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 143, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE
13 - AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE AND SALE OF A
14 NINE AND ONE HALF MILLION ($9,500,000.00)
15 DOLLARS PRINCIPAL AMOUNT, TAX AND REVENUE
16 ANTICIPATION NOTE OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON
17 KNOWN AS TAN SERIES B, AWARDED TO COMMUNITY
18 BANK AND TRUST COMPANY; DETERMINING THE FORM
19 AND TERM OF SAID NOTE; AWARDING SAID NOTE;
20 AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE FILING OF
21 CERTAIN DOCUMENTS; AND DIRECTING THE PROPER
22 OFFICIALS OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON TO TAKE
23 ANY AND ALL OTHER ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED
24 IN CONNECTION WITH THE ISSUANCE OF SAID
25 NOTE.
.
91
1 MS. GATELLI: You have heard Reading
2 by Title of Item 6-B, what is your pleasure?
3 MR. COURTRIGHT: I move that Item 6-B
4 pass Reading by Title.
5 MR. MCGOFF: Second.
6 MS. GATELLI: On the question?
7 MS. EVANS: Yes. From what I have
8 heard reported on at least the radio,
9 Luzerne County has a tax anticipation note
10 which is due in December, of course, there
11 is a great controversy over whether that's
12 going to be paid or not, but setting that
13 aside it's a $10 million TAN and the City of
14 Scranton has $9.5 million TAN and this is a
15 TAN for the second half of the fiscal year
16 and that is typically the time when the
17 greatest amount of taxes and revenue are
18 going to come rolling in, so it just seems a
19 bit unbalanced here that the City of
20 Scranton would be taking out a mere $500,000
21 less than all of Luzerne County.
22 MS. GATELLI: Also, though, I heard
23 that Luzerne County is borrowing 90 million.
24 MS. EVANS: Well, that's not much
25 more than us either because we have
.
92
1 passed -- we have surpassed that. I mean,
2 we have 70 --
3 MS. GATELLI: I mean in one shot.
4 MS. EVANS: -- we had $74 million in
5 one shot in 2003.
6 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else? All
7 those in favor?
8 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
9 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
10 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
11 MS. GATELLI: Aye. Opposed?
12 MS. EVANS: No.
13 MS. GATELLI: The ayes have it and so
14 moved.
15 MS. GARVEY: 6-C. READING BY TITLE -
16 FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 144, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE
17 - APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING THE TRANSFER OF
18 THE REAL ESTATE AND IMPROVEMENTS LOCATED AT
19 515-537 ORCHARD STREET IN THE CITY OF
20 SCRANTON OWNED BY THE SCRANTON REDEVELOPMENT
21 AUTHORITY TO THE CITY OF SCRANTON.
22 MS. GATELLI: You have heard Reading
23 by Title of Item 6-C, what is your pleasure?
24 MR. COURTRIGHT: I move that Item
25 6-C pass Reading by Title.
.
93
1 MS. FANUCCI: Second.
2 MS. GATELLI: On the question? All
3 those in favor?
4 MS. EVANS: Aye.
5 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
6 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
7 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
8 MS. GATELLI: Aye. Opposed? The
9 ayes have it and so moved.
10 MS. GARVEY: 6-D. READING BY TITLE -
11 FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 145, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE
12 - RENAMING THE EMERGENCY AND MUNICIPAL
13 SERVICES TAX, AMONG OTHER CHANGES, BY
14 AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 78, 2007;
15 AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL 10, 2006; AMENDING
16 FILE OF COUNCIL 95 OF 2005 WHICH IN TURN
17 AMENDED FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 9, 1976 TO
18 APPEAL AN REENACT, TO THE EXTENT
19 INCONSISTENT, A NEW ORDINANCE TO BE CALLED
20 THE LOCAL SERVICES TAX.
21 MS. GATELLI: You have heard Reading
22 by Title of 6-D, what is your pleasure?
23 MR. COURTRIGHT: I move that Item 6-D
24 pass Reading by Title.
25 MS. FANUCCI: Second.
.
94
1 MS. GATELLI: On the question? All
2 those in favor?
3 MS. EVANS: Aye.
4 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
5 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
6 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
7 MS. GATELLI: Aye. Opposed? The
8 ayes have it and so moved.
9 MS. FANUCCI: I'd like to make a
10 motion to suspend the rules and move items
11 Sixth Order to Seventh Order for final
12 passage.
13 MR. MCGOFF: Second.
14 MS. GATELLI: On the question?
15 MS. EVANS: Yes, why are we doing
16 that?
17 MS. FANUCCI: Because we --
18 MS. GATELLI: Because we are going to
19 be passing the budget tonight and if we pass
20 the budget then are not going to have a
21 meeting next week.
22 MS. EVANS: Oh, so we are going to do
23 this so we won't have a meeting next week?
24 MS. FANUCCI: Well, if the budget --
25 MS. EVANS: In case we don't -- I
.
95
1 personally think we should be meeting next
2 week. We have missed more than enough
3 meetings in the last year. I see no
4 reason --
5 MS. GATELLI: Well, a far back as I
6 can remember once the budget was passed
7 Council recessed.
8 MS. FANUCCI: Right. I actually
9 have a motion on the floor, I have a motion
10 on the floor.
11 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else on the
12 question? Someone want to second the
13 motion?
14 MR. MCGOFF: I did.
15 MS. FANUCCI: We did have a second on
16 it.
17 MS. GATELLI: All in favor?
18 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
19 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
20 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
21 MS. GATELLI: Aye. Opposed?
22 MS. EVANS: No.
23 MS. GATELLI: The ayes have it and
24 so moved.
25 MS. GARVEY: SEVENTH ORDER. 7-A.
.
96
1 FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC
2 WORKS - FOR ADOPTION - FILE OF COUNCIL NO.
3 138, 2007 - AUTHORIZING THE VACATION OF A
4 PORTION OF THE RIGHT OF WAY KNOWN AS THE 700
5 BLOCK OF FOREST COURT LOCATED BETWEEN THE400
6 BLOCKS OF GIBSON STREET AND PINE STREET.
7 MS. GATELLI: What is the
8 recommendation of the Chair on Public Works?
9 MR. MCGOFF: As Chair for the
10 Committee on Public Works, I recommend final
11 passage of Item 7-A.
12 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
13 MS. GATELLI: On the question? All
14 this favor?
15 MS. EVANS: Aye.
16 MS. FANUCCI: Aye.
17 MR. MCGOFF: Aye.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Aye.
19 MS. GATELLI: Roll call, I'm sorry.
20 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
21 MS. EVANS: Yes.
22 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
23 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
24 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
25 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
.
97
1 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
2 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
3 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
4 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
5 7-A legally and lawfully adopted.
6 MS. GARVEY: 7-B. FOR CONSIDERATION
7 BY THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE - FOR ADOPTION -
8 FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 140, 2007 -
9 APPROPRIATING FUNDS FOR THE EXPENSES OF THE
10 CITY GOVERNMENT FOR THE PERIOD COMMENDING ON
11 THE FIRST DAY OF JANUARY 2008 TO AND
12 INCLUDING DECEMBER 31, 2008 BY THE ADOPTION
13 OF THE GENERAL CITY OPERATING BUDGET FOR THE
14 YEAR 2008.
15 MS. GATELLI: What is the
16 recommendation of the Chair on Finances?
17 MS. EVANS: As Chair for the
18 Committee on Finance, I do not recommend
19 Item 7-B.
20 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
21 MR. MINORA: Just so, I know I have
22 said this before, a yes is a no and a no is
23 a yes when there is a mayor recommendation.
24 MS. GATELLI: On the question?
25 MS. EVANS: Yes. I just wanted to
.
98
1 respond to some statements that were made
2 earlier. First of all, my budget does not
3 shut the city down in any way, no department
4 was wiped out.
