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WILKES-BARRE — The city council Thursday night moved the Solomon Creek wall repair and a debt restructuring deal a step closer with a narrow 3-2 vote.
The council approved the first of two readings of an ordinance that deals with the crumbling wall along the creek in South Wilkes-Barre and also aims to provide limited financial relief in the form of lower debt service payments.
Absent help from the state or federal governments, Mayor Tony George has pushed for a $5.5 million bond to pay for the repairs to a portion of the stone-and-concrete wall built by the Works Projects Administration during the Great Depression. He’s also asked for help with the city’s finances and advocated restructuring the annual long-term debt payment to make them more affordable in order to avoid possible distressed status and strict state oversight of spending under Act 47.
Councilmen Bill Barrett, Mike Belusko and Mike Merritt voted for the ordinance. Council Chairwoman Beth Gilbert and Vice Chairman Tony Brooks cast “no” votes. It comes up for a second reading at the March 9 public meeting.
“If there was a resolution on the table tonight to simply finance the wall for Solomon’s Creek, I would be more inclined to vote for that if I knew the administration had done everything they could do to cut unnecessary expenses elsewhere,” Gilbert said.
The mayor has to further cut expenses instead of refinancing, she said, and pinpointed his salary budgeted at $84,460 this year plus expenses as a starting point. Non-union officials in City Hall also have “grossly high salaries” and concessions have to be made by the unions, Gilbert said.
“I know that the unions are willing to concede a bit, to what degree I’m not sure,” Gilbert said.
City Controller Darren Snyder did not support the specific “scoop and toss” refinancing plan in the ordinance.
“That would prove to be the most expensive option for the taxpayers,” Snyder said.
The plan before the council was presented by the city’s consultant, PFM Financial Advisors LLC, of Harrisburg, and calls for lower payments this year and next. But the difference in payments is scooped up and tossed further along, leaving the city to pay higher amounts down the road.
The city would refinance $3.9 million of its $86.2 million debt and issue $5.5 million in new money through a bond for the repairs. The debt payment would drop to $5.1 million from $5.4 million this year. Next year it would fall to $4.9 million from $7.6 million. But in 2019 and 2020, the payments climb to more than $8 million, decreasing to $1.7 million in 2036.
Snyder predicted the city would be back to another refinancing in two years if it can’t find ways to increase revenues and cut expenses.
Resident Sam Troy urged council to hold off voting on the ordinance and offered suggestions to put the city in a better financial position, such as selling off the parking assets — similar to what former Mayor Tom Leighton proposed.
“It could raise millions of dollars,” Troy said.
Councilman Barrett agreed with Troy that the city has to start looking “outside the box when it comes to revenues.” The sale of the Wilkes-Barre Parking Authority, a separate entity from the city, was considered and rejected, he told Troy.
“Council that time — and I was here — was not very comfortable with the numbers that were coming back,” Barrett said.
In a 4-1 vote, council rejected the transfer of a restaurant liquor license to Louis Weihbrecht from Eileen Rosengrant, of Luzerne, for Outsiders Saloon on South Main Street.
Barrett, who voted against the transfer, said he spoke with Wilkes-Barre Police Department Chief Marcella Lendacky, who had concerns about the license due to the more than 130 police calls to the bar over a four-year period.
Just after the start of the meeting, Gilbert ordered that a police officer escort Bob Kadluboski out of the meeting for allegedly violating the rules of public comment. At Kadluboski’s request, he was handcuffed and led from the council chambers.
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