Luzerne County government churned through a variety of issues and projects in 2024.
Not surprisingly, elections dominated much of the year.
In the April primary, voters convened a study commission to consider changes to the county’s home rule structure.
The primary results were not fully certified until September due to the exceedingly tight 117th Legislative District race between Jamie Walsh and incumbent Mike Cabell, which prompted court challenges up to the state Supreme Court and resulted in Walsh winning the Republican nomination and, later, the seat.
Leading up to the Nov. 7 general election, there were raucous debates about mail ballot drop boxes and angst about election security and the county’s ability to handle the avalanche turnout of the presidential election, which ended up at 75%.
County Republicans celebrated their turning of the voter registration majority from blue to red, which has been gradually in the making for years.
County officials also wrestled with replacement plans for the county-owned Nanticoke/West Nanticoke Bridge over the Susquehanna River and the spending of opioid litigation settlement funds and the remainder of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
There also were new faces on county council and several top county division head posts. The inevitable cycle of turnover will continue into 2025 with the recent announcements of Stefanie J. Salavantis as the new county Court of Common Pleas president judge and Democrat Denise Williams’ resignation from the fifth chairmanship seat on the county election board.
Elections
Primary voters selected seven citizens to serve on the county’s Government Study Commission: Cindy Malkemes (treasurer), Vito Malacari (vice chair), Mark Shaffer, Stephen J. Urban, Ted Ritsick (secretary), Timothy McGinley (chair) and Matt Mitchell.
The panel has been meeting regularly to assess potential charter changes and aims to place its proposal on the November 2025 ballot. Voters will then decide whether to switch to a new design or keep the system in effect since January 2012.
So far, a commission majority has decided county council should be reduced from 11 to seven members.
Another primary highlight was the county election board’s post-election adjudication of results in the Republican race for state representative in the 117th District. Because the race was so close, the unfolding battle over each vote became consuming and involved multiple hearings over which ballots should be counted.
When the board officially certified the race months later, in September, Walsh ended up with a four-vote lead over Cabell.
In the debate about mail ballot drop boxes, hours were spent at public meetings during the year, hearing crowds of voters present opposing views on the topic.
County Manager Romilda Crocamo announced in September the county won’t have any drop boxes in the Nov. 5 general due to safety and security concerns. The following month, Crocamo agreed to provide the boxes in response to Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle A. Henry’s letter informing her the county election board has sole authority over the deployment of drop boxes under the state’s election code.
A board majority had approved four boxes in prior elections, but only the two inside county-owned properties in Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre were deployed for the general election because the remaining two hosted by outside entities could not be anchored to a floor or wall. The county also set up a box inside the election bureau.
Among the added security measures for the general election were boulders Crocamo had placed around the Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, which houses elections, to block unauthorized vehicles from entering the street-level parking lot and ground-level lobby area.
The boulders and other precautions were recommended by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security following an inspection she requested to identify potential risks and concerns, she said.
Following the general, Crocamo announced the county law office will be preparing an assessment of all issues that surfaced, including recommendations for policy changes. Those issues included a vendor’s misspelling of a state representative candidate on mail ballots that were then reissued, the mistaken premature unsealing of segregated ballots and 74 provisional ballots from Plymouth and Dorrance townships detected during a recount that were returned in the wrong format from the polling places.
Crocamo also is assembling a task force to push state legislators to address state election law provisions that are taxing ection bureaus, including the law’s silence on drop boxes and its allowance of mail ballot applications (and on-demand voting) close to the election.
The county’s voter registration officially flipped from a Democratic to Republican majority in September after years of a shrinking gap between the parties.
County business
The county is in the process of selecting an engineer that must come up with three options for the deteriorated bridge over the Susquehanna River connecting Nanticoke and the West Nanticoke section of Plymouth Township, which was constructed in 1914 and last rehabilitated in 1987.
Three options were already presented for the bridge early in the year by Alfred Benesch and Associates, which had been hired by the county before federal funding was involved.
However, the county must start from scratch in determining a solution for the bridge because $10 million in federal funding has been allocated to the project through the state, officials said. Benesch’s work thus far cannot be applied to the final project because the selection process for the engineer must go through the PennDOT procurement system, officials had said.
