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WILKES-BARRE — City council cancelled a closed-door meeting that was set for Tuesday afternoon on the proposed sale of the sewer system and opted to hear the details in public.
Instead of hearing from the financial advisers handling sale preparations for the city during the executive session scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at City Hall, council will be briefed at its work session immediately following the 6 p.m. public hearing on the proposed 2020 budget.
Council members contacted Monday said they were concerned about excluding the public and having to sit through multiple presentations by Public Financial Management or PFM.
Council Chairman Mike Belusko said he received a call from City Attorney Tim Henry about the meeting. “He felt council wasn’t comfortable with having an executive session. He said it was our call,” said Belusko, who represents District A.
As a result, Belusko said, the meeting was called off. “It shows that we’re transparent,” he said.
Henry had been doing legal research on holding the executive session and last week had still not determined which of the six reasons applied for meeting in private under the state’s Sunshine Act.
The meeting was billed as informational to bring council up to speed on the proposed sale whose details have yet to be presented. Mayor Tony George and his administration have been pursuing a possible sale of the sewer system as a solution recommended by PFM to the city’s financial problems. Council would have the ultimate say on any deal presented by the administration.
If a quorum of three of the five council members attended, the Sunshine Act prohibited them from take any formal action or deliberating. Henry said he would have stopped any deliberations.
The meeting cancellation ended his legal research, Henry said. “I just decided the issue is moot,” he said.
District D Councilman and Vice Chairman Bill Barrett also heard from Henry that some council members “expressed concerns about redundancy and transparency.”
District B Councilman Tony Brooks added that he believes council should conduct its business in public. “The optics were bad for the administration to have a closed executive session,” Brooks said.
The administration had invited Mayor-elect George Brown and District E councilman-elect John Marconi to the executive session. City Administrator Rick Gazenski said he and Mayor George still want to meet with them.
