City of Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo, center, waves to the thousands lining Main Street, Pittston, during the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in March — the only major St. Patrick’s Day parade held in Northeastern Pennsylvania before the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of the state’s business and community life fo a standstill. Lombardo is flanked by Thomas Leary, Luzerne County Community College, president, left, and state Rep. Michael Carroll, right.
Times Leader file photo
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It really did feel like a farewell gathering.
Pittston City held the only major St. Patrick’s Day parade in Northeastern Pennsylvania this year, with the March 7 event coming before the COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of business, community and social life across the state later that month.
Proudly marching among the floats and dignitaries was Mayor Michael Lombardo.
Before the month was out Lombardo would be leading in a much different way as one of the first elected officials in the region to put his community on an emergency footing, restricting public access to city buildings and spaces, keeping essential staff on duty to ensure city services continued and keeping residents apprised of health and safety regulations to keep everyone safe.
Lombardo also was chosen to chair the local government committee of the Luzerne County COVID-19 Crisis Management Team.
Mayor Lombardo spoke with the Times Leader about leading the city during this crisis as part of the second Mayors’ Vision special section spotlighting area mayors.
And, as he explained, some of the community activities that have been put on hold are beginning to resume, with hopes that others can do so in the near future.
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How have these three months been for you and the City of Pittston?
The first thing I want to emphasize that our residents here in the city have done an outstanding job. They really have taken this situation seriously. Wherever their opinions lie — whether they thought it was not enough action, too much action — everybody complied.
We did not have even one instance of anyone violating the park rules, for instance. That allowed us to really be focused on what we needed to be doing.
I want to acknowledge the administration and the team — not just the ranking members of the administration, but everybody in the city. Our public works guys, everybody just really stepped up when we got thrown this curveball.
I feel really good about the way we handled this. I didn’t want to sit around and deliberate. We needed to be decisive. I felt comfortable making tough decisions, and I think they were the right decisions.
I sent a letter out to our residents about a week-and-a-half ago summarizing where we where, but also telling them that we were able to get a lot done during this time. So I think we used the time wisely.
We’re not out of it yet, but as you go through you always have to look at whatever strategy you’re using and ask if it’s working. I’ve asked everybody, council, the rest of the team, to consider what we did well, what do we need to fix — because you know there could be another situation, or a second wave.
And it’s been a learning experience for all of us. I’ve been communicating with the other mayors here in Luzerne County and Lackawanna County as well, and actually some mayors throughout the state, due to my involvement on the Municipal League Board.
We also used this time to modernize our thinking. I have a slightly older population here that likes face-to-face interactions. They like to pay their bills by coming to the window in the tax office.
But we now have a whole new segment of our taxpayers that are using their computers or smartphones to order garbage stickers or pay their tax bills or communicate with us.
So all-in-all I think we’ve done pretty well. We’ve been really lucky at this point, as our revenue doesn’t appear to be lagging. Our budget isn’t driven by a mercantile tax.
What happens next?
I’m hoping we can start to get some activities back in the next month. We’re doing the Art Walk, and we’re going to be smart about it. We’re still deliberating on the Tomato Festival to see if there’s a way we can do it that’s safe.
A lot of people are asking about those things, and they’re eager.
You mentioned being able to get some projects done during this time. Could you elaborate on those?
Let me start by saying this: We did not lay anybody off. We were able to keep full staff at City Hall and we were able to maintain full staff in public works and in our facilities department.
Our facilities department is a small department that we created about a year ago. Ron Faraday, who oversees that, was able to get some projects out of the way, for example in the parks. If we had had people there it would have been prohibitive to bring in dump trucks to fill in an area near the baseball field. We tried to do some strategic things like that. We had some places where our banner arms on Main Street needed an upgrade, some lights were blown out. And it’s tough to do that when you have full-blown traffic. Even things like repairs at the fire station, on the exit doors. We were able to do some landscaping and clean-up and even some little art projects.
What is the status of City Hall and other facilities?
We’re open, but I wouldn’t call it fully, because we’re still trying to control the flow a little bit. We have a check-in system, and we’re going to be deploying some new technology. When you come in City Hall there’ll be a kiosk, and you walk up to this thing and it takes your temperature. We have another one that’s ceiling-mounted. It can read like 10 people at once and if someone is over the limit it sounds an alarm.
In terms of operation we’re at 100% at City Hall, but in terms of flow and function we’re probably around 75% in which we’re controlling points of entry into the building.
The parks are back open and we’ve just installed some additional signage, and we have new rules that are consistent for all parks, and the branding looks consistent.
Where do we go from here?
I hope that what comes out of these past three months is that from a regional standpoint we continue to work together.
I think the county did a really nice job in terms of being engaged. Dave (Pedri) did a great job in terms of leadership, pulling all of that together, and we communicated a lot. We need to keep doing that.
We’ve been really lucky here, and I think a lot of that goes back to the really good people here and the really strong sense of community here and you’re less apt to overract to your neighbor if you know who your neighbor is and you have some type of relationship.