5 MS. FANUCCI: IT.
6 MS. EVANS: This city -- no, it
7 wasn't wiped out, it still had an employee
8 and it still had a budget. Now, as I said,
9 city government would continue to operate
10 only in a leaner, more efficient more cost
11 effective way. Number two, I would disagree
12 with the statement that when a business is
13 looking to relocate into Scranton a park is
14 what's most important to them. Actually, it
15 is not, it is the school system and it is
16 the amount of taxes that are levied in the
17 area that are the determining factors in a
18 movement of a company into a city because
19 it's looking out for it's employees as well
20 as itself in terms of the tax structure.
21 As for the work required on a
22 budget, until you have constructed a
23 multi-million dollar budget, and I have done
24 it three times, until you have gone through
25 that process I really think you should
.
99
1 refrain on make being derogatory comments
2 about the effort and time required to do so.
3 Also, I guess it is I who is being
4 accused of not playing nice and, well, if
5 that means that I don't take my orders from
6 the office downstairs that's true, because I
7 take my orders from the people of the city
8 and when you talk about a recovery plan you
9 are talking about a small percentage of
10 people who voted, the vast majority of the
11 residents of this city never even went out
12 to vote on that plan, and they all look for
13 representation, too.
14 But most of all what I wanted to say
15 is as much as, you know, you can say, "I
16 don't want to go back, I don't want to go
17 back in time," financially I do because in
18 2002 the city had a $3.9 million surplus and
19 it was not three-quarters of a billion
20 dollars in debt, so can I look at 2002 and
21 say, oh, those were the good old days, oh,
22 yes, they were. And you know what, we then
23 were on other way to having distressed
24 status lifted. With all that's transpired
25 in the interim years you are not going to
.
100
1 see that happen any time soon and I don't
2 care how many contracts you want to settle
3 because it's never, and how many departments
4 you want to downsize, that is never going to
5 amount to the debt that we are in now, it's
6 just not going to do it.
7 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else on the
8 question?
9 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
10 MS. EVANS: Yes.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
12 MS. FANUCCI: No.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
14 MR. MCGOFF: No.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
16 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
18 MS. GATELLI: No. I hereby declare
19 7-B legally and lawfully adopted.
20 MS. GARVEY: 7-C. FOR CONSIDERATION
21 BY THE COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT -
22 FOR ADOPTION - RESOLUTION NO. 189,2007 -
23 APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING A MORTGAGE
24 SATISFACTION, CONCERNING A CITY OECD
25 COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL LOAN WITH 501 SOUTH
.
101
1 WASHINGTON AVENUE ASSOCIATES, LLC.
2 MS. GATELLI: What is the
3 recommendation of the Chair on Community
4 Development?
5 MS. FANUCCI: As Chairperson for
6 Committee on Community Development, I
7 recommend final passage of Item 7-C.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: Roll call, I'm sorry.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
11 MS. EVANS: Yes.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
13 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
15 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
16 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
17 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
18 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
19 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
20 7-C legally and lawfully adopted.
21 MS. GARVEY: 7-D. FOR CONSIDERATION
22 BY TEH COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
23 RESOLUTION NO. 190, 20078 - AUTHORIZING THE
24 MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS
25 TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A CONTRACT FOR
.
102
1 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES WITH THOMAS J. MCLANE
2 AND ASSOCIATES, INC. FOR ARCHITECTURAL
3 SERVICES RELATING TO THE LAND UPON WHICH THE
4 FORMER ORCHARD STREET POST OFFICE WAS
5 SITUATED.
6 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
7 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
8 passage of 7-D.
9 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
10 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
11 call.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
13 MS. EVANS: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
15 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
16 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
17 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
18 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
19 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
20 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
21 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
22 7-D legally and lawfully adopted.
23 MS. GARVEY: 7-E. FOR CONSIDERATION
24 BY THE COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT -
25 FOR ADOPTION - RESOLUTION NO. 191, 2007 -
.
103
1 AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE
2 CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE AND APPLY FOR A
3 GRANT FOR HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT
4 ASSISTANCE THROUGH THE COMMONWEALTH OF
5 PENNSYLVANIA'S DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AND
6 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (DCED); ACCEPTING THE
7 GRANT IF THE APPLICATION IS SUCCESSFUL; AND
8 COORDINATING THE USE OF THE GRANT FUNDS FOR
9 THE PROJECT TO BE NAMES AS "HARRIET BEECHER
10 STOWE" THROUGH THE UNITED NEIGHBORHOOD
11 CENTERS OF LACKAWANNA COUNTY (UNC).
12 MS. GATELLI: What is the
13 recommendation of the Chair on Community
14 Development?
15 MS. FANUCCI: As chairperson for the
16 Committee on Community Development, I
17 recommend final passage of Item 7-D.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
19 MS. GATELLI: Roll call.
20 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
21 MS. EVANS: Yes.
22 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
23 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
24 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
25 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
.
104
1 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
2 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
3 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
4 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
5 7-E legally and lawfully.
6 MS. GARVEY: 7-F. FOR CONSIDERATION
7 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
8 RESOLUTION NO 192, 2007 - AUTHORIZING THE
9 MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS
10 TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO AN ASSIGNMENT
11 AGREEMENT AUTHORIZING THE ASSIGNMENT OF ALL
12 RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES UNDER THE PRIVATE
13 POLICE CRUISER LEASE OF OFFICER SCOTT MORAN
14 TO OFFICER MICHAEL MARINO.
15 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
16 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
17 passage of 7-F.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
19 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
20 call.
21 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
22 MS. EVANS: Yes.
23 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
24 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
25 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
.
105
1 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
2 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
3 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
5 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
6 7-F legally and lawfully adopted.
7 MS. GARVEY: 7-G. FOR CONSIDERATION
8 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
9 RESOLUTION NO. 193, 2007 -ACCEPTING THE GIFT
10 OF A POLICE VEHICLE, VIN NUMBER
11 1FMPU16L7YLC35415 FROM POLICE OFFICER SCOTT
12 MORAN FOR USE IN THE CITY'S FLEET PURSUANT
13 TO A LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY AND
14 OFFICER MORAN.
15 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
16 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
17 passage of 7-G.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
19 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
20 call.
21 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
22 MS. EVANS: Yes.
23 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
24 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
25 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
.
106
1 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
2 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
3 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
5 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
6 7-G legally and lawfully adopted.
7 MS. GARVEY: 7-H. FOR CONSIDERATION
8 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
9 RESOLUTION NO. 194, 2007 - AUTHORIZING THE
10 MAYOR AND OTHER APPROPRIATE CITY OFFICIALS
11 TO EXECUTE AND ENTER INTO A LEASE/POLICY
12 AGREEMENT WITH OFFICER SCOTT MORAN GOVERNING
13 THE USE OF OFFICER MORAN'S "PRIVATE CRUISER"
14 AS DEFINED HEREIN.
15 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
16 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
17 passage of 7-H.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
19 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
20 call.
21 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
22 MS. EVANS: Yes.
23 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
24 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
25 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
.
107
1 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
2 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
3 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
5 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
6 7-H legally and lawfully adopted.
7 MS. GARVEY: 7-I. FOR CONSIDERATION
8 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
9 RESOLUTION NO. 195, 2007 - APPOINTMENT OF
10 MARK SEITZINGER, 1112 COLUMBIA STREET,
11 SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18509, TO THE
12 POSITION OF DIRECTOR OF LICENSING,
13 INSPECTIONS & PERMITS, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 3,
14 2007. MR. SEITZINGER WILL BE REPLACING
15 STUART RENDA, WHO TOOK ANOTHER POSITION WITH
16 THE CITY.
17 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
18 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
19 passage of 7-I.
20 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
21 MS. GATELLI: On the question?
22 MS. EVANS: Kay, did we ever receive
23 a response to that letter requesting the
24 certifications of Mr. Seitzinger?
