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Torrential rain floods roads, strands drivers Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre

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Coal Miner Heritage Day tribute set for Friday at Luzerne County Courthouse

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The city council tonight will consider amending the nuisance ordinance to knock about two weeks off the time the city must wait to issue citations to some owners of problem properties.</p><p>Councilman Mike Belusko said at Tuesday&#8217;s work session that &#8220;it seems to take a long time to get anything done in the city&#8221; when it comes to properties that are nuisances in their neighborhoods, with code violations such as high weeds or garbage and debris in yards.</p><p>&#8220;We send out a (registered) letter, we have to wait approximately 20 days before we get it back. If the resident doesn&#8217;t pick it up, it sits in the post office till the post office says it&#8217;s undeliverable and they deliver it back to us. That&#8217;s when the five days start,&#8221; Belusko said.</p><p>Belusko said the city sent out 510 registered letters for nuisance ordinance violations between Jan. 1 and June 30 at a cost of $6.49 each, or about $3,300 for six months of registered letters.</p><p>He said the city&#8217;s current ordinance &#8220;is handcuffing us. I think it&#8217;s totally ridiculous and that we should eliminate that, send it out regular mail, save the residents $6,600 a year. I propose we send it out regular mail and when that five days expires, the property gets cited.&#8221;</p><p>The current ordinance also directs that the notice to be mailed (or hand-delivered) to the property owner contain &#8220;an order to abate the nuisance or to request a hearing within a stated time, which shall be reasonable under the circumstance.&#8221;</p><p>The proposed amendment omits the wording about the property owner having the option to request a hearing. It also omits wording that the amount of time to abate the nuisance be &#8220;reasonable under the circumstances.&#8221;</p><p>And despite Belusko declaring that property owners would have five days to abate the nuisance, the amended version presented to council on Tuesday makes no mention of a time frame.</p><p>The amended version does, however, institute a fine of $1,000 per infraction and it deems infractions to be considered summary offenses.</p><p>In other business, council will consider:</p><p>&#8226; Approving the sale of a property at 125 S. Washington St. to the Seligman J. Strauss Lodge of B&#8217;nai B&#8217;rith Housing Foundation for $90,000. The property would be exempt from taxes because the foundation is nonprofit, but city Administrator Ted Wampole said B&#8217;nai B&#8217;rith officials are open to talking about increasing their payments in lieu of taxes.</p><p>&#8226; Authorizing the administration to apply for an $872,248 Multimodal Transportation Fund grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority to be used for the George Avenue Streetscape Project.</p><p>&#8226; Authorizing King&#8217;s College to hang signs extending over the sidewalk from the Leo&#8217;s on Main restaurant at the corner of North Main and North streets.</p><p>&#8226; Authorizing the purchase of seven computers for new police cars, with the $33,391.68 cost to be paid with U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency grant funds.</p><p>&#8226; <a href="http://tlgets.me/jpo" target="_blank">Transferring six checking accounts from Citizens Bank to First National Community Bank of Dunmore, as previously reported.</a></p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Belusko </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_belusko_toned.jpg</photo0><caption0>Belusko </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Steve Mocarsky</p><p>smocarsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p>The Wilkes-Barre City Council meets at 6 p.m. Thursday on the fourth floor of City Hall, 40 E. Market St.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Steve Mocarsky at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @TLSteveMocarsky.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Wilkes-Barre council to consider amending nuisance ordinance