The Scranton Times-Tribune Editorial Board commends Mayor Tim Burke's act of leadership in the public interest and states that it should remind all local voters that their choices can make a long-term difference for their communities.
In Dunmore, sudden spurt of leadership
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 16, 2019
Mayors of Pennsylvania’s boroughs have limited power under the nominally strong-council form of government. But Dunmore Mayor Timothy Burke has stepped into the leadership void created by the weak-kneed borough council.
Burke acted in the public interest by vetoing borough council’s misguided amendment to the borough zoning law at the direction of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, which is owned by politically powerful borough businessmen Dominick and Louis DeNaples.
The giant landfill has proposed an expansion plan that would allow it to accept an additional 100 million tons or more of mostly out-of-state garbage over more than 40 years, which is clearly against the broad public interest not only of Dunmore but of Northeast Pennsylvania.
The landfill faced an obstacle. The borough zoning code restricts structures in the landfill’s zone to a height of no more than 50 feet. And, a state appellate court already has found in another case from Mercer County that a landfill is a structure for zoning purposes. That would be a difficult precedent to overcome in state court, so the landfill company prevailed upon the reliably malleable borough council majority to change the borough zoning law in the landfill’s favor. Council recently did so by a 4-3 vote.
Such special-interest governance is disgraceful and Dunmoreans should not let it stand when they go to the polls Nov. 5 to determine the next borough council majority.
Meanwhile, Burke’s veto is a well-founded blow for the public interest. He cited the existing case law finding landfills to be structures, that the amendment is an unwarranted end run around litigation already pending in the Keystone zoning case, and that the Lackawanna County Regional Planning Commission did not make a recommendation in the case due to ongoing legal challenges.
Burke’s veto could be subject to a legal challenge of its own. Yet it is an act of leadership in the public interest that should remind all local voters that their choices can make a long-term difference for their communities.