25 MS. GARVEY: No, we didn't.
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1 MS. GATELLI: We'll get it. I'll
2 call someone. Kay, if you remind me to call
3 tomorrow. Anyone else on the question?
4 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
5 call.
6 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
7 MS. EVANS: Yes.
8 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
9 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
11 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
13 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
15 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
16 7-I legally and lawfully adopted.
17 MS. GARVEY: 7-J. FOR CONSIDERATION
18 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
19 RESOLUTION NO. 196, 2007 - APPOINTMENT OF
20 JOHN GRANAHAN, 1504 PRICE STREET, SCRANTON,
21 PENNSYLVANIA, 18504, AS A MEMBER OF THE
22 SCRANTON LACKAWANNA HEALTH & WELFARE
23 AUTHORITY. MR. GRANAHAN WILL BE REPLACING
24 VICTOR J. GIAMBRONE, WHOSE TERM EXPIRES ON
25 DECEMBER 31, 2007. MR. GRANAHAN'S TERM WILL
.
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1 EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 2012.
2 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
3 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
4 passage of 7-J.
5 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
6 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
7 call.
8 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
9 MS. EVANS: Yes.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
11 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
13 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
15 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
16 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
17 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
18 7-J legally and lawfully adopted.
19 MS. GARVEY: 7-K. FOR CONSIDERATION
20 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
21 RESOLUTION NO. 197, 2007 - APPOINTMENT OF
22 FATHER PATRICK L. ALBERT, 516 ORCHARD
23 STREET, SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18505, AS A
24 MEMBER OF THE SCRANTON PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD.
25 FATHER ALBERT WILL BE REPLACING FATHER
.
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1 MICHAEL HARRIS, WHOSE TERM EXPIRES ON
2 DECEMBER 31, 2007. FATHER ALBERT'S TERM
3 WILL EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 2012.
4 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
5 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
6 passage of 7-K.
7 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
8 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
9 call.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
11 MS. EVANS: Yes.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
13 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
15 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
16 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
17 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
18 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
19 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
20 7-K legally and lawfully adopted.
21 MS. GARVEY: 7-L. FOR CONSIDERATION
22 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
23 RESOLUTION NO. 198, 2007 - REAPPOINTMENT OF
24 JAMES J. THOMAS, 34 FOREST GLEN DRIVE,
25 SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18504 AS A MEMBER OF
.
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1 THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION. MR. THOMAS'
2 CURRENT TERM EXPIRES ON DECEMBER 31, 2007
3 AND HIS NEW TERM WILL EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31,
4 2011.
5 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
6 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
7 passage of 7-L.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
10 call.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
12 MS. EVANS: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
14 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
21 7-L legally and lawfully adopted.
22 MS. GARVEY: 7-M. FOR CONSIDERATION
23 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
24 RESOLUTION NO. 199, 2007 - REAPPOINTMENT OF
25 JAMES SCANLON, 929 RICHMONT STREET,
.
112
1 SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18509, AS A MEMBER
2 OF THE ETHICS COMMISSION. MR. SCANLON'S
3 TERM EXPIRED ON JULY 12, 2007. M R.
4 SCANLON'S TERM WILL EXPIRE ON JULY 12, 2012.
5 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
6 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
7 passage of 7-M.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
10 call.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
12 MS. EVANS: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
14 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
21 7-M legally and lawfully adopted.
22 MS. GARVEY: 7-M. FOR CONSIDERATION
23 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
24 RESOLUTION NO. 200, 2007 - REAPPOINTMENT OF
25 JACK DELEO, 125 WHITETAL DRIVE, SCRANTON,
.
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1 PENNSYLVANIA, AS A MEMBER OF THE SCRANTON
2 RECREATION AUTHORITY. MR. DELEO'S CURRENT
3 TERM EXPIRES ON DECEMBER 31, 2007 AND HIS
4 NEW TERM WILL EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 2012.
5 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
6 Committee on Rules, I recommend final of
7 passage of Item 7-N.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
10 call.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
12 MS. EVANS: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
14 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
21 7-N legally and lawfully adopted.
22 MS. GARVEY: 7-O. FOR CONSIDERATION
23 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
24 RESOLUTION NO. 201, 2007 -- REAPPOINTMENT
25 OF JOSEPH GUIDO, 211 LARCH STREET, SCRANTON,
.
114
1 PENNSYLVANIA, AS A MEMBER OF THE SCRANTON
2 RECREATION AUTHORITY. MR. GUIDO'S CURRENT
3 TERM EXPIRES ON DECEMBER 31, 2007 AND HIS
4 NEW TERM WILL EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 2012.
5 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
6 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
7 passage of 7-O.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
10 call.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
12 MS. EVANS: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
14 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
21 7-O legally and lawfully adopted.
22 MS. GARVEY: 7-P. FOR CONSIDERATION
23 BY THE COMMITTEE ON RULES - FOR ADOPTION -
24 RESOLUTION NO. 202, 2007 - REAPPOINTMENT OF
25 MATTHEW FLYNN, 1801 NORTH WASHINGTON AVENUE,
.
115
1 SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 18509 TO THE BOARD
2 OF THE SCRANTON SEWER AUTHORITY. MR.
3 FLYNN'S CURRENTE TERM WILL EXPIRE ON
4 DECEMBER 31, 2007 AND HIS NEW TERM WILL
5 EXPIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 2012.
6 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
7 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
8 passage of 7-P.
9 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
10 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
11 call.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
13 MS. EVANS: Yes.
14 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
15 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
16 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
17 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
18 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
19 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
20 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
21 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
22 7-P legally and lawfully adopted.
23 MS. GARVEY: 7-Q, which was formerly
24 6-A, Attorney Minora, we have to ask if
25 there is anybody in the public wishing to
.
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1 comment once more?
2 MR. MINORA: Yes.
3 MS. GARVEY: On anything in Seventh
4 Order.
5 MR. MINORA: The remainder of Seventh
6 Order, two minutes on the agenda.
7 MS. FANUCCI: Okay.
8 MS. GATELLI: Fine. We have 6-A, B,
9 C and D.
10 MS. GARVEY: 7-Q, put that forward if
11 there is anybody wishing to comment?
12 MS. GATELLI: But it would have been
13 6-A; right?
14 MR. MINORA: 6-A through D.
15 MS. GATELLI: 6-A, anyone have any?
16 No? They could read 7-Q.
17 MS. GARVEY: 7-Q, which was formerly
18 6-A, FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON
19 FINANCE - FOR ADOPTION - FILE OF COUNCIL NO.
20 142, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE
21 ISSUANCE AND SALE OF FIVE MILLION
22 ($5,000,000.00) DOLLARS PRINCIPAL AMOUNT,
23 TAX AND REVENUE ANTICIPATION NOTE OF THE
24 CITY OF SCRANTON KNOWN AS TAN SERIES A,
25 AWARDED TO THE COMMUNITY BANK AND TRUST
.
117
1 COMPANY; DETERMINING THE FORM AND TERM OF
2 SAID NOTE; AWARDING SAID NOTE; AUTHORIZING
3 AND DIRECTING THE FILING OF CERTAIN
4 DOCUMENTS; AND DIRECTING THE PROPERTY
5 OFFICIALS OF THE CITY OF SCRANTON TO TAKE
6 ANY AND ALL OTHER ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED
7 IN CONNECTION WITH THE ISSUANCE OF SAID
8 NOTE.
9 MS. GATELLI: What is the
10 Recommendation of the Chair on Finance?
11 MS. EVANS: As Chair for the
12 Committee on Finance, I recommend final
13 passage of item 7-Q.
14 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
15 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
16 call.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
18 MS. EVANS: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
20 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
21 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
22 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
23 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
24 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
25 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
.
118
1 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
2 7-Q legally and unlawfully adopted.
