Citty Beat 2-15-08

CITY BEAT

By George Murin
February 15, 2008

Washington- February 7th’s city council meeting was a model of efficiency. Over seventy items were on the agenda and the meeting took only 50 minutes. In times past this meeting might have taken over three hours. There was no bickering, name calling, fighting or endless lines of citizens complaining about city council. Business was conducted and discussed in a concise timely manner. What a refreshing change this administration has accomplished. The atmosphere at city hall has improved also; with many of the employees actually enjoying coming to work. “Smooth and efficient”, one employee said to me.

The meeting started with motions to approve minutes of past council meetings. The meetings from December 6th and 13th seemed to fail to gain approval with Mayor Spossey, and Councilmen Blackhurst and Faust abstaining; and Councilwoman Ullom and Councilman Staniszewski voting to approve them. How this would affect the business passed at these meetings is unknown to me?

Then came the public participation part of the meeting; Police Chief Roger Blyth was the only speaker. He spoke on a $26,000 donation from MSA, a supplier of safety equipment. The company donated equipment to the police C.E.R.T. team in exchange for using city police officers and equipment in their latest catalog. It was told to me that Chief Blyth is an excellent administrator and master of getting things for his department. I believe he will turn out to be a superb Chief. Since his appointment many of his officers have told me that the moral in the department is being restored.

After this, council took a brief executive session to discuss the VisionQuest appeal; this was actually brief, lasting only 3 minutes. When council returned they suspended the appeal against the opening of the facility for troubled teenage girls with a 5-0 vote. The facility was allowed to open by court ruling because the city failed to notify the owners in a timely manner of the denial. Who was responsible for this debacle? No one has yet to take responsibility. Some blame the ex-city solicitor, the past council or the code enforcement officer. After the meeting, talking with residents of the neighborhood, this matter is not over. They will make sure that VisionQuest crosses every ‘t’ and dots every ‘i’; if they are going to remain open they will be held to the highest standard. The PA State Department of Education is involved to make sure they are running the place with all the proper credentials.

Most of the meeting dealt with the usual paying of bills. The highlights were; passing an addendum to the police and fire departments contracts so that health care would become standard throughout the city and the cost of the insurance would be lower; The hiring of Firefighter Zachary Howard to bring the fire department up to full staffing. (The police and street department are still under staffed.); and of course the tax increase of 30 mils.

All of council voted for the tax increase but Staniszewski, who claimed council “was making the easy choice”. The other members of council agreed that there was no other way to solve the mess except by laying off either the entire police or fire departments and that was not an option. Spossey said that “We are accountable…this was not accomplished lightly…it was not the easy way out.” I guess most residents and businesses of the city have grown to accept this as destiny. No one came to this meeting to complain.