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HUBER BREAKER

Commissioners expected to end eminent domain action today against property owner

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter
Jennifer Learn-Andes on Facebook   |   @TLJenLearnAndes on Twitter

Luzerne County minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said he’s willing to vote to obtain an appraisal of the Huber Breaker in Ashley if the property owner is open to negotiation.

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The Luzerne County Commissioners want to turn the Huber Breaker in Ashley into a coal mining museum.

PETE G. WILCOX/the times leader

On the web

• Huber Breaker letter from Bob Hughes (DOC)
• Huber Breaker letter from George Spohrer (PDF)

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However, Urban said those negotiations would have to be done outside a courtroom because he’s still voting at today’s 10 a.m. commissioner meeting to end the county’s eminent domain action against property owner No. 1 Contracting.

Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla also supports termination of the action.

Urban said the county’s failure to obtain an appraisal could result in a judge ordering the county to pay the $7 million being sought by No. 1 Contracting, largely due to alleged coal deposits. Urban said he’s been informed that No. 1 has its own appraisal, and he isn’t willing to take that risk.

A required extensive review of maps and core boring would take several months, Urban said.

Commissioners legally have two years from the filing of an eminent domain proceeding to decide on whether to take a property, and the action was filed Jan. 17, 2007. They intended to turn the site into a mining museum estimated to cost $9 million, not including the purchase price.

“We have to start with an appraisal to negotiate. If another commissioner is willing to do that, then I am,” Urban said.

Commissioner Greg Skrepenak said he won’t vote to stop the eminent domain because the owner would then be free to sell the property or scrap it. Skrepenak said he doesn’t understand why the county reassessment firm’s $739,300 figure can’t be used as proof of value in court.

If he is outvoted on the eminent domain, Skrepenak said, he would consider an appraisal and continued negotiation.

Tim Barr, of reassessment firm 21st Century Appraisals Inc., said the county decided coal and other minerals won’t be assessed unless a permit was obtained to extract them. .

Residents seem divided on the issue.

Commissioners received two letters this week, one supporting the project and the other opposing it.

Robert E. Hughes, a board member of the Huber Breaker Preservation Society, urged commissioners to perform an appraisal and proceed with eminent domain.

“This structure is and should be noticed as a ‘beacon’ as you enter the Wyoming Valley, that represents our pride in our anthracite coal mining heritage, not a dark, shadowy blemish on our landscape that should remain abandoned as it has for so long that it looks as if we don’t care about our past, let alone our future!” Hughes wrote.

Attorney George A. Spohrer said the county can’t afford the project, and he predicted it would lose money, requiring continued government subsidy.

“To prepare the breaker, which is the height of a 14-story building full of rusting machinery, accessible only by narrow ladders and catwalks, for the safe reception of visitors is a daunting, if not a completely impossible, task,” he wrote.

Go to www.timesleader.com to see the letters sent to commissioners about the Huber Breaker project.