3 MS. GARVEY: 7-R, which was formerly
4 6-B - FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON
5 FINANCE - FOR ADOPTION -FILE OF COUNCIL NO.
6 143, 2007 - AN ORDINANCE - AUTHORIZING THE
7 ISSUANCE AND SALE OF A NINE AND ONE HALF
8 MILLION ($9,500,000.00) DOLLARS PRINCIPAL
9 AMOUNT, TAX AND REVENUE ANTICIPATION NOTE OF
10 THE CITY OF SCRANTON KNOWN AS TAN SERIES B,
11 AWARDED TO COMMUNITY BANK AND TRUST COMPANY;
12 DETERMINING THE FORM AND TERM OF SAID NOTE;
13 AWARDING SAID NOTE; AUTHORIZING AND
14 DIRECTING THE FILING OF CERTAIN DOCUMENTS;
15 AND DIRECTING THE PROPER OFFICIALS OF THE
16 CITY OF SCRANTON TO TAKE ANY AND ALL OTHER
17 ACTIONS AS MAY BE REQUIRED IN CONNECTION
18 WITH THE ISSUANCE OF SAID NOTE.
19 MS. GATELLI: What is the
20 recommendation of the Chair on Finances?
21 MS. EVANS: As Chair for the
22 Committee on Finance, I do not recommend
23 final passage of Item 7-R.
24 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
25 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
.
119
1 call. Now, this is the same deal, the
2 mayor's --
3 MR. MINORA: Yes.
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
5 MS. EVANS: Yes.
6 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
7 MS. FANUCCI: No.
8 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
9 MR. MCGOFF: No.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
11 MR. COURTRIGHT: No.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
13 MS. GATELLI: No. I hereby declare
14 7-R legally and lawfully adopted.
15 MS. GARVEY: 7-S, which was formerly
16 6-C - FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON
17 RULES - FOR ADOPTION -FILE OF COUNCIL NO.
18 144, 2007 - APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING THE
19 TRANSFER OF THE REAL ESTATE AND IMPROVEMENTS
20 LOCATED AT 515-537 ORCHARD STREET IN THE
21 CITY OF SCRANTON OWNED BY THE SCRANTON
22 REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY TO THE CITY OF
23 SCRANTON.
24 MS. GATELLI: As Chair for the
25 Committee on Rules, I recommend final
.
120
1 passage of 7-S.
2 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
3 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
4 call.
5 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
6 MS. EVANS: Yes.
7 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
8 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
9 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
10 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
12 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
14 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
15 7-S legally and lawfully adopted.
16 MS. GARVEY: 7-T, which was formerly
17 6-D - FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COMMITTEE ON
18 FINANCE - FOR ADOPTION -FILE OF COUNCIL NO.
19 145, 2007 - RENAMING THE EMERGENCY AND
20 MUNICIPAL SERVICES TAX, AMONG OTHER CHANGES,
21 BY AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 78, 2007;
22 AMENDING FILE OF COUNCIL 10, 2006; AMENDING
23 FILE OF COUNCIL 95 OF 2005 WHICH IN TURN
24 AMENDED FILE OF COUNCIL NO. 9, 1976 TO
25 APPEAL AND REENACT, TO THE EXTENT
.
121
1 INCONSISTENT, A NEW ORDINANCE TO BE CALLED
2 THE LOCAL SERVICES TAX.
3 MS. GATELLI: What is the
4 recommendation of the Chair on Finance?
5 MS. EVANS: As Chair for the
6 Committee on Finance, I recommend final
7 passage of Item 7-T.
8 MR. COURTRIGHT: Second.
9 MS. GATELLI: On the question? Roll
10 call.
11 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
12 MS. EVANS: Yes.
13 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Fanucci.
14 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
15 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
17 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
18 MR. COURTRIGHT: Yes.
19 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
20 MS. GATELLI: Yes. I hereby declare
21 7-T legally and lawfully adopted.
22 MS. GARVEY: EIGHTH ORDER - CITIZENS
23 PARTICIPATION II.
24 MR. MILLER: Good evening, Council,
25 Doug Miller, President of Junior City
.
122
1 Council. On behalf of the Junior Council I
2 would like to thank everyone who purchased a
3 Christmas wreath. This was a fundraiser to
4 benefit future junior council projects and I
5 would like to thank Mrs. Gatelli, Mrs.
6 Fanucci, and Mr. McGoff for purchasing a
7 wreath, we appreciate your support.
8 On behalf of Junior Council I would
9 like to invite everyone attend our holiday
10 celebration this Sunday, December 16, at the
11 South Side Renaissance Center, 705 Pittston
12 Avenue. It will begin at 10 a.m. a and
13 conclude at 2:00 p.m. This party is free and
14 open to the public. This party will feature
15 food, games and prizes for all children in
16 attendance. The children can also look
17 forward to a special visit from Santa which
18 will also include a photo opportunity. This
19 party is in conjunction with our "Light Up
20 the Town" project. As well as the enjoying
21 the party, everyone in attendance everyone
22 can enjoy holiday lights and decorations
23 that will be on display. We believe that
24 this is a celebration not only for Christmas
25 but for the revitalization of south side and
.
123
1 on behalf of Junior Council I would like to
2 thank Royal Pizza on Pittston Avenue, they
3 have made generous donation toward our party
4 and I would like to say hello to them
5 tonight because they are all watching the
6 meeting at the restaurant, so we want to say
7 hello to them and we appreciate your
8 support, and with that said I would like to
9 wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy
10 New Year. Thank you.
11 MS. GATELLI: Reverend Simmons.
12 MS. SIMMONS: Reverend Kathryn
13 Simmons, Florence/Midtown Crime Watch. I
14 come here tonight carrying a heavy burden
15 upon my shoulders. When this council first
16 took it's seat sometime ago I came here and
17 I asked that the aura of hatred which
18 encompassed these walls be alleviated
19 finally, but that, of course, has not
20 happened. If anything it has grown and
21 festered to a degree now where Scranton is
22 becoming a clone of Columbia, Mississippi,
23 1939. This must end. Politics and taxes
24 are a subject to discuss, but the discussion
25 must be in a civil and socially acceptable
.
124
1 manner. The tendency for both sides to
2 assault each other and, President Gatelli,
3 let me tell you something, to my husband, to
4 my daughter, to my granddaughter, and to my
5 great-granddaughter, the spelling of the
6 word nigger doesn't make it any less
7 painful.
8 MS. GATELLI: Amen.
9 MS. SIMMONS: To acknowledge the
10 existence of such a site on a web describing
11 with these words is not a show of freedom of
12 speech, but the acknowledgment of a
13 population of sinistery which has not
14 learned the way to a future visionary. We
15 must learn to stop this hatred of what we do
16 not understand. The mayor, city council
17 members are seated because the majority of
18 Scranton's population voted and placed them.
19 It is, therefore, up to us to respect these
20 positions and when something is differing
21 between us come here and speak and then go
22 back to our neighborhood and try and fix
23 what's wrong. We have to learn to respect
24 and love each other. Yes, that is what I
25 said, respect and love each other.
.
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1 A long time ago a young man was
2 asked to describe the struggle of humanity
3 and he wrote, "I sowed my soul but my soul I
4 could not see. I sowed my God but he
5 alluded me. I sowed my brother and I found
6 all three."
7 If you look around this room each of
8 us will see our brother in place and,
9 Mrs. Fanucci, I'm sorry that you don't
10 respect me, but I respect you.
11 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Sbaraglia.
12 MR. SBARAGLIA: Andy Sbaraglia,
13 citizen of Scranton. Fellow Scrantonians, I
14 received a call from a woman who said her 61
15 was cut off because she is on basic. Now, I
16 know we are in negotiations with ComCast for
17 a new contract, I just hope nothing
18 political enters into this because it would
19 be a real cut, a real blow to the citizens
20 of Scranton especially once that are on
21 basic. Now, last year we passed that
22 ungodly tax which to me was ungodly and will
23 always be ungodly, that was on that
24 delinquent real estate, Mrs. Evans read a
25 letter and it's going to come out worse and
.
