28 Sep City Confidential: Week of 9/23/18

The Scranton School District is embroiled in a web of scandal and dysfunction rarely seen in the annals of Lackawanna County politics.  The arrest of one time fleet manager  Daniel Sansky on charges that he defrauded taxpayers by overbilling for work performed at Danny’s Auto Body comes as little surprise to those familiar with the findings of Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale in the 2017 performance audit report of district operations.  A teacher phoned yesterday to remind us that this is all the tip of the iceberg.

Bob Lesh disputes that he is the “BL” listed in the indictment.  It’s a hard case to make when BL, who allegedly received free services at Sansky’s shop, is annotated as an “Active Member” of the “School Board.”  BL – and in this case we definitively mean our friend Mr. Lesh the former bus driver – has wiggled out of worse.  Hard to imagine a tougher jam than the one he finds himself in now.  There is another unindicted co-conspirator to be named and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has told the public to expect more arrests as the case moves from grand jury to prosecution.

Meanwhile, our teacher source tells us the Scranton Federation of Teachers is getting tired of these shenanigans.  With contract negotiations stalled and the school directors mired in controversy, watch for Rosemary Boland to increase the pressure for a deal that benefits her members.

So much news coming out of the Administration Building we haven’t heard much from Mayor Bill Courtright or the City Council.  Okay, so we are used to not hearing from the Mayor, but Bill Gaughan, Joe Donahue, Wayne Evans, and Tim Perry did ask this week: what’s doing with Pat Hinton and his sweetheart deal?