The county’s other funding source for the bridge is a $55 million casino gambling fund established for county infrastructure.
The weight limit of the bridge was reduced to 5 tons in May, which allows passenger vehicles but not fire trucks and emergency rescue vehicles.
Another county infrastructure project stood out — the remodeled operations building in Wyoming unveiled in June — because it was completed with recycled material, including ceiling tiles and flooring.
Longtime county Recycling Coordinator Beth DeNardi dreamed of an office building that would showcase environmentally-conscious remodeling and saved up approximately $4 million in landfill fees and grants for many years to make it a reality without any impact on the county’s general fund operating budget.
Regarding opioid settlement funds, council voted in August and December to earmark a total $2.56 million for a range of internal and outside projects that met eligible uses, including programs that provide medication-assisted treatment at the prison, warm hand-off and recovery specialist services and school opioid prevention education programs.
Throughout the year, council visited sites to check out projects and programs completed with earmarks from the county’s federal American Rescue Plan Act funding. No additional awards are expected because council specified uses for leftover funds.
Council had earmarked $55 million to more than 100 outside entities for projects already finished or in the works. All projects must be completed by the end of 2026.
On the financial front, county officials gathered in the courthouse rotunda in November to announce the county won’t be temporarily borrowing funds at the start of 2025 to help pay bills until real estate tax revenue arrives. Survival without an annual short-term tax revenue anticipation loan was identified as a “fiscal milestone.”
Council unanimously adopted a no-tax-hike 2025 budget.
Expenditures include $26.3 million to pay off past debt, although council members and the administration regularly broadcast that the county is scheduled to repay all debt in 2030.
The 2025 budget relies on one-time revenue streams, in part to offset real estate tax revenue loss: $3 million in American Rescue Plan interest and $1 million carried over from the reserve.
Hits to county revenue include a real estate tax assessment reduction for the Wyoming Valley Mall in Wilkes-Barre Township that decreased from $68.7 million to $13.6 million. This equates to approximately $350,000 less for the county annually.
Changing faces
Democrats Patty Krushnowski, Jimmy Sabatino, Joanna Bryn Smith and Brittany Stephenson joined county council in January, and past councilman Republican Harry Haas returned to the legislative body. Incumbent LeeAnn McDermott also was elected to another four-year term.
They serve with five council members in seats that will be on the ballot in 2025: Kevin Lescavage, John Lombardo, Chris Perry, Brian Thornton and Gregory S. Wolovich Jr.
During council’s reorganization meeting at the start of 2024, Lombardo was named the council chair, while Thornton was selected as vice chair.
Emily Cook was hired as the county’s new election director in June and had served as acting election director since Eryn Harvey left the position in February. Cook started working for the election bureau in 2021. Steve Hahn was promoted to the second-in-command election deputy position in July.
Some of the county’s eight division heads changed in 2024.
Joseph Yeager was hired as chief public defender in February, filling a position vacated by Steven Greenwald’s October 2023 termination. Also in February, Jennifer Pecora was hired as operational services division head, which was open due to Greg Kurtz’s December 2023 resignation. Jim Rose was hired in April to fill the administrative services division head position previously held by Pecora. Paula Radick became the new judicial services and records division head in July, which opened up when Joan Hoggarth retired in May.
There are now two division head vacancies that must be filled. Lynn Hill resigned as human services division head in the fall, and Pecora submitted her resignation Dec. 23 to accept another position outside county government.
On the volunteer election board, Williams resigned in December because she is running for county council. Under the charter, the four council-appointed board members — two Democrats and two Republicans — must select a fifth citizen of any affiliation or no affiliation to fill the fifth seat, which is also the chairmanship. Williams, a Democrat, had been unanimously selected to fill the fifth chairmanship seat in April 2021 by four prior election board members.
Salavantis was selected as the new president judge through a vote of her judicial colleagues and will begin the leadership post on Jan. 4. Judge Michael T. Vough has served as president judge since January 2020, and someone new must be selected every five years.
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