126
1 worse and worse, but you all knew this, to
2 say you sit there and look in disgust,
3 don't. You knew it, it was brought to you
4 101 times by a lot of different people. Now
5 we got through with that now we plan to tax
6 the churches under the guise of the
7 amusement tax. We are going to tax the
8 bingos, we are going to tax the block
9 parties, the garden parties, anything where
10 there is any amusements in the church,
11 that's another thing you plan to do, that's
12 why it's in the budget. If it come before
13 everybody out of the budget then you can
14 answer it, but it's in the budget.
15 We all know the budget is bloated,
16 Mrs. Evans' budget was a little too rosy,
17 right, them first four figures were a little
18 hard to digest, but a lot of the other
19 figures weren't. Mr. McGoff pointedly,
20 whether he wanted to say it or not, told you
21 that without that lucrative contract from
22 the city the parking authority would go
23 under. For years I have been telling you
24 that, but you wouldn't listen. You went out
25 there and gave them another parking garage.
.
127
1 It's going to come to pass that it's going
2 to collapse and the poor people in the city
3 are going to have to come up with the money
4 to do all of the bond issues because I doubt
5 if you will ever go bankrupt, you won't
6 declare bankruptcy, but you may have to.
7 These are things you could have tried to
8 avoid. They didn't need all them parking
9 garages. Boscov's down there has a lot of
10 space available that could have been used
11 but the people would have had to walk and we
12 wouldn't want them to be inconvenienced and
13 the people that are going to have these law
14 departments. Gentlemen, it's too bad there
15 is no law in the Commonwealth that would
16 hold you responsible for your actions
17 because, believe me, you should be held
18 accountable other than elections because
19 elections don't really tell what's going to
20 happen, it's the actually voting that's done
21 on council. This is -- Mrs. Fanucci often
22 brings up that we passed this recovery plan,
23 okay? I tell you what, I told you that last
24 time, no tax increase. Believe me, if that
25 plan came before the people of Scranton
.
128
1 today it would be rejected. There is no
2 question in my mind. Thank you.
3 MR. GATELLI: Thank you. Mr. Quinn.
4 MR. QUINN: Ozzie Quinn. Two months
5 ago I wrote Mr. Rossi regarding the
6 independent audit and with him coming in
7 tomorrow for the exit, I wrote him and I
8 asked that because of the mismanagement of
9 moneys by the administration that there be a
10 surcharge. I hope that Mr. Rossi listens to
11 his Code of Ethics under the CPA and
12 surcharges everybody mismanages money, it
13 could be an employee, city council or the
14 mayor. I also want to point out today in
15 the Scranton Times in the classified there
16 was a condemnation for 1430 Sanderson
17 Avenue. I went out and checked that
18 property and it appears to be people living
19 in that, okay. Under the Urban
20 Redevelopment Law which applies to the
21 vacant property review committee which I
22 participated in 1989 forum, okay, it says
23 that to buy the property -- and appropriate
24 planning commission upon making a
25 determination that any properties blighted
.
129
1 within the terms of the section must certify
2 said private property to the redevelopment
3 authority except that no property shall be
4 certified to the redevelopment authority
5 unless it is vacant. That's what applies,
6 vacant property. Now, if there is people
7 living in there, I would believe that, one,
8 that you cannot condemn that property. Two,
9 if you do, they are eligible for relocation
10 expenses under the tenant which would mean
11 you would have to pay them $7,500, okay, for
12 -- and moving expenses and that would be
13 because you are doing with OECD through the
14 SRA, okay? And that would also apply to the
15 fact that with a condemnation or taking of
16 any delinquent property what you did when
17 you decide to have the SRA handle the vacant
18 property review committee any tax delinquent
19 land, the redevelopment law states that any
20 unoccupied property which has been tax
21 delinquent for the period of two years prior
22 to defective date of this act and those in
23 the future have a two-year delinquency you
24 can take, okay, but that has to be
25 unoccupied, okay? So, I would be very
.
130
1 careful and I would check them to make sure.
2 I wrote a letter to Mr. Shane three weeks
3 ago roughly and he hasn't wanted to know
4 those answers, who was condemned and these
5 properties and he hasn't replied and I think
6 you should look into this matter because if
7 there are people put out on the streets that
8 occupy this home they shouldn't be allowed
9 to under that redevelopment law. Thank you.
10 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
11 Mr. Spindler.
12 MR. SPINDLER: Les Spindler, city
13 resident. A few weeks ago I was here I had
14 a question about the parking meters that are
15 no longer in front of the Court House, who
16 was going to pay for those meters that are
17 no longer there, anyone look into that?
18 MS. GATELLI: I did call -- I did
19 call Mr. Wintermantle and we missed each
20 other, but I will call him again.
21 MR. SPINDLER: Okay, thank you.
22 MS. GATELLI: We were playing phone
23 tag and I didn't get the answer, I'm sorry.
24 MR. SPINDLER: Okay. I just have one
25 thing to say, Mrs. Gatelli, if you don't
.
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1 like what you read on the website, just
2 don't go on the website.
3 MS. GATELLI: I don't.
4 MR. SPINDLER: Mrs. Fanucci, after
5 all of the hard work and effort that
6 Mrs. Evans put into her budget you had the
7 nerve to call it bogus, what do we expect
8 from somebody that thinks the garages are
9 under the SPCA? Also, Mrs. Fanucci, you
10 said you won't think like any of us out
11 here, well, the fact is you can't think like
12 any of us out here.
13 Mr. McGoff, you said you wouldn't
14 eliminate the public safety director
15 position, are you aware that in 1992 under
16 the Connors' administration PEL ordered the
17 elimination of the public safety director
18 because they said it was no longer needed
19 and they waited until Jim Klee retired to do
20 away with it, but for most of the Connors'
21 administration there was no public safety
22 director and the public safety in the city
23 was just fine. Again, you are uninformed.
24 Lastly, Mrs. Gatelli, you said about
25 canceling the meeting, I have been coming to
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1 these meetings for almost seven years now
2 and until you got here whenever there was a
3 meeting cancelled they were looked to
4 rescheduling it. You are the only one that
5 cancels meetings and doesn't reschedule
6 them. I think if you want to be president
7 of council you should do your job and not
8 cancel meetings, if you have to cancel them
9 reschedule them. There should be a meeting
10 next week. There is no reason not to have
11 one and that's all I have to say. Thank
12 you.
13 MS. GATELLI: Merry Christmas.
14 Mrs. Franus.
15 MR. SPINDLER: I don't celebrate
16 Christmas.
17 MS. GATELLI: Happy holidays, sorry.
18 MS. FRANUS: Fay Franus.
19 Mrs. Gatelli, I would like to ask you
20 another question and Mrs. Fanucci, why do
21 you feel there should be no meeting next
22 week, aside from the fact you said it always
23 happened that means nothing. Why do you
24 feel? I mean, what do you have to do that's
25 so important that you can't be here next
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1 week? You get paid $300 roughly a night for
2 council meetings, but I bet you are going to
3 take your pay. I bet you will take your
4 paycheck and cash it and spend however you
5 like, but you are not going to be here. If
6 I have to sit here again next time I come
7 here and read the list of times you have
8 cancelled and adjourned meetings I will do
9 it every week if I have to.
10 Mrs. Gatelli said this in January 2,
11 2006, "As president of this council I will
12 seek consensus on issues from my colleagues
13 and everyone's opinion will count."
14 Liar, liar, pants right on fire.
15 "A good leader empowers the people."
16 You are hardly a good leader. You
17 make -- "makes them part of the decision and
18 part of the solution." You never make the
19 citizens a part of the solution. "Then and
20 only then will we make our city a better
21 place to live, work and play, that should
22 always be our goal, together we can take it
23 ham."
