Luzerne County Courthouse

Luzerne County Courthouse

Luzerne County Council is set to vote Tuesday on whether to ask May 16 primary election voters if they want to convene a seven-citizen, elected commission to reconsider the county government structure.

Public comment on the proposed ballot question ordinance will be accepted during a 5:30 p.m. public hearing preceding the voting meeting, which is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. at the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.

Instructions to attend remotely will be posted under council’s online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.

A majority of council members have stated they do not support a study commission, arguing council should have an opportunity to recommend improvements in-house that will not risk a commission recommendation to revert back to the prior three-commissioner structure. Advocates of the commission maintain an outside panel is the best way to tackle home rule deficiencies and stress there’s no certainty a commission would want to change back to the prior system.

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If the study commission ordinance is approved by council, citizens interested in serving would simultaneously run in the primary, with the top seven vote-getters taking office if the ballot question passed. These commission members would then have up to 18 months to study the current structure and decide if they want to keep it intact as-is, make changes, switch to a different structure or return to the previous system, officials have said.

Any commission-recommended change would have to be approved by future voters to take effect, which is what occurred before the county’s 2012 switch to home rule.

American Rescue

Council also is scheduled to vote on revised parameters that are expected to result in approximately 75 entities collectively receiving $60 million of the county’s federal American Rescue Plan funding.

Although there was talk of attempting to also vote on the actual awards during Tuesday’s meeting, that action will likely take place at the next meeting on Feb. 14.

Council members individually screened and scored the 139 outside applications through an online portal created by the county’s American Rescue consultant.

Initially council set a 60-point preliminary threshold for requests to receive the earmarked funding. However, only 24 projects with $12.3 million in eligible requests achieved that target, according to a chart Booth Management Consulting presented to council Tuesday.

As a result, council plans to lower the acceptable score to 47 points, which would allow the awarding of approximately $59.9 million to 75 entities.

A list of recipients that make the cut cannot be presented to council until the revised parameters are approved.

The list will be based entirely based on council’s independent scoring and cannot be altered without compromising the process council set up to evaluate applicants without bias or outside intervention, officials have said.

Board seats

Council will not be voting Tuesday on citizen appointments to numerous vacant seats on outside boards, authorities and commissions as originally planned, according to the agenda.

Council Vice Chairman John Lombardo, who heads the council committee that publicly interviews and screens applicants, said more time is needed to review the eligibility of recent new applicants to ensure there are no issues.

Work session

Council’s work session will follow the voting meeting Tuesday and includes a discussion with the new county manager search committee, the agenda said.

Citizens Danielle Ader, David Fusco and Charles Sciandra recently were appointed to the committee, which must seek, screen and recommend manager applicants to council for its consideration.

Council can suggest — but not mandate — a timeline for the committee. According to a proposed schedule attached to the agenda, council may be asking the committee to publicly advertise the position and conduct the first round of interviews by the end of February and forward recommended applicants to council by the end of March.

Real estate

Council’s Real Estate Committee will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, with instructions for remote attendance posted under council’s online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.

This committee primarily focuses on plans for unused county-owned real estate. Four council members serve on the committee: LeeAnn McDermott (chair), Kevin Lescavages (vice chair), Tim McGinley and Carl Bienias III.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.