Today's Christopher J. Kelly column succinctly covers the ongoing corruption and warped power structures which need to come to an end in NEPA.
He covers three sad stories, all making headlines this week. One of which, of course, was Dunmore Borough's vote on Landfill's customized zoning amendment.
Very much worth the read as the threads tie together.
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CHRIS KELLY: Spinal tap dance
KELLY'S WORLD / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 22, 2019
The spine is a complex structure that keeps humans upright. “Backbone” is a simple metaphor that supports the same function.
Everyone needs a spine. Backbones are optional, like integrity, honesty and choosing to do the right thing without fear or favor.
Sometimes, the right thing to do is nothing. Dunmore Borough Council had that option Thursday night. Instead, four of its elected vertebrae bent over backward to sell out the future of a proud community to the immediate interests of a single family whose business is literally dumping on its neighbors.
It was that kind of week for “representative democracy” here in Our Stiff Neck of the Woods:
Dunmore officials chose to bury their own community in exchange for the occasional “donated” firetruck.
The judge overseeing a statewide grand jury investigating corruption in the Scranton School District found it necessary to warn against obstruction of justice and intimidation of witnesses.
The Lackawanna County Democratic Party Machine went to court to remove independent reformers from the ballot in the Sept. 5 special mayoral election and disenfranchise thousands of voters who had no say in choosing the Democratic and Republican candidates.
Each of these hunchbacked headlines reflects a crooked power structure in spasm. New blood and fresh ideas threaten a sclerotic system of rigged government that serves a favored few at the expense of the marginalized many. The Old Guard is on its last legs and sprinting to get away with whatever it can before the torches and pitchforks catch up.
I was in Scranton City Council chambers when the Dunmore council hearing started. The Housing Appeals Board met to hear an appeal from PSN Realty, the real estate alter ego of notorious landlord and garbage fee/tax deadbeat Ken Bond.
Neighbors showed up. Bond did not. The board denied his appeal and declared that none of his 20 rental properties are registered with the city, which I reported months ago. Bond has tenants in at least half of them, illegally profiting while blowing off hundreds of thousands in back taxes and fees.
Bond’s neighbors joined me in asking city solicitor Patrick Hughes what action the city would take.
“I can’t comment,” he said. The neighbors had plenty to say, but it can’t be published in a family newspaper. All taxpayers and homeowners who play by the rules and pay their fair share, these solid citizens expected city officials to show some backbone. They went home disappointed.
I went to Dunmore.
I got to the community center at 6:30 p.m. and couldn’t get into the hearing. A fire marshal told me the meeting room was at capacity. I didn’t blame the guy. He was just doing his job.
It was council who decided to hold a hearing about changing the borough zoning code to clear the way for a 46-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill in a medium-sized room and not the gymnasium, which, like the landfill, is extra-large and a structure.
I squeezed into the hearing about 10 minutes later and caught the tail end of Keystone engineer Al Magnotta’s spiel, which amounted to, “Nice little town ya got here. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Magnotta joined Keystone attorneys Jeff Belardi and David Overstreet in painting a grim future where Bucktown is a financial basket case ruined by sky-high taxes and unnecessary legal expenses, a forlorn wasteland that might have been saved by a sky-high mountain of out-of-state trash.
Oh, and landfills aren’t structures because they don’t have roofs.
The crowd was neither impressed nor intimidated. The first speaker, Janet Brier, called Keystone’s argument “ludicrous” before turning to council.
“What I’m here tonight to ask of all of you is to just think about our beautiful little town,” she said. “And have the courage that I know all of you have in your hearts, to speak truth to power and to defend our town.”
The second speaker, Kevin McDonald, pointed out that landfill roofs are called “caps.” Every landfill has one, eventually. Pat Clark, a co-founder of Friends of Lackawanna, reminded council that it had no legal obligation to acknowledge Keystone’s request to amend the zoning ordinance, let alone grant it.
The question of whether landfills are structures subject to zoning is being decided in Commonwealth Court. Keystone’s request was an end-around the judicial system. Council had the choice to sit it out and let the bench call the game.
Speaker after speaker sang the praises of a tightknit community with a proud past and a bright future and begged council to protect and preserve it for generations of Dunmoreans.
It was impossible to resist the sense of hope and determination swelling in the room. The people put their trust in the seven neighbors they elected. Maybe they could be swayed, after all.
Then Mike McHale’s backbone snapped. In a scenery-chewing soliloquy to his troubles, the sad-eyed councilman said he’s been unemployed for almost a year and is facing bankruptcy, but has never taken a bribe. That’s some badge of honor.
McHale said he and his children had been harassed and called names by expansion opponents. The martyr act was a preamble to McHale asking preemptive forgiveness for the sin he was about to commit.
Council President Michael Dempsey, Vice President Thomas J. Hallinan and Councilman Vince Amico voted to reject the request.
McHale, Councilwoman Carol Scrimalli, and Councilmen Thomas Ehnot and Michael Hayes voted to embrace it, and the shame and public scorn that come with it. Their names should be engraved on Dunmore’s tombstone.
Michele Dempsey, a co-founder of Friends of Lackawanna, looked back on the five-year fight the grassroots group has waged against the expansion and shook her head in disbelief.
“This is the night Dunmore died,” she said.
The obituary seems premature, but the sentiment is dead-on. A landfill is a complex structure that undermines a community and keeps its people down. A dump is a community whose leaders lack the backbone to stand up and do the right thing, even when all they have to do is nothing.
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, will have a Ken Bond update in his Wednesday column.
Contact the writer:
kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his award-winning blog at times-tribuneblogs.com/kelly.