24 You don't know the definition of
25 together and if the people want to know
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1 fair, the only place you are going to find
2 it, like I said, is in the dictionary, they
3 are not going to find it with you. I'd like
4 to though what your rush. The last time
5 Nelson was here you said, "I hope he is
6 next," because you want to get home. Do you
7 have a pizza waiting? I don't understand
8 what your rush is. Why do you want to get
9 out of here? You're getting -- you are
10 supposed to be here as long as you are
11 supposed to be, if it's till midnight, but
12 you want to rush everybody out of here. And
13 Mrs. Evans said it correctly when that
14 gentleman spoke to her at west side, you are
15 cowards. You are a definitely cowards, you
16 take the easy way out, but you line your
17 pockets in the process. How you sleep at
18 night is it.
19 MS. GATELLI: You are out of order.
20 MS. FANUCCI: Am I?
21 MS. GATELLI: You are out of order.
22 MS. FANUCCI: Well, you finally found
23 a voice.
24 MS. GATELLI: You are out of order.
25 MS. FRANUS: Oh, okay, I'm out of
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1 order.
2 MS. GATELLI: Sit down. You are out
3 of order.
4 MS. FRANUS: I'm not sitting down, my
5 time is up. Oh, that's another thing that
6 reminds me --
7 MS. GATELLI: Officer, would you ask
8 her to step away from the podium.
9 MS. FRANUS: -- September 14 of last
10 year, my anniversary, you had the police
11 take me out of here.
12 MS. GATELLI: Would you please take
13 her?
14 MS. FRANUS: So it's my anniversary,
15 I'm going to get taken out of here again.
16 MS. GATELLI: You are out of order.
17 MS. FRANUS: I'm out of order. What
18 are you going to do, Officer?
19 MS. GATELLI: You go to the attorney
20 general and report that I'm lining my
21 pockets, you report that, and thank you,
22 Mrs. Pilchesky, for taking our picture, put
23 it on the website tomorrow with the rest of
24 your nasty comments.
25 MR. SPINDLER: How do you know
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1 they're nasty, you must look at them?
2 MS. GATELLI: I get them from people
3 like you.
4 MR. SPINDLER: I don't go on there.
5 Mr. Bolus. You are all really nice people,
6 really. You didn't pay one bit of attention
7 to Reverend Simmons. Mr. Davis.
8 MR. DAVIS: Salaam aleikum. Mr.
9 Bolus had to leave I think.
10 MS. GATELLI: Did her leave?
11 MR. MORGAN: Yes.
12 MR. DAVIS: But he is saying that the
13 Christmas fiesta --
14 MS. GATELLI: The Christmas dinner?
15 MR. DAVIS: The Christmas dinner is
16 scheduled as was planned and he invited
17 everybody to come and salaam aleikum, this
18 has been -- it's been awhile since I have
19 been here and I don't miss this. Seriously,
20 because your efforts they don't mean
21 towards -- they don't seem to meld towards
22 peaceful coexistence, not for us, whether it
23 be your friends or not your friends, but we
24 can't sit here and listen to you tear at
25 each other and expect our children to have a
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1 better life, you know, from here on in
2 because you are not working towards their
3 wholesomeness, our wholesomeness. The city
4 is slowly but surely being torn apart over
5 foolish silliness very, very foolish, and
6 you are all saying, "I'm right, I'm right,"
7 and, you know, it's -- that whole thing of
8 mediating between the two of you, between
9 all five of you, if it takes five of you to
10 get together and sit down and mediate,
11 mediate it together before you get here, but
12 stop coming here with that argument in mind.
13 If you come here to argue, if you come here
14 to make sure that your point of view is
15 accepted and listened to then you are coming
16 for the wrong reason. You are not deciding
17 the city's future, not with argument. Okay,
18 thank you very much.
19 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mr. Dobson.
20 Actually Mr. Davis went out of order.
21 MR. DOBSON: Mr. Davis went out of
22 order, but that's okay.
23 MR. DAVIS: Yeah, I just --
24 MS. GATELLI: He probably has to go
25 home.
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1 MR. DAVIS: I do.
2 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Dobson.
3 MR. DOBSON: Good evening, Council.
4 Dave Dobson, resident of Scranton. I hope
5 this doesn't sound like an add for a bank
6 note salesman, but here it goes, tax time is
7 here, if you are 62, own a property,
8 especially if you are tax delinquent, I
9 strongly recommend you seek a reverse
10 mortgage. Don't delay when collectors are
11 at your door it may be too late. HUD
12 nonprofit counseling is required and all
13 attempts will be made to prevent predatory
14 lending. As disappointing as it is,
15 alternatives such as sherif's sale are far
16 worse. Let equity in your home ease your
17 need for money and help you to pay your
18 debts. Why struggle or lose the property.
19 And I might add, any property owner would be
20 allowed even with equity exhausted, no
21 relocations required, so if you are having
22 any kind of a trouble catching up on your
23 taxes or owe back taxes before you fall into
24 the hands of NCC or any such institutions
25 like them please consider the alternative.
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1 We did sponsor with the Taxpayers'
2 organization a conference on this, and for
3 some people it might be a pretty viable
4 situation especially if you are up against
5 it. So, thank you, and have a good night.
6 MS. GATELLI: Thank you. Mrs.
7 Schumacher.
8 MS. SCHUMACHER: Marie Schumacher,
9 resident and member of the Taxpayers'
10 Association. First of all, last week I ran
11 out of time, Mrs. Gatelli, to share what my
12 mother told me about name calling. Of
13 course, when I was young it was sticks and
14 stones my break your bones, but names will
15 never hurt you. When I got older she said,
16 "Thank God that you are strong enough to
17 rise above that because look at it this way,
18 when they are picking on you they are
19 leaving some other poor soul alone who may
20 not be as strong."
21 Sometime, sometime I would like for
22 you to explain how you hold a person to
23 their word when they go back on their word.
24 Last year you said you wouldn't vote for any
25 borrowing, tonight I reminded you of that
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1 and you voted for $11 million worth of
2 borrowing, six million of that which is new,
3 so sometime you will have to explain to me
4 how you hold a person to their word.
5 About a month ago you asked that I
6 send, e-mail Kay some questions so that you
7 could obtain responses for me, any
8 responses?
9 MS. GARVEY: I don't think we have
10 anything from that e-mail.
11 MS. SCHUMACHER: Third, I was
12 distressed in the answers that Mr. Renda did
13 provide through Mrs. Garvey late last week
14 that the reason that the EMS tax, now the
15 local services tax revenue, has dropped so
16 much from last year to this and the year
17 before to the current year is because the
18 state has enacted legislation such that, of
19 course, the tax we all know is going to be
20 collected $1 a week and persons earning
21 $12,000 and I think that was true before,
22 but apparently there are like 4,000 people
23 out there who are employees and residents of
24 Scranton and have not or are unaware that
25 they can file to get that $52 back and that
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1 accounts for the severe drop in revenue
2 projected for 2008 is because these people
3 now will not have to file because the money
4 will not be taken out.
5 Mr. Courtright, are you sure about
6 those cameras? I read an article this past
7 week about surveillance cameras and it was
8 distinctly stated that those cameras that
9 are now installed are functional. Somebody
10 is not --
11 MR. COURTRIGHT: They are
12 functioning in that you could view them, but
13 they are not recording. The three that were
14 up. There is more up as we speak today, I
15 don't know the exact number, but they are
16 digital, they are not on the tape, so they
17 are not -- they weren't recording, but
18 everything should be operational very soon.
19 MS. SCHUMACHER: Okay. And next,
20 Mrs. Fanucci has left, but I still feel
21 compelled because tonight she told us all
22 us, those on the other side of the aisle,
23 she disparaged each and every one of us and
24 I find that disappointing and a very sad way
25 to end this year. As I told her last week,
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1 I came to Mrs. Gatelli's first budget
2 meeting this summer prepared to be
3 constructive. It was not I who cancelled
4 additional meetings or excluded people who
5 are not on the committee, it was Mrs.
