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By ANDREW TUTINO [email protected]
Sunday, April 16, 2000 Page: 3
HAZLETON – If you subtract the grievances, the snow storms, the labor
problems and some high-profile police suspensions from Louis Barletta’s first
100 days in office, you’ll find that life in the mayor’s seat isn’t so bad.
There’s a Redevelopment Authority that is clipping along, getting ready to
begin seizing dilapidated properties that dot the city’s landscape. He’s
meeting with “high-ranking” officials from the office of Gov. Thomas Ridge
in an effort to grab some state funding for his mineland reclamations project.
He’s attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies, declared special weeks in the city
and laid the groundwork for a downtown revitalization.
“Those are the things I like to do,” Barletta said. “The government
stuff. It’s the politics I can do without.”
But Barletta knows better than anyone you don’t get to the second floor
mayor’s office on North Church Street without learning to handle the rocky
road city politics has always followed. And once there, it gets worse.
On Wednesday Barletta celebrated his 100th day in office – a symbolic, yet
almost meaningless landmark journalists and politicians use to gauge the state
of affairs in the term of a freshly minted public official.
Barletta’s first 100 days have been a whirlwind of activity, most having to
do with labor. All of the four unions representing city workers filed what
many political watchers believe is a record number of grievances – at least
ten so far – against him and his administration.
He saw City Council reject five union contracts because the city couldn’t
afford them. He managed to negotiate a pension deal with the Police Department
and get council approval for it, though all five members denounced it. A
lawyer representing the Highway Department workers wrote a letter calling him
“distasteful.” Add layoffs, some fired workers and a partial cleanup of
problems left after former Mayor Michael Marsicano to the list, too.
But Barletta said he feels he has thrown an effective counterpunch to the
grocery list of problems he encountered. It started with his campaign, when he
broadcasted commercials all over Northeastern Pennsylvania. Some looked upon
those actions with a skeptic’s eye – maybe too glitzy for a distressed city;
maybe he was thinking beyond Hazleton.
To the mayor, though, it was all part of a much larger plan that he feels
is paying off. About two weeks ago, Barletta attended a conference in
Wilkes-Barre for the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities. There,
he said, Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom McGroarty cited Hazleton as an example for
other municipalities.
“McGroarty’s remarks surprised me,” Barletta said. “Things like that
make me think the word is getting out. Industries have expressed interest of
coming back into the city. Maybe other businesses will hear about Hazleton and
want to come here.
“The image is changing,” Barletta said. “There is a lot of stuff
outweighing the other stuff I had to do.”
Surprisingly, Barletta’s well-documented first months have produced no
persistent critics. Sure, Barletta gets zapped in SAYSO lines and stung
occasionally on the floor of Council Chambers. But unlike previous mayors, no
one person or group has emerged from Hazleton’s steady stable of taxpayer
watchdogs and political junkies to denounce Barletta’s actions on a regular
basis.
He dodged minor controversies concerning bulk pickup and the laying off of
law enforcement personnel. Some of his early appointments to authorities,
boards and commissions drew objections, mainly from City Councilwoman Evelyn
Graham. But she acknowledges the appointments were Barletta’s and his alone.
“When he can convince me something is best for the city, I will be behind
him,” she said. “But if I can’t be convinced, then I am not going to vote
for something.”
It is difficult to call Graham a critic of the mayor. Although she is more
vocal than other council members in questioning and not always agreeing with
Barletta, she has nothing but good things to say about the new mayor.
“He certainly has done some difficult things,” Graham said. “But I
believe he is doing the right things and if he continues to, we’ll see
results.”
And the results are what drives him, Barletta said. He repeatedly says he
dislikes the political side of government, and instead likes to focus on,
well, governing.
“There is actually government going on here,” he said. “That is the part
that I wanted most when I was elected. I wanted to make things happen. That,
to me is the challenge. If there is a problem, you need to come up with a
solution. Then it is time to go and do it.”