City Beat 2-29-08

CITY BEAT

By George Murin
February 29, 2008

Washington- There was a special city council meeting at 6 P.M. on February 20th;
But before the meeting I witnessed a very surprising thing, Mayor Sonny Spossey and Councilman Matt Staniszewski sitting next to each other in the Mayor’s office, working together. They were very cordial to each other and joked to me as I entered the room. These two politicians are usually at each others throats and it was good to see them putting aside their differences for the betterment of the city.

The council meeting itself lasted only 10 minutes. There were only 10 items on the agenda and no one spoke during the public participation at the start of the meeting. The items that council discussed were all passed 5-0, except the final reading of bill #7, which establishes a new assessment law for the city and adopts a pre-determined ratio for this assessment. Staniszewski voted against it saying “I don’t support giving this much power to government to raise taxes in the future almost as much as they want to…by changing the math formula, called the pre-determined ratio…Who’s going to stand up for the taxpayers?” The bill passed 4-1.

The other items that were passed consisted of paying for the mailing of delinquent tax notices; adopting a resolution to support PA Senate bill 777, which gives the city a choice on how they deal with tax liens; establishing a policy on pre-employment medical exams; increasing street lighting throughout the city; allowing for the solid waste fees to be collected in two payments; advancing four newly hired firefighters money to attend the fire academy in Harrisburg, rescinding a separate “special capital fund” account for the street department; and transferring money from one line item to another to cover minor equipment purchases.

During the elected officials comments Staniszewski reported on the fixing of potholes with “cold patch” throughout the city. He also warned council that the street department was running low on salt. (It was reported to me today that the city is out of salt.) Matt also stated “I urge mayor and council to look at new ways to offset our operational costs to ease the burden of the… taxpayers and I look forward to working with all of you to push for more creative solutions.” Councilwoman Virginia Ullom responded with “I just want the taxpayers to know, I can’t do anything about Mr. Staniszewski sitting here making these accusations…I just want people to know that he’s not giving us full service, he’s collecting $7,000 a year and we’re paying him $11,000 in benefits…and I think the taxpayers should know this.” (This small exchange was a reminder of what council meetings were like only a few months ago.) Spossey only made one comment, “As of this date, I have not heard from those who might be against what we are doing, to bring alternatives to the table that would help us match the sizable deficit that was given us to address. I don’t mind people disagreeing with what we are doing…All I ask is…give me an alterative.”

I had a meeting with Councilman Blackhurst last week and asked him about his first seven weeks on city council. He told me it was exciting but tiring. He listed eight items he was able to accomplish for his department. Included were settling an outstanding grievance that was three years old, purchasing much needed pagers for the fire department, arranging for all newly hired firefighters to attend the fire academy in Harrisburg this year (this practice was endangered of ceasing), negotiating a contract extension to help the city save money on health care costs and getting much needed repairs on the fire trucks. As far as the tax increase for the city, he was very sorry but he saw no other way out of the city’s dilemma. “We inherited a mess and cleaning it up hasn’t been pretty…We would have to lay off the entire Police or Fire Department just to break even. I won’t cut essential services to the residents of this city…The citizens of this city won’t stand for cutting the level of service they expect for their tax dollars…Maybe over time we will be able to find more creative ways to make ends meet, but we were in an emergency situation and it was between raising taxes or declaring bankruptcy.”

Also on a personal note Councilman Matt Staniszewski asked me to print his diet that he used. He lost quite a bit of weight and he thought the readers of this paper might want to know how he did it.

The next agenda meeting is on March 3rd at 9:30 A.M. at city hall and the next council meeting is on March 6th at 7 P.M.