Skrep’s ethics in forefront

Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak has been spending a week each summer at Chuck Volpe’s beach house for free – raising questions about whether that lodging should be reported on Skrepenak’s ethics statement of financial interest.

Volpe and Skrepenak say the beach house stay is the result of a close friendship they’ve had since Skrepenak played for the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders in the early 1990s. However, the issue is clouded because Volpe does business with the county.

The state Ethics Commission won’t comment on specific cases, but the agency pointed to two sections of the ethics law that could apply.

The first says the source and circumstances of each gift over $250 must be reported on the statement, though gifts from family members or friends are exempt when it is “clear that the motivation for the action was a personal or family relationship.” A registered lobbyist or employee of a registered lobbyist cannot claim a friendship exception.

The second section says the source of transportation, lodging or hospitality exceeding $650 must be reported if it is received “in connection with public office or employment.”

Skrepenak said he will research the law but does not believe he had to claim the lodging. He said there is no special treatment because the county publicly advertises the work handled by Volpe and then chooses the best price.

“It’s just a friend staying at a friend’s house. Only me and my family go on that trip. I never considered it a violation because all the work Chuck does for the county is bid competitively,” Skrepenak said.

Volpe said there should be no implication that the beach stay is offered in exchange for county work because he handled county insurance and workers’ compensation for years before Skrepenak became a commissioner.

He was not sure if Skrepenak stayed at the beach house before he became a commissioner in 2004 because Volpe bought the five-bedroom house near Ocean City, Md., about four or five years ago.

“We did business with the county way before Greg became commissioner. There should be no suggestion that he stayed at my place because I do business with the county,” Volpe said.

Volpe said he invites about 15 other friends to stay at the beach townhouse and doesn’t accept a penny from any of them because the townhouse has restrictions that ban it from being rented out.

He said he and Skrepenak have been “very, very close personal friends” since the early 1990s and that Skrepenak has been kind to his children.

Volpe is attorney for the Housing & Redevelopment Insurance Exchange, which supplies the county with $856,000 in insurance through Joseph J. Joyce Associates Inc.

Volpe and his Dunmore company, Excalibur Insurance Management Services, also are paid $98,000 per year serve as consultants for the county’s workers’ compensation program. Both workers’ compensation contracts expire in January. County minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said he believes Skrepenak should have reported the beach stay “to be on the safe side.”

“Friends are one thing, but the fact is, Mr. Volpe still has a contract with the county. It’s the appearance of it,” Urban said.

Skrepenak was recently named in a newspaper article for soliciting tickets to sporting events from at least one vendor that does business with the county.

Larry Bickford, of L. Robert Kimball and Associates, said recently that his company, which is working on a proposed new county prison design, has purchased tickets for Skrepenak and/or former chief clerk/manager Sam Guesto several times over the last few years.

Bickford said his company offered the tickets half of the time, and Guesto or Skrepenak requested them the other half of the time.

Bickford said he didn’t have a list of all the tickets supplied but specifically remembers providing tickets to at least two Pittsburgh Steelers games – two tickets for one game and four for the other.

Skrepenak, who could not be reached at the time of the article, said last week that he doesn’t remember requesting tickets.

If he did, he believes it would have been a situation where a company had offered to purchase tickets to see a particular team, pending his notification of particular dates that would be of interest.

“It’s not like we’re aggressively picking a sporting event and calling vendors to get us tickets,” he said.

Skrepenak said tickets have never appeared on his ethics report because he did not receive more than $650 in tickets per year from a single source.

He also wants the public to know he has purchased season tickets to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I go to a lot of events, and most of them I pay for myself,” Skrepenak said.