Contentious special meeting of Lansford Borough Council ends with lack of quorum

Lansford Borough Council held a special meeting on Wednesday, the last meeting for council members who were not re-elected for 2018.

Mayor James Romankow and council members Matthew Walsh, Colin Jones and John Turcmanovich were absent. Newly elected council members Bob Silver and Marie Ondrus were present in the audience.

The council held a short executive session and returned to discuss the borough’s garage, which was deemed unsafe by the state Department of Labor and Industry. The agency which gave the borough a deadline of March 23 to comply with its recommendations or condemn the building.

Paul Jarrett had sent a letter to the borough with recommendations for the building that needed to be acted upon by Jan. 2, but solicitor Michael Greek explained that Jarrett, who represents Lehigh Valley Inspection Service, the borough’s zoning and code enforcement authority, cannot operate on his own because he works for the municipality.

Former Councilman Lenny Kovach interjected from the audience, saying he believes the only reason for Jarrett’s action was to cover himself because the building was in bad shape. Kovach said he didn’t think Jarrett should have acted above and beyond Labor and Industry.

Councilwoman Rose Mary Cannon commented that she wanted to make clear that the current council had done everything in its power to help provide a new borough garage. She said bids came in over $100,000 more than what had been anticipated for a $300,000 USDA loan or grant. She said the cost for a pole building and the floor came in at $160,000, and the rest of the work came in at $300,000.

Cannon suggested the new council could bid the project again in the spring. The USDA loan for a newly built building has to be used by June 2020, or the council has to reapply.

Kovach and Silver engaged the council (namely Rose Mary Cannon and Martin Ditsky) in a discussion about how they felt the bidding process should have been handled.

Kovach reminded the council he had offered to prep the land for the new building so that the bids would have come back lower had the borough agreed to work on the land beforehand on its own, as he had suggested. Cannon explained the lender is the one that determines the conditions of a project, saying the borough could not have even shoveled a bit of dirt before the whole process.

There was also a discussion regarding the contents of the borough’s garage being moved from its current location, and Cannon said workers should not be bringing anything else into the borough building from the garage, other than paperwork and documents. Discussions regarding renting or buying storage trailers for the contents of the garage was also part of the interaction between Kovach and the council, namely Joe Butrie, as he thought he could make some phone calls and get better pricing on trailers which were quoted at over $2,500, and he had bought one at $1,200.

Kovach was sympathetic of the borough workers needing to get their stuff out of their current building, due to its deplorable conditions, and not having a place to go at the moment. Cannon said someone had called Labor and Industry, resulting in the situation getting to its current point. “Shame on them,” she said.

Ditsky stated: “I’m not going to say as far as Lansford and everything else, all I’m saying is tonight is my last council meeting and truthfully it’s been fun, thank you very much for working with me, I appreciate everyone’s help, goodbye, good luck. As far as this garage thing is concerned, let the next council deal with it!”

The police bargaining agreement was on the agenda, but Ditsky, who faces charges related to an incident in a borough, grabbed his coat and left.

When Cannon reminded Ditsky that by leaving the session, “We won’t have a quorum!”

Ditsky replied, “I don’t care! I told you before, I could cite places in this town where the police need to go around and issue tickets, they’re not getting tickets!He said, “The new council should deal with it.”

The meeting was adjourned for lack of quorum, and no executive actions took place.