Protesters cry out for delay, heckle Petrilla

WILKES-BARRE – “Second the motion!” was the chant heard most often from the crowd of 300-plus people who filled the south lawn of the Luzerne County Courthouse on Monday to protest the handling of the county’s first reassessment since 1965.

Cheers erupted from early arrivers when two bus loads of people from Harveys Lake – one of the municipalities hit hardest by increased assessments – pulled up to the curb on North River Street and rally organizer Michelle Boice disembarked.

Using a bullhorn, Boice led the chant “Second the motion,” referring to Commissioner Greg Skrepenak’s announcement Friday that he would make a motion at Wednesday’s commissioner meeting to indefinitely halt implementation of new property values.

For the motion to come to a vote, it would need a second from either Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla or Commissioner Steve Urban, both of whom have indicated they might call for an extension to reassessment deadlines by Oct. 31 but thought the process should move forward.

The crowd heckled Petrilla when she appeared on the courthouse steps just before the rally began and tried to address the crowd before the 1 p.m. commissioners’ work session.

“Thank you all for coming. I respect ... I respect ... I respect your concerns,” Petrilla tried to say as members of the crowd booed and hurled insults.

“I am working every single day. I just left another meeting. We are going to correct ... We are going ...” Petrilla said, cut short by shouts from several in the crowd.

“That’s OK. I’ve made good decisions for the taxpayers,” Petrilla replied before re-entering the courthouse for the work session as the crowd continued shouting.

Boice soon climbed the courthouse steps and called Petrilla “arrogant” and “a chicken.”

“You’ve got one term, honey, and you’re gone. Don’t get too comfortable in your office. You’re outta here,” Boice shouted.

After the meeting, Petrilla said she respected people’s right to protest if they are upset about their new assessed values.

“I’m not an arrogant person. I treat everyone with respect, and I just ask for the same respect in return. … If I were arrogant, I would never even have gone out to greet those people. I tried to tell them what we were doing, but they chose to heckle me and scream at me. … It was pointless to try to talk to them,” Petrilla said.

“I ran for office to try to make a difference. I can’t base my decisions on my ability to get elected four years from now. … I will give 100 percent of myself to make Luzerne County a better place, but I can’t be intimidated by those threats,” Petrilla said.

Other chants of “Impeach!” and “Stop the reassessment” filled the remainder of the rally, and hundreds of drivers who passed the courthouse blew their horns in support of the protesters.

“I think they were very adamant about what they believe in. They took a stance today, and I applaud that people took the time out from their very busy schedules to demonstrate what their stance was to commissioners,” Skrepenak said.

Skrepenak said he could hear shouting and chanting from the commissioners meeting room during the work session, but he said it wasn’t disruptive. Although he couldn’t make out most of what was being said, he thought the basic message came across “loud and clear.”

“Obviously, from my standpoint, I want to delay implementation of reassessment. … I would expect much of the same at Wednesday’s meeting,” Skrepenak said.

Boice and other protesters said the reassessment process is being executed unfairly and many people are afraid of losing their homes, especially senior citizens who have “fallen through the cracks” and people who have been grossly overassessed.

Protesters came from all across Luzerne County, from as far south as Hazleton and as far north as Harveys Lake. Many carried signs stating where they were from; others carried signs calling the reassessment process “unfair” and “a fiasco.”

Activist Gene Stilp brought the same 25-foot inflatable pink pig he used to protest state legislators’ middle-of-the-night vote for a pay raise. He noted that he filed a lawsuit to have the pay raise repealed and filed the first complaint related to the “Bonusgate” scandal in Harrisburg, in which several legislative staffers are alleged to have engaged in campaign work on state time.

“This ranks right up there with them in regard to government gone bad,” Stilp said.

“As a Wilkes-Barre native, as a person who has property in the city of Wilkes-Barre, for my parents, I want to see this reassessment stopped right now. It’s actually going to kill some senior citizens by the way it’s being done. Due process isn’t here. People are going to be hurt. … I’m here to support every person today. And so is the pig,” Stilp said.

Boice said the rally was “a huge success. And judging by the cars going by blowing their horns, I think the majority has spoken.”

“We’ve been called a vocal minority and I wanted to do this rally to show them we’re not a minority. We’re human beings, we’re part of this county and we deserve to be treated fairly. And we have been treated nothing near fair,” Boice said.

“I never saw such hopelessness and fear in people any other time except twice in my life – following the Agnes flood of ’72 and following 9/11. The fear and hopeless I see in people right now compares to that.”

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Property Reassessment

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