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Lives of Swoyersville siblings who died within hours of each other are celebrated at memorial service

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Tyler Memorial Hospital honors employees at annual dinner

<p>Who? Megyn Kelly? Tell her to hold, I&#8217;m on the phone with Matt Lauer.</p><p>Last week, outgoing Wilkes-Barre City Mayor Tom Leighton was apparently too busy fielding calls from major news personalities, even some from the past, to answer his soon&#8211;to-be successor Tony George&#8217;s questions about unpaid bills.</p><p>Just as Leighton is preparing to leave office on a high note after 12 years, George issued a press release asking why payments of some city bills are 45 days overdue.</p><p>Times Leader Staff Writer Jerry Lynott wanted a comment from Leighton. All things considered, he couldn&#8217;t actually have expected to get right through. Lynott left a message for the good mayor and received this frosty voice mail from Leighton:</p><p>&#8220;Now listen. I&#8217;m returning your call as promptly as possible &#8216;cause I was with WNEP,&#8221; Leighton told him. The rest of the message hinted he might have been having a bit of a holiday meltdown like so many of us at this busy time of year.</p><p>Leighton continued, &#8220;And now I&#8217;m going to be tied up with CNN on this news release that you&#8217;re calling me on. So then I probably&#8217;ll have to go to MSBC (he meant MSNBC) and probably the Bloomberg Report and then CNN Live.&#8221; He didn&#8217;t mention whether Rush Limbaugh or the Wall Street Journal also called, but I&#8217;m sure they they did.</p><p>Leighton urged Lynott to try again.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll do my best to break from Connie Chung or Ted Koppel if I&#8217;m with one of those two. But give me a call. Just another bullet he&#8217;s trying to fire, but again he missed the target. See ya.&#8221;</p><p>Thankfully, Lynott eventually got through to Leighton, presumably right behind Wolf Blitzer and Jon Stewart.</p><p>Lynott learned Leighton used to think Tony George was a nice guy, but not anymore, indicating his successor might be a bit of a dolt. He brought up again the mistakes George made on his campaign finance reports, which Leighton insisted are &#8220;simple&#8221; forms to fill out.</p><p>He took umbrage with George daring to question his handling of the city&#8217;s finances and alleging he violated the city&#8217;s administrative code in failing to notify the council there are bills 45 days past due.</p><p>&#8220;The man should appreciate me and thank me for the job I&#8217;ve done and what I&#8217;m leaving him,&#8221; Leighton said.</p><p>Are thanks really in order if he&#8217;s leaving George a bunch of unpaid bills, which triggered this brouhaha?</p><p>George said, &#8220;I call on Tom Leighton today to pay ALL outstanding bills. Then tell us there&#8217;s a surplus. Right now, Leighton is running a shell game.&#8221; The soon-to-be Mayor George also lobbed this snowball: &#8220;Wilkes-Barre is running on fumes, and the numbers confirm it,&#8221; he said in a Dec. 4 press release to the TL.</p><p>Balderdash, Leighton countered, before casting doubt on George&#8217;s knowledge of the workings of City Hall. He said some bills are routinely paid late and fourth-quarter bills often go unpaid until the first quarter of the new year when revenues come in. Who knew?</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s obvious Mr. George has no idea how he&#8217;s going to run the city,&#8221; said the miffed mayor.</p><p>Yeah, Tony, what about that? Why would you pay bills on time if you don&#8217;t have to? That&#8217;s insane.</p><p>The newspaper reminded us there&#8217;s been bad blood between these two for some time. When Leighton was first elected, he replaced George as police chief. The article also said Leighton still carries a grudge for being saddled with a $10.8 million debt allegedly left from his predecessor Tom McGroarty&#8217;s administration. He said he&#8217;s leaving the city in far better shape for George.</p><p>Twelve years is a long time to harbor resentment, Mr. Mayor. It&#8217;s time to move on.</p><p>Leighton humbly said his 2016 $51.5 million budget is &#8220;a great plan&#8221; and George &#8220;just needs to follow it.&#8221;</p><p>George presented 10 pages of overdue bills. That&#8217;s when Leighton said he prematurely gave George too much credit for his knowledge of city government. He now said that knowledge is &#8220;very limited.&#8221;</p><p>Adding fuel to the yuletide log, Leighton said he doubts George was even the one who wrote his press releases. &#8220;This is not his doing.&#8221; He then attacked George&#8217;s supporters, indicating some of them are from the McGroarty administration. Could it be the mystery author of those press releases that sent Mayor Leighton into a tizzy is Tom McGroarty himself? That Tom sometimes did look like the cat who swallowed the canary.</p><p>After 12 years on the job, Leighton may simply be tired and, hence, a little cranky. Maybe he just needs a big hug.</p><p>Who now? Bill O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s on the line, sir.</p><p>Hang up, I&#8217;m on the phone with Dr. Phil. I may be a while.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Roccograndi </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/web1_Roccograndi-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Roccograndi </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Betty Roccograndi, a Wyoming Valley resident, is an award-winning journalist. Her column, &#8220;Zeroing In,&#8221; runs every Sunday in the Times Leader.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

ZEROING IN: Is outgoing WB mayor Tom Leighton tired, cranky or too busy talking to national media?