6 Gatelli, so --
7 MS. GATELLI: Excuse me, but we
8 didn't have anymore meetings. There were
9 none.
10 MS. SCHUMACHER: But again, then
11 what's the opportunity for --
12 MS. GATELLI: Well, they weren't
13 interested in coming anymore.
14 MS. SCHUMACHER: I was. I guess --
15 you will have to share that critical number
16 with me of how many people are required to
17 have the concern and willing to come forward
18 and be constructive next year.
19 MS. GATELLI: Mr. Hubbard.
20 MR. COURTRIGHT: Mr. Hubbard?
21 MS. SCHUMACHER: He had to leave.
22 MS. GATELLI: Lee Morgan.
23 MR. MORGAN: Good evening again. Bob
24 Bolus was here previously and he had some
25 other engagements that he had to take care
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1 of and he just would like to leave this
2 phone number, 346-7659, that's for the
3 Christmas dinner this year at St. Lucy's on
4 Christmas Day. He would like everyone to
5 come. It has nothing to do with income. If
6 you are at home by yourself, whatever the
7 reason and you want to get out he'd really
8 appreciate everybody who could come, enjoy a
9 good meal, make some new friends, and it's
10 really important and we hope that everybody
11 comes and, you know, I just hope you got
12 that number 346-7659, you can call Bob
13 Bolus, St. Lucy's church Christmas Day and
14 come on out, make some friends and have some
15 good food and --
16 MR. MCGOFF: Mr. Morgan, did he
17 mention a time?
18 MR. MORGAN: I'm not -- he didn't
19 mention a time, but --
20 MR. BALES: It's 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. --
21 no 7 p.m..
22 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you.
23 MR. MORGAN: So, please come. The
24 other thing I would like to add here is, you
25 know, some of us have been coming to these
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144
1 council meetings for an extremely long time
2 and, you know, when you see them and you
3 talk to people in the neighborhoods and the
4 conversations spin, you know, it's my
5 understanding that even some people sit in
6 their local tavern and watch this because
7 they find it to be very comical when they
8 are drinking and, you know, I think you can
9 see sometimes why because council votes
10 without any information and there is really
11 not very much constructive done here to
12 solve the problems of the city. People talk
13 about businesses. Well, if you open the
14 phone book and you read about businesses
15 with the names Scranton on them, most of
16 them are outside of the city, they have
17 left. Residents, well, you know, they are
18 struggling with low wage jobs to pay their
19 taxes and we are borrowing and we are
20 borrowing and we are borrowing. As a matter
21 of fact, I mean, we sold the golf course and
22 all of that money it seems is going to be
23 wasted and be gone, there is really, you
24 know, at one time the City of Scranton was
25 called a progressive city, but I think now
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1 it's a regressive city and I think until we
2 get a handle on the taxes and we get people
3 elected to office, and this isn't a dig just
4 at this council, but until we get elected
5 people to realize how importantly electorate
6 is, you know, Thomas Jefferson said one time
7 that he was sorry he only lived one -- -only
8 had a chance to take one part in one
9 revolution because he said that some day
10 this government would become so repressive
11 that we would have to throw it off. And it
12 just seems to me and to most people probably
13 in this country that are tired of being
14 overtaxed and have legislators who don't
15 care about reality and they just spin
16 politics and politics touches everything
17 that touches us. And I just find it really
18 troubling that anybody on council would have
19 such disrespect for the voters and residents
20 that they tax them out of their property.
21 Thank you.
22 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else?
23 MR. SLEDENZSKI: I'm coming, Bill.
24 Hi, Jude.
25 MS. GATELLI: Well, Chrissy, we have
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1 to root for Dunmore now.
2 MR. SLEDENZSKI: I am. I am
3 tonight.
4 MS. GATELLI: Let's hope Dunmore wins
5 it.
6 MR. SLEDENZSKI: Yep, I hope so,
7 too. Merry Christmas to all you guys up
8 there. Even you, Janet, Merry Christmas.
9 MS. GATELLI: Happy Holidays. We
10 can't say Merry Christmas I guess.
11 MR. SLEDENZSKI: Yes, you could,
12 Judy.
13 MS. GATELLI: So, we will say Happy
14 Holidays.
15 MR. ANCHERANI: You can say Merry
16 Christmas. Nelson Ancherani, resident and
17 taxpayer, city employee, financial secretary
18 of the FOP, First Amendment Rights. I am
19 going to repeat what I said last week, I do
20 not condone name calling. Okay. I
21 predicted the budget would pass three to
22 two, it did, and that it would be a record
23 budget, it is. Over the past six years the
24 unions have been in disagreement with the
25 city either in contract hearings or
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1 grievances and arbitrations. The unions
2 have endured getting blamed for the dire
3 financial straights that Bernard Cross of
4 PEL referred that the city faces. Passing
5 this budget brings us closer to that day.
6 The mayor referred in the paper
7 yesterday morning that he didn't force
8 anyone to retire. Wrong. It was either
9 retire or lose your health care if you don't
10 retire by December 31, 2002. That was being
11 forced out. I know people that didn't want
12 to go. They were forced out.
13 85 percent of the costs in the
14 budget are salary and benefits. If you look
15 at the pie chart, the expenditure it says
16 56 percent goes to wages and benefits,
17 that's $47,352,970. Doing the math,
18 approximately 47.5 percent of the budget
19 goes to the salaries or $40,226,377. This
20 also includes the costs for the retirees who
21 aren't employed and the retirees should not
22 be included, that's not 85 percent. There
23 is a 29 percent difference.
24 Also, if you look at the budget the
25 mayor said he gave 5 percent raises. Look
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1 at his salary, it went from 45 to 50,
2 5 percent of a $5,000 raise or $45,000 is
3 $2,500, he got a $5,000 raise, he actually
4 got an 11 percent raise.
5 The information tech, $47,500 he got
6 a $7,500 raise, but 10 percent of $47,500 is
7 4,750, 4,750, so he got a 16 percent raise.
8 Mr. McGoff, you believe in the
9 elimination of jobs through attrition and
10 retirement, well, the mayor is going to get
11 rid of 38 firemen, it's not going to be
12 attrition or retirement. Thanks.
13 MS. GATELLI: Thank you.
14 MS. EVANS: Mr. Ancherani, I just
15 wanted to make one correction, the mayor
16 couldn't have received a pay increase in
17 2007 of 45,000 now in a pay increase because
18 I believe it's according to the charter, his
19 salary can't be changed, just as council's
20 salary can't be changed so that was an error
21 I believe in the budget.
22 MR. ANCHERANI: Not until the next
23 mayor.
24 MS. GATELLI: Owel, we would have to
25 pass something, wouldn't we?
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1 MS. FANUCCI: Yeah.
2 MR. ANCHERANI: Not until the next
3 mayor comes.
4 MS. GATELLI: Yes, I think you have
5 to pass a motion and then it doesn't take
6 effect until the next year. We'll have to
7 look into that. But he did -- he took the
8 10 percent last year, I think the $5,000
9 that's where that 45 came from, but the
10 salary is 50, it has been for probably
11 20 years. Go ahead, Mrs. Krake, I'm sorry.
12 MS. KRAKE: That's okay. Nancy
13 Krake. I would just like to say that I'm
14 glad that the three council people didn't
15 let the facts get in the way in voting for
16 the budget. I'm disappointed, but I'm not
17 surprised. In fact, you can hear the
18 mayor's words coming from Mrs. Fanucci's
19 mouth the entire meeting. A few things that
20 she mentioned, I really couldn't listen to
21 too much of it, it was actually frightening.
