Luzerne County Council will continue meeting virtually next week

Luzerne County Council will meet virtually Tuesday but may gather in person on July 28, council Chairman Tim McGinley said Friday.

A council majority had voted to hold Tuesday’s meeting at the courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, but only if the council meeting room was deemed to have safe air circulation and all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines are followed, including social distancing, temperature checks to gain entry and a requirement to wear masks.

While the room met air quality standards, McGinley said there are still too many outstanding issues that must be addressed to keep everyone safe.

For example, tables and microphones must be reconfigured to ensure council members and others in the room are sufficiently spaced apart, he said.

Accommodations also must be made in the lobby to space apart citizens, the media, department heads and agenda presenters because only 14 people can be in the meeting room at the same time based on measurements and CDC protocols, McGinley said.

Most of the available in-room slots would be occupied by the 11-member council, council clerk, solicitor and county manager, he said.

McGinley said he reached all but one of his council colleagues, and they were all agreeable with the plan to continue virtual meetings and “understanding of the obstacles we face.”

He is working with officials at the Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke on the possibility of holding the July 28 council meeting at a more spacious building on campus.

Cementing plans is challenging because the current pandemic status is “very fluid with new information coming forward every day,” McGinley said.

“This information will be continually monitored, and decisions will be made to provide for everyone’s health and safety. The hope is for the county to continue on the positive path in combating the COVID-19 virus,” McGinley said.

Tuesday’s voting meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be followed by a work session. Directions on attending are posted in council’s online meeting section at www.luzernecounty.org.

Council is set to introduce an ordinance amending this year’s budget to factor in coronavirus funding allocated to the county, including some that will be used to cover county pandemic-related expenses.

Among the other agenda matters:

• Declaration of a vacancy on the county Transportation Authority due to the recent resignation of board member Patrick Conway. Council will fill that authority seat at a future meeting. Conway did not specify a reason in his resignation letter.

• Adoption of a resolution amending the minimum bid for properties purchased from the repository, a hodgepodge pool of parcels that did not sell at popular delinquent real estate tax auctions.

Council’s real estate committee forwarded a recommendation from the administration to increase the minimum from $500 to $1,000 if a parcel contains a structure, with land-only properties remaining at $500.