Luzerne County Council OKs manager search funding request

Luzerne County’s Manager Search Committee will receive funding to bring out-of-state applicants here for face-to-face interviews, a county council majority decided Tuesday.

A council majority also approved an agreement with the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority to eliminate the county’s stormwater fee and declined to fine and censure Councilman Stephen J. Urban as recommended by the county ethics commission.

Required by the county’s home rule charter, the citizen manager search committee must recommend qualified manager applicants to council, which then performs its own independent evaluation and decides who will be hired as the next top manager.

Most search committee members have said they are not comfortable recommending the highest-ranked applicants without meeting them in person. Committee member Rick Morelli disagreed, saying he believes the committee can reach a decision through remote online interviews and should leave in-person interviews up to council.

The committee currently has five finalists — one local and four out-of-state. It plans to recommend at least three to council.

Seven council members voted to allocate $10,000 to the committee, including an estimated $6,000 for applicant travel and lodging: Brian Thornton, Urban, Gregory Wolovich Jr., Kevin Lescavage, John Lombardo, LeeAnn McDermott and Kendra Radle.

The three remaining members voted against the earmark: Robert Schnee, Tim McGinley and Chris Perry.

Schnee said he would consider the allocation if the travel was needed for the committee to further whittle down the five finalists. If not, the county would be paying twice for both the committee and council to interview them, he said.

Council also discussed the manager search timeline during Tuesday’s work session and agreed to review evaluation formats used by council in the previous two manager hirings.

Radle, the council chair, said council can vote on its manager evaluation plan at the Feb. 22 meeting.

The search committee plans to interview out-of-state applicants on Feb. 21 and promptly make a decision on its recommended applicants so the county human resources department can perform background checks, committee Chairman Chris Hackett told council Tuesday.

Background checks typically take about a week, Hackett said. The committee largely decided to accelerate its process because it already lost three applicants who obtained other positions, he said.

Council tentatively discussed the possibility of bringing back finalists a week or so after the manager search committee performs its interviews and calling a special meeting in early March to vote on its selection, with the idea it could delay a vote if it wants to further interview any applicants or request additional applicant recommendations from the search committee.

Stormwater fee

Under the agreement council adopted Tuesday, the county will save $81,625 by providing access to county property/mapping data and other services and granting permission for the WVSA to construct and maintain a rain garden at the county-owned sports/recreation complex in Forty Fort and complete stream bank restoration on county land along Abrahams Creek in Forty Fort.

The agreement also allocates $2 million of the county’s American Rescue Plan funding to help pay for construction of the rain garden and stream bank restoration. In exchange, the county will receive $2 million in credit so it won’t have to pay a stormwater fee until the credit runs out.

Eight council members approved the agreement, with the only no votes from Urban and Wolovich.

Ethics

The resolution to censure and fine Urban $100 stemmed from his February 2021 acceptance of an election board chairmanship seat. Urban’s 10 council colleagues had unanimously voted the following month to remove him from the election board because the charter states elected county officials can’t be appointed to the election board. The two citizen board members who made him chair also were removed by council.

Urban has said further action is not warranted because his colleagues had already publicly acted by removing him from the seat.

Five council members voted against the censure/fine: Lescavage, Lombardo, McDermott, Wolovich and Radle.

Only three supported the action: Thornton, Perry and Schnee.

Urban was not permitted to vote on the matter, and McGinley was not in attendance during that vote.

Lombardo, the council vice chair, said he believes council already took action by removing Urban and questioned the need for a fine and censure, describing it as a “waste of time.”

Perry said he did not personally want to impose the measures but argued it was necessary to act on the commission’s recommendation.

The charter requires the commission of two citizens (one Democrat, one Republican), the elected controller and district attorney and the county manager. Acting County Manager Romilda Crocamo did not participate in the decision on taking action against Urban. The decision was reached before Walter Griffith became controller in January.

Thornton said he agrees with Perry. Restoring election integrity was a key component of his campaign for county council last year, and he said this situation was not an inadvertent mistake because Urban had ample time and warning from legal counsel to “not proceed in the way he did.”

Lescavage said he ran with Thornton but disagrees with him on this issue because he views the action against Urban as “selective enforcement.”