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New congressional maps challenge Luzerne County election office

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Former Penn State, NFL standout Hamilton waives preliminary hearing

<p>It&#8217;s not often that local governments turn down outside funding.</p><p>And yet, <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/698765/luzerne-county-recreation-grants-falling-short-for-some" target="_blank">Dupont Borough did exactly that, Councilman Stanley Knick Jr. said </a><a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/698765/luzerne-county-recreation-grants-falling-short-for-some" target="_blank">Tuesday</a>, because the $4,424 in natural-gas recreation funding they have coming from Luzerne County won&#8217;t cover the $11,271 Dupont wanted to spend on improvements to the borough&#8217;s Community Park.</p><p>Knick said the remaining $6,847 is &#8220;too much to come up with&#8221; for his small municipality.</p><p>And there&#8217;s the rub. It&#8217;s not uncommon for such grants to be pitched on a matching-dollar basis. Knowing that, municipalities can plan accordingly. That&#8217;s not what happened here.</p><p>Fourteen municipalities and two nonprofits applied to the county for a share of $70,782 in leftover natural-gas recreation funding. Admittedly, the overall wish-list of $309,782 was way beyond the amount available. But instead of choosing a limited number of projects to fully fund, <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/678777/luzerne-county-awards-natural-gas-recreation-funding" target="_blank">a county council majority in October decided to simply divvy up the remaining money equally among all 16 </a><a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/local/678777/luzerne-county-awards-natural-gas-recreation-funding" target="_blank">applicants</a>.</p><p>The result: $4,424 each.</p><p>We don&#8217;t need to tell any homeowner how much it costs to replace a roof or a septic system, for example. Likewise, the costs of even modest improvements to facilities used by an entire community do not come cheap.</p><p>Sure, some of the requests were big. Slocum Township asked for the highest amount &#8212; $39,999.99 &#8212; to upgrade playground equipment for children up to 5 years old, including those with disabilities. Butler Township also requested $35,000 toward the construction of a trail network and purchase of playground equipment for children with disabilities.</p><p>We have no objection to either project, both of which sound quite worthy. At the same time, however, there were many smaller requests, too &#8212; $7,500 to create a football field in Hazle Township, $6,752 for park improvements in Shickshinny and $5,218 for new park bleachers in Larksville.</p><p>Councilman Robert Schnee proposed the equal allocation approach after predicting he and his 10 colleagues could spend hours debating the merits of each and still be unable to reach majority consensus. Schnee also speculated some applicants may have overestimated the amount of money needed to complete their projects.</p><p>The fact that Dupont and other applicants are crying foul is not a surprise, as it was obvious six months ago that the funding would fall short for most applicants.</p><p>The status of the projects will be discussed at the April 10 county work session. In the meanwhile, we&#8217;re left wondering whether council members did the right thing or the politically expedient thing.</p><p>If Schnee was really worried about spending hours debating, his priorities were seriously misplaced. We elected these people to make tough choices, like picking winners and losers from a list of 16 applicants. We suspect that on some level, the understandable political fear of alienating some communities was the real factor at work here. That&#8217;s not good enough.</p><p>As one reader commented after the October vote: &#8220;Terrible idea, everybody got just enough to do nothing.&#8221;</p><p>&#8211; Times Leader</p><style>
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Our view: Council dropped the ball with rec funding decision