The LuLac Edition #1900, January 13th, 2012

1900 and counting!!!


Working on the blog with a constant companion on my left.


Interim County Manager Tom Pribula.

1900 AND COUNTING

Today marks the 1900th Edition of the LuLac Political Letter. We thank you for your support and for comments. These articles, contrary to public belief are not fueled by performance enhancing drugs or liquids. All we use on occasion is TAB. All that said, on to 2000!!

THANKS PATRICK J.

A friend of mine from college and the radio station there, WRKC FM, Pat Fadden intervened recently in a LuLac crisis. Pat and his wife Marian were visiting one of their daughters in the Philadelphia area. Pat knew that since Sunshine closed, my supply of Tab was at its nadir. He was kind of enough to grab some in a Philadelphia area store. So I wish to publicly thank you and as the articles get better, you should too!

PRIBULA’S PROPOSAL

Interim Luzerne County Manager Tom Pribula joins the growing rank of elected and unelected public officials that are encountering a problem: shock and surprise. Pribula was always a budget hawk under the Petrilla administration telling the Commissioners what they didn’t want to hear. He was kind of like that one buddy of yours who knows the calories count of the wings and beer you consume at a Super Bowl party and dutifully tells you what you don’t need to hear at the 2 minute mark: in excess this stuff will kill you. Pribula has made a practice of telling people in government that in order to get the budget under control, you have to trim the sails. Last night Pribula proposed cutting some calories off of the County’s on going Super Bowl bash that has plunged it into debt for years. He proposed a tax increase and everyone seemed to be fainting in shock and surprise, slapping their foreheads until they were bloody and expressing wide eyed shock. I thought it hysterical when I saw the comments on the newspaper on line editions. In one week Pribula went from a “straight shooting savior” to a “lackey we got to get rid of”. The tax increase is 3.93 percent property tax increase in the amended 2012 county budget. It wasn’t a whopping increase like Lackawanna County officials are so fond of doling out.
The increase would raise taxes from 5.215 mills to 5.4 mills and amount to $20.50 more on a $100,000 property. Plus the tax hike would generate about $3.5 million and reduce the number of staff cuts from up to 150 to 56. No one likes taxes but I thought everybody who voted for the charter was on the same page that the reason why we needed a change was to put leaders in charge who would do the right if not painful thing. In true Luzerne County style, not one County Council member supported the proposal. I mean what in the world did they think he was going to come up with? The County is in debt. Its bills aren’t being paid. It has no credit rating. And these guys on Council take a straw poll? In real dollars a tax increase will cost a guy like me twenty bucks. A year. That’s lunch at the Beer Deli. For those who live in better neighborhoods or areas and have more expensive houses, that might compute to $60.00 bucks a year. Not to promote class envy here but if you have a $300,000 home and bitch about paying $60.00 bucks extra in county taxes, shame on you. Maybe when the county does get enough money to build a new prison they should put it across the street from your McMansion.
Then there are the County employees. Never been a fan because when I worked in the news media covering trials and Commissioners meetings I’d see my fair share of people preening through the halls and socializing. But the County does need people to make it work and run. Without the tax increase, 156 people would lose their jobs. The County Council wants to do a modified increase that will only come back to bite them in the butt in a few years. With the tax increase, there would only be 56 staff cuts.
Plus staff cuts are concerning because there are many working in the county that are paid by state and federal reimbursements. So you can’t touch those people. Then you have tenured people that with their union’s will threaten to sue. More trouble than its worth. The courts, don’t even think about it. So the county worker who will get screwed will be the person with the least protection, the least clout and the most to lose.
Without a tax increase, (unless Pribula can contact one of Tom Leighton’s 2006 benefactors or prevail upon the Applewood Golf Course guy who won 32 million to donate) that money needs to be raised. And yes I’m sorry to say but it has to come through your taxes.
The Interim Manager did what he said he was going to do. Now the County Council, most of them who ran as “citizen activists and not politicians” are sitting back and calculating how this will impact on their future. Please! What fools the people who voted in this form of government were to think that politics would be set aside as the guy they hired to get them through this crisis told them what needed to be done. If the Council does not vote for an increase to save the county from its debt, my only wish is that all 11 of them have to look in the eyes of the county employees they are letting go in order to save their political asses. Pribula like Tom Corbett told them what he was going to do in terms of cuts and budgets……to take a straw poll is totally ridiculous. But I guess people without spines shock easily.