Luzerne County Council ousts trio from election board

With many public commenters in support, 10 Luzerne County Council members voted Tuesday to remove council colleague Stephen J. Urban and two citizens from their county Election Board seats.

The strong bipartisan council majority took a stand because the county home rule charter states no election board member shall be or have been an elected county official at the time of appointment or for four years prior.

The following council members voted to vacate the election board seats held by Urban, Joyce Dombroski-Gebhardt and Keith Gould: Chris Perry, LeeAnn McDermott, Harry Haas, Matthew Vough, Linda McClosky Houck, Kendra Radle, Robert Schnee, Sheila Saidman, Walter Griffith and Tim McGinley.

Urban abstained from the vote on his own election board removal, saying it dealt with him. He voted no on vacating the other two board seats.

Dombroski-Gebhardt and Gould had voted last week to appoint Urban to the chairmanship seat against county Chief Solicitor Romilda Crocamo’s repeated warnings it would violate the charter. Audrey Serniak, the remaining sitting board member, had vehemently objected and said she had no advance warning the other two planned to deviate from the board’s adopted practice of publicly interviewing citizen applicants for the chairmanship seat.

DeLuca: ‘Not a gray area’

Speaking before council voted Tuesday, county Assistant Solicitor Vito DeLuca said the appointment of Urban by the two board members and Urban’s acceptance of the board seat were clear violations of the charter, county ethics and administrative codes and their oaths of office. He also pointed out “unequivocally there is no room for argument” that any state law prevents home rule counties from keeping council members off their election boards.

“This is not a close call. This is not a gray area,” DeLuca said.

Dombroski-Gebhardt did not appear in the virtual session or submit a written statement in her defense.

Gould said he selected Urban for his knowledge of election matters because the past two board chairs did not have that expertise and resigned after only one election. Gould, Dombroski-Gebhardt and Urban are Republicans, but Gould said the appointment was not partisan or “any kind of nefarious scheme to take over the Board of Elections.”

Gould also urged postponement of the vacancy vote, arguing his civil and due process rights have been violated because the county has not provided legal representation to board members since last week’s vote.

DeLuca said individual election board members facing removal are not granted the right to county-supplied legal counsel under the charter or any other law. The county law office also determined it had no obligation to provide legal representation at a meeting the election board “suspiciously called” after council scheduled its special meeting to remove the board members. The board did not meet.

Urban’s presentation

In a lengthy presentation, Urban reiterated a myriad of legal interpretations and complaints about election matters, county solicitor legal opinions and perceived past home rule charter and law violations. He said he has “immersed” himself in reviewing laws for the last few weeks.

Urban also sent an email minutes after the meeting started asserting Radle, also a Republican, is barred from serving on council under the state’s county code because she is listed as an Exeter manager-secretary/treasurer on the borough’s website.

“This is Luzerne County’s hypocrisy at its finest!” Urban wrote in his email.

Radle could not immediately be reached for comment after the meeting, but she had previously said she cleared her legal ability to hold the borough position before she accepted it.

McGinley, the council chairman, said Urban’s accusation will be researched, and the conclusion will be publicly reported.

Council argument

McClosky Houck presented the council voice on why the seats must be vacated, saying the charter consciously prohibited current and recent council members from serving on the election board.

“The intent of the charter was to – as much as possible – keep politics on this board at a distance. And it was also to bring more citizen involvement into the government instead of control by elected officials,” she said.

Urban’s acceptance of the chairmanship seat is “like saying that I don’t want to stop at this red light because I don’t think it should be there.”

McClosky Houck said the decision by Gould and Dombroski-Gebhardt to proceed with a charter violation against several warnings from Crocamo is “serious stuff.”

“This is being wrong in a big way. It is not doing a slow roll through a stop sign wrong. It is driving up the exit ramp to head north in the southbound lane just because you want to,” she said.

This type of action “needs to be stopped in its tracks,” she said.

“The people of Luzerne County voted 11 years ago to stop doing things based on the whim of one elected official. We implemented home rule to prevent that,” she said.

All three removed board members are entitled to keep their opinions that they did nothing wrong, but they are not entitled to keep seats on the election board when their opinions lead to charter violations, she said.

“There is no need to spend time and money challenging this in court. Council has the ability and the duty to declare these seats vacant and move forward to reconstitute this board with members who value and follow the home rule charter,” she said in closing.

Public comments

Numerous county residents submitted public comments on the matter during the virtual session or in writing, including:

• Rebecca Elfman, of Kingston, said it is a “bipartisanly recognized fact” that Urban’s appointment to the election board violates the home rule charter.

“Don’t waste public money paying for both sides of a court case that, if justice is done, will only postpone his removal and that of the two other election board members who decided they were above the charter and appointed him anyway,” Elfman wrote. “Just vacate their seats. Home rule isn’t a petty technicality to enforce. It’s vital to curtail corruption.”

• Karen Attanasio, of Jackson Township, said she is “in total support” of vacating the three seats.

“If the Luzerne County Council proposes to be the ‘voice of Luzerne County,’ let’s start with basic morals and the following of charter rules. All three have violated the charter, and action must be taken,” Attanasio wrote.

• Anne Aston, Kingston Township, said this: “I believe the two members who voted to elect a new chairman who is not eligible for the office should be taken off the board. Such a power grab should not be sanctioned.”

• Denise Williams, also of Kingston Township, said she is “gravely concerned about the hijacking of our county Board of Elections by rogue players.”

”I have questions about how this played out. It appears that it was pre-planned. Who was involved with the pre-planning? And, pre-planning would be a violation of the Sunshine Law, no?”

• Rosalie Berezich, Trucksville, told council not to allow anyone to ignore the charter rules.

“Mr. Urban and those who voted on his appointment should be removed. This partisan attempt to control the Board of Elections is unacceptable,” Berezich wrote.

• Butler Township resident Elaine Maddon Curry, a prior county councilwoman, said she strongly supports vacating the three seats because the charter was “designed specifically to prevent the kind of blatant conflict of interest.”

She also called for Urban to resign from his council seat.

“I cannot recall any other time that a member of the Luzerne County Council has so publicly violated their oath of office as Mr. Urban has with this openly brazen act. As long as our local public officials continue to act in bad faith, Luzerne County will be unable to reverse its reputation of being a hotbed of corruption,” she said.

• Hilary Palencar, of Larksville, said Tuesday’s special council meeting should “deal with all fresh allegations or evidence of council members engaged in any activity — especially remunerated activity — in violation of either or both the county charter or of Pennsylvania Code.”

• Nanticoke resident Ronald Knapp said he is running for county council and would not support violating the charter. Instead, he said disagreements with the charter should be resolved through the legislative process or a ballot question.

• Brian Dwyer, of Larksville, said he is fine with the outrage council expressed over this matter but said the same standard must be applied to other potential charter or state law violations.

• Mark Shaffer, of Wilkes-Barre, characterized Urban’s counter legal arguments about his ability to hold the board chairmanship as “kind of laughable on its surface” and “pretty silly.” He predicted a judge would swiftly throw out any court challenge because the appointment is “so obviously against the charter.”

• Lisa Napersky, of Fairview Township, thanked council for taking action.

“Pretty much everyone I know is very irate with this. It’s clearly a blatant conflict of interest.”