Luzerne County government employees with 40 or more years of service will be honored Tuesday.
County Manager Randy Robertson said the employee appreciation ceremony will showcase veteran workers and urged the public to attend.
The event starts at 5 p.m. in the courthouse rotunda on River Street in Wilkes-Barre.
Tuesday meetings
Council will hold a public hearing followed by a voting meeting and work session Tuesday night at the courthouse.
The public hearing at 5:50 p.m. is for a proposed ordinance incorporating a $1.04 million state Election Integrity Grant in the county’s budget.
The election integrity grant is designed to ensure counties across the state have their mail ballots counted by midnight on election night. A council majority had agreed to use a portion of the funds to purchase a mail ballot sorting machine to speed up the ballot receipt recording and Election Day processing. The election bureau also plans to use the funds to cover temporary workers and other expenses.
Only two matters are on Tuesday’s voting agenda: adoption of the election integrity grant ordinance and introduction of a rezoning ordinance that would allow residential development of a 41.17-acre parcel in Newport Township.
Instructions to remotely attend the meeting are posted under council’s online meeting link at luzernecounty.org.
Work session
Several matters are up for work session discussion in addition to a consultant’s briefing on applicants seeking county American Rescue Plan funding.
The administration is requesting permission to apply for a $1.43 million state Multimodal Transportation Fund Grant for road improvements and the addition of a bike lane on West County Road in Sugarloaf and Black Creek townships. A match of $429,000, or 30%, would be required from the county.
The county has received some funding for West County Road but needs more to complete the entire stretch, the agenda said.
In another matter, the county Information Technology Department is asking council to change the roster of projects that will be funded with a previously approved American Rescue allocation and omit one, which would allow $75,000 to be reprogrammed for other earmarks.
Act 13
Council’s Act 13 Committee, which focuses on recreational funding from the natural gas industry, will hold its first meeting this year at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the courthouse.
Council members Brian Thornton, Kevin Lescavage and LeeAnn McDermott serve on this committee.
Ethics Commission
The county Ethics Commission will meet at 10 a.m. Friday in the courthouse.
This meeting will focus on continued efforts to hire enforcement attorneys, the agenda said.
The council-adopted ethics code requires the commission to appoint a panel of three attorneys who are not employed by the county to handle the initial stage of complaint investigations, with cases assigned to the outside attorneys on a rotating basis.
Two of the three outside attorney slots were filled in June, but one of those attorneys subsequently left, the commission’s August agenda said.
To assist with recruitment, the commission had increased the attorney compensation to $225 per hour with a maximum cap of $25,000 per year. It was previously $140 per hour for up to $21,000 per year.
Serving on the commission are Robertson, county Controller Walter Griffith, county District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce and council-appointed citizen board members Diane Dreier and Thomas Mosca, who serves as board chairman.
Election testing
The public is invited to observe county voting equipment logic and accuracy testing at 10 a.m. Monday in the voter warehouse, 135 Water St. in Wilkes-Barre.
This testing is required before each election.