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After three years, Ashley officals want to move into their new building

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Muckin blasts Tunkhannock to Legion title

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A city council member on Tuesday again voiced concerns she has with Mayor Tony George&#8217;s choice of a new bank to handle six city checking accounts.</p><p>Noting that George&#8217;s administration did as the council previously asked and sought requests for proposals from banks interested in handling the accounts, City Administrator Ted Wampole told the council at its work session that Director of Finance Brett Kittrick analyzed the eight responses.</p><p>Wampole said the &#8220;best option&#8221; was determined to be Dunmore-based First National Community Bank, and he asked that accounts for Kirby Park, the Office of Community Development, the OCD Emergency Shelter, state grants, federal grants and long-term investments be closed at Citizens Bank and opened at FNCB.</p><p>As it had earlier this year, FNCB in its proposal offered to handle the accounts without charging fees while earning interest, Wampole said. The city has been paying approximately $1,200 in monthly fees to maintain the accounts in Citizens Bank.</p><p>Switching the accounts to FNCB is set to be on the agenda for a vote at the council meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday on the fourth floor in City Hall.</p><p>Councilman Mike Merritt, who earlier this year, along with Councilwoman Beth Gilbert, was outspoken against switching to FNCB, said on Tuesday he didn&#8217;t want to be &#8220;obstructionist,&#8221; and &#8220;if Brett tells me that&#8217;s the best choice for the city, I will vote for it.&#8221;</p><p><strong>The DeNaples factor</strong></p><p>In April, <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/533925/wilkes-barre-council-to-request-bank-account-proposals-asked-to-consider-switching-landfills" target="_blank">the council stopped the mayor from switching the accounts to FNCB</a>, for which controversial Dunmore-area businessman Louis A. DeNaples serves as a director and holds approximately 10 percent of its common stock.</p><p>Gilbert later said the city &#8220;shouldn&#8217;t do business with someone of such questionable character,&#8221; and Merritt agreed with her, saying the city shouldn&#8217;t send any more city business to DeNaples-affiliated companies.</p><p>The city has had a long-standing agreement to dump garbage at the Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Lackawanna County, of which DeNaples is listed as president. And in April, George bumped Trans-Med &#8212; another company connected to DeNaples &#8212; to the top of the city&#8217;s backup ambulance list ahead of three other companies in the plan.</p><p>DeNaples faced perjury charges in 2008 for allegedly lying about his relationship to organized crime figures when he sought a state license for Mount Airy Casino. He ultimately was not prosecuted, and went on to place the casino in a trust under his daughter&#8217;s name, giving her full ownership.</p><p>Thirty years earlier, DeNaples pleaded no contest to a federal fraud charge related to local cleanup efforts after flooding from Tropical Storm Agnes devastated the Wyoming Valley in 1972.</p><p><strong>Additional concerns</strong></p><p>Gilbert asked what would keep FNCB from changing its offer of waiving all fees sometime in the future.</p><p>Merritt asked the administration to have the bank provide a specific length of time for which the waiver of fees and quoted interest rates would continue.</p><p>Gilbert also said FNCB&#8217;s offer &#8220;sounds too good to be true,&#8221; and that &#8220;the overall reputation of the bank&#8221; concerned her as well. She said she recently learned that the bank was switching from a national charter to a state charter.</p><p>&#8220;Usually, small banks and credit unions try to do the opposite &#8212; they want to grow their charter for a larger population. So, I think them showing that they&#8217;re regressing rather than progressing is a concern. And they&#8217;ve been shrouded in controversy for years, and I just think it&#8217;s disconcerting for the city to be in business with someone like that. And there are other options that are comparable,&#8221; Gilbert said.</p><p>According to Times Leader archives, in February 2015, the U.S. Department of Treasury&#8217;s <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/archive/218800/news-local-news-news-152100792-2" target="_blank">Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced a $1.5 million civil penalty against FNCB</a> after an admission that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act.</p><p>The Bank admitted that it failed to file suspicious activity reports on transactions involving illicit proceeds from the &#8220;Kids for Cash&#8221; judicial corruption scheme &#8211; spanning over five years &#8211; for which former Luzerne County judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were ultimately convicted.</p><p>Gilbert also said that the bank in 2010 was under federal regulatory enforcement action.</p><p>&#8220;It seems even since 2010, they haven&#8217;t improved very much because they&#8217;re regressing in their charter,&#8221; Gilbert said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wilkes-Barre Councilwoman Beth Gilbert listens to a presentation at a work session on Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_Gilbert_cropped-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wilkes-Barre Councilwoman Beth Gilbert listens to a presentation at a work session on Tuesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Steve Mocarsky | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Councilwoman concerned about banks ties to DeNaples</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Steve Mocarsky</p><p>smocarsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Steve Mocarsky at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @TLSteveMocarsky.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Gilbert still opposes giving Wilkes-Barre accounts to DeNaples-linked bank