Power Worries Some
By STEVE MOCARSKY [email protected]
Sunday, July 17, 2005 Page: 1B
Questions have surfaced about the city authority spearheading a
multimillion-dollar mineland reclamation project to backfill stripping pits
with dredge.
Members of a local taxpayers association worry the Hazleton Redevelopment
Authority has operated without any state oversight for the last several years
in possible violation of the law and question if the authority is too closely
tied to the city.
The authority is at the forefront of a project that could include the use
of a controversial river dredge mixture to fill in pits and cover landfills
behind the Hazleton Shopping Center. It has also received some state funding
for the project.
Hazleton Taxpayer Association member and local businesswoman Dee Deakos
contends the state should be keeping tabs on the authority.
“When you spend money, there has to be accountability to somebody. Right
now, there’s no oversight,” Deakos said.
She also questioned whether authority chairman Robert Dougherty should be
sitting on the authority because he is employed by the city as its engineer
and director of the Department of Public Works.
Deakos said authorities are supposed to be autonomous from the municipal
governments that created them.
“As a city employee, he shouldn’t even be on the authority because he has
to worry about losing his job if he does something the mayor doesn’t like,”
Deakos said.
Dougherty said he was authority chairman before he became a city employee.
“I don’t see any problem working in both roles,” he said.
The state Department of Community and Economic Development doesn’t have a
record of the Hazleton Redevelopment Authority in its database, said
department spokesman Greg Morgan.
And it is unclear exactly which rules govern the authority’s operations
because officials haven’t been able to find a copy of its original bylaws.
Hazleton Taxpayer Association member Grace Cuozzo said she asked to see the
authority’s audits two months ago and was told the authority doesn’t conduct
audits.
The state’s Municipal Authorities Act requires authorities to conduct
annual audits and file annual financial reports with the DCED.
Dougherty told a reporter that the authority is “referenced” in annual
audits conducted by the city. He didn’t know if the auditors reviewed all of
the authority’s financial records.
Authority solicitor David Glassberg said he’s not sure whether the
authority is governed by the state Municipal Authorities Act or the state
Urban Redevelopment Law. He wouldn’t offer an opinion about whether annual
audits of the authority are necessary until he can determine how the authority
was established.
Glassberg said the authority must have been established under one of the
two acts.
But, regardless of which law governs the authority, authority members
haven’t followed certain guidelines in either law.
The Urban Redevelopment Act of 1945 states redevelopment authorities shall
file with the state Department of Community Affairs (which has since been
replaced by the DCED) copies of all redevelopment proposals and redevelopment
contracts, any changes to those proposals and contracts, and an annual report
of its activities.
DCED spokesman Morgan said the authority has not filed anything with his
department for several years. He declined to say how a complaint about how the
authority operates could be filed until after the authority solicitor
determines how the authority was established.
Dougherty said he was unaware of state requirements for filing the
authority’s financial or project paperwork, and the topic never came up in the
five years he has been chairman. He said he would follow the solicitor’s
advice on what reports to file with the state in the future.
Glassberg said he sent a request to the state Department of State on Monday
asking for the authority’s incorporation papers. He added that he hopes the
papers will provide insight as to which law governs the authority, which was
established in 1960.
The authority was inactive for years before Mayor Louis Barletta took
office. The reconstituted authority has handled numerous property acquisitions
and demolitions, plus the Pine Street Housing Project, over the past five
years.