Just months after a controversial decision to grant a lease to a city employee, the Scranton City Council introduced a revised ethics code Monday with tougher restrictions on conduct for local officials and employees....
Who needs cable when Scrantonians can attend Scranton School Board meetings? This week your favorite cast returned for the premiere of their new season. They never fail to deliver the high drama, laughs, and controversy avid viewers have come to expect. The directors, minus Greg Popil (more on that later), met Monday night for their annual re-organization meeting. Almost immediately, chaos ensued. Directors shouted over one another as five different members - Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, Barbara Dixon, Katie Gilmartin, and Tom Schuster - were nominated for President. Gilmartin was defeated in a 5-4 vote, with Robert Casey, Dixon, Paul Duffy, Bob Lesh (BL!), and Popil voting...
The Scranton City Council voted 3-2 Monday evening to approve Mayor Bill Courtright's proposed budget for 2019. ...
State law enforcement officials raided the Administration Office of the Scranton School District this week. Media reports indicate that they removed documents and computers from the board secretary and the transportation director's offices. The other shoe is dropping. We bet there are lots of nervous former bus drivers in Scranton this weekend. Mayor Bill Courtright introduced his 2019 budget this week. No increases in city taxes but the $300 garbage fee remains in place. If approved by City Council, the Mayor's budget will represent the third consecutive year without hikes in taxes. This is Scranton and that's no small feat. Critics of the Mayor will...
The 2019 city budget, introduced Friday by Mayor Bill Courtright, includes no increases in property taxes. If ratified, the budget will represent the third consecutive year of no tax hikes....
John Chrin is feeling the love this week. The Monroe County Republican challenger to incumbent Democratic Congressman Matt Cartwright received back to back visits from Vice President Mike Pence and first son Eric Trump. Thursday he landed the endorsement from President Donald Trump. All the good feeling aside, one observer tells us the physical absence of POTUS may be evidence of lagging poll numbers. See: Lou Barletta Mayor Bill Courtright still hasn't answered City Council about Pat Hinton's sweetheart deal at Nay Aug Park. Maybe ol' Billy wanted to pray about it? He presided over a packed house Tuesday for the 55th annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast. Andrea Mulrine of...
Scranton School District Superintendent Alexis Kirijan made the news this week and she was not happy. The Scranton Times-Tribune reports that in June Kirijan's attorney notified the School Board that his client had been sexually harassed by an unnamed school director. The superintendent is not happy about this public disclosure and wants to know who leaked the information. We usually take a tongue in cheek approach to the foibles of our friends at SSD, but in the age of #MeToo, there's no place for the kind of behavior Kirijan alleges. Our hope is someone gets to the bottom of it. Was President Donald...
Monday was the Case of Alexis and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day. Poor Alexis Kirijan. Even though School Board President Barbara Dixon called a last minute cancellation of the regular meeting (no, BL, we mean Bob Lesh's basement did not flood again), that did not stop Directors Paul Duffy, Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, Mark McAndrew, and Tom Schuster from continuing with their Labor Relations Committee meeting. The four want Jeff Brazil's head on a platter. Who can blame them? Word around town is Brazil was asleep at the wheel while Daniel Sansky funnelled fraudulent bills to Gregg Sunday. Kirijan took the brunt...
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...
Scrantonians of all walks of life paid their respects this week to the late Judge William "Terry" J. Nealon. Judge Nealon, who just days before his passing became the longest serving district court judge in United States history, served the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania for over five decades....