22 As far as downsizing the top heavy
23 administration, every time we have a new
24 administration, that means new and different
25 people, the people in the unions that stay
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150
1 train those people when they come in,
2 familiarize them with their jobs. And as
3 far as why people move into Scranton, I
4 guess Mr. Doherty didn't fill you in on this
5 part, that would be his favorite word, KOZ
6 which is eliminating taxes, not parks.
7 As far as the letter Mrs. Evans
8 read, I'm sad to say that I do have the job
9 of tax clerk and pretty much you can cry
10 everyday with what's going on, that's from
11 the human point of view. The money point of
12 view is 15 1/2 percent of those dollars are
13 coming into the city, the rest is going to
14 NCC. Why anyone would vote for that unless
15 they have an interest in NCC is beyond me.
16 15 1/ 2 percent and I believe Mrs. Evans'
17 amount was around $180 is $27. You really
18 work you should really work on changing that
19 next year if you do nothing else.
20 The rental registration and many of
21 the things that were brought up could
22 benefit from some recommendations from the
23 employees. We have many good ideas, wage
24 tax collection being one of them, however,
25 I'm going to try and read as many as I have
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1 time. This is recommendations from the
2 people in the Single Tax Office that we have
3 presented several times at council.
4 One, do not issue a license or
5 permit without verifying employer has
6 registered and paid all required taxes.
7 Seems like common sense, but apparently it's
8 not followed through.
9 Do not grant any contracts for any
10 big jobs or purchase any merchandise from
11 any company without verifying same.
12 University students should be made to
13 file local tax return with Scranton as they
14 live here August through May.
15 Update computer system to make it
16 possible to track non filers claim of
17 delinquents. Look into cross reference with
18 Scranton Sewer Authority, they bill
19 residents the most often.
20 Keep the rental registration.
21 That's just a couple of those.
22 MR. GERVASI: Hello, again, City
23 Council, Dave Gervasi, fire fighter in the
24 City of Scranton. Mrs. Fanucci, I don't
25 know what to say, other than your loyalty to
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1 the mayor is astounding and your budget
2 explanations were fascinating to say the
3 least. Mr. McGoff is probably happy he is
4 not handed with that skirt, but in case
5 there is a few people out there that might
6 actually believe the rhetoric you were
7 displaying tonight just a few facts. The
8 mayor and the administration say that jobs
9 are up when his own documents say the wage
10 tax is going down next year. He keeps
11 saying that the people are going to be
12 moving in the city when, in fact, the census
13 updates say the population is still
14 declining and has continued to decline since
15 he took off and before he was in office in
16 all fairness. The mayor says is he is a
17 fiscal conservative, but the facts and the
18 documents show that the budgets are up
19 $26 million since he took office. The mayor
20 says he needs to make cuts, but he created
21 over $3.4 million in new job creations. The
22 mayor says he needs to reduce the wage tax,
23 that was one of his campaign promises. I
24 think this is the first time I have heard
25 anybody other than in Mrs. Evans' budget
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1 saying they are actually going to reduce the
2 wage tax but, of course, this council didn't
3 vote for that.
4 The mayor council keeps saying that
5 contracts need to be settled before the city
6 could recover, but our debt payments have
7 quadrupled in six years and we didn't
8 receive any of it. The mayor says that
9 fires are down when the documented proof
10 shows that fires are up. It's really loyal
11 of you to read the mayor's rhetoric week
12 after week but there is one little problem
13 that the mayor has right now and I don't
14 think he is fooling anybody at this point
15 because now there six full years of
16 documented evidence to the contrary and we
17 have it all and we have proved it in Court.
18 So, Mrs. Fanucci, your rhetoric doesn't hold
19 water and, obviously, somebody is lying.
20 Have a good night.
21 MS. GATELLI: Anyone else? Thank
22 you. I forgot to say thank you, I'm sorry,
23 Dave. Would you like to come up, sir?
24 MR. REDFIELD: Good evening, ladies
25 and gentlemen, council members, my name is
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1 Tim Redfield, I've been living in Scranton
2 for 15 years, I was in Philadelphia less
3 than a year, that's why you haven't seen me
4 in a year. There is about five things I
5 want to get to, I'll only take about
6 45 seconds tops to talk about all of them.
7 One, since I have been in Philadelphia for
8 less a couple of years but I know everything
9 about Scranton I see you on TV, they have
10 the cameras that go up and down for like
11 they have in Philly and they have the
12 automatic numbers, like you have bulletin
13 board here on a the main drags I guess you
14 call it, like expressways and stuff, like we
15 have, let's see, Roosevelt Boulevard, it's a
16 main drag like Mulberry Street, okay? They
17 have the sign that will go for the speed
18 limit and stuff, then they have this camera
19 that goes right in front say from the camera
20 to like city hall like in the -- I'm sorry
21 about that though, and I don't know if I can
22 speak louder,, I'm not a loud person, but,
23 you know, I don't, but, two, we had a thing
24 up here called Hope situation which is if
25 you are like a, I'm sorry? Oh, I'm sorry, I
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1 thought someone said something, I'm sorry
2 about that, I'm sorry, Hope is like a THEFA
3 form. A THEFA form is like a page, say,
4 like Miss Judy is my landlord, even out of
5 respect you, I don't know you, Ms. Judy is
6 my landlord, a THEFA form would pay for the
7 first month's rent, the second last month's
8 rent and the security deposit and then
9 similar like that up here the Hope thing, do
10 they do that up here? And I don't
11 understand has it stopped for some reason
12 because of the financial problems, but right
13 now there is lot of people in a bad finance
14 situation and I was wondering could I apply
15 for the Hope situation like we had in Philly
16 which is like a THEFA and it fell through
17 and me and my nephew and a few other people
18 are really hurt because now we are living in
19 a shelter because our finances and this
20 THEFA like we had in Philly has dropped us--
21 MS. GATELLI: If you want us to help
22 you just let us know.
23 MR. REDFIELD: We do, but like I
24 said in Philadelphia they had this THEFA
25 form, Miss Judy, and all you do is give them
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1 the THEFA form and you fill out how much the
2 rent is a month for like the first month and
3 the last month and the security deposit and
4 what they do is they give you have the form
5 and you just sign it and fill it out and
6 then I take it back to the office where I
7 got the -- like we had in Philadelphia and
8 they would give you the check within a week
9 of the full amount of what we owe you for
10 those three months.
11 MS. GATELLI: Give Neil after the
12 meeting your name and your phone number.
13 MR. REDFIELD: It's a Philadelphia
14 area code, ma'am.
15 MS. GATELLI: No --
16 MR. REDFIELD: I know, but I didn't
17 get the phone number, my cell phone number
18 from Philadelphia to Scranton
19 MS. GATELLI: All right.
20 MR. COURTRIGHT: How do we get in
21 touch with you?
22 MR. REDFIELD: I'm sorry, sir?
23 MR. COURTRIGHT: How do we get in
24 touch with you?
25 MR. REDFIELD: I have a cell phone,
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1 but it's a Philadelphia area code.
2 MS. GATELLI: That's okay. That's
3 okay. Give it to Neil after the meeting.
4 MS. REDFIELD: Thanks, Miss Judy, and
5 have a happy holiday.
6 MS. GATELLI: Thank you, you, too.
7 Is there any other speakers?
8 MS. EVANS: Let's just say happy
9 Hanukah and Merry Christmas and Kwanza to
10 everybody.
11 MS. GATELLI: And we hope everyone
12 has a very safe and peaceful holiday.
13 MS. FANUCCI: Yes.
14 MS. GATELLI: We'll see you on
15 January 7. Thank you.
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3 C E R T I F I C A T E
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5 I hereby certify that the proceedings and
6 evidence are contained fully and accurately in the
7 notes of testimony taken by me at the hearing of the
8 above-captioned matter and that the foregoing is a true
9 and correct transcript of the same to the best of my
10 ability.
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CATHENE S. NARDOZZI
16 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
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