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WBA approves contract for new sport uniforms, borrows money for high school

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Soil, crowding, transportation and land price topics at WBA high school hearing

Luzerne County Manager C. David Pedri is proposing a 3 percent tax hike for 2019 due to rising expenses and a range of other factors.If you want to criticize him for that, have at it.In fact, due to the lofty position he holds within county government, most of what Pedri decides and says is fair game for public debate.And we&#8217;re sure he would agree with us on that point.But what Pedri was called out for at a recent county council meeting was way beyond the scope of what we want to see from our elected officials.In this case, we are pointing a finger at long-time county official and current councilman Stephen A. Urban.He&#8217;s upset about what Pedri reportedly told author Ben Bradlee Jr. for Bradlee&#8217;s book on Luzerne County&#8217;s critical importance in electing Donald Trump in 2016.Pedri, a Democrat, suggested to the county prison union that voting for Trump would be against its economic self-interest, but the workers &#8220;did not care,&#8221; according to a passage in the book.&#8220;They were all voting for him anyway because it was time to shake things up,&#8221; Pedri is quoted as saying.Seems innocuous enough, right?Not in Urban&#8217;s view.Last week, he railed against Pedri and even called for an investigation involving the district attorney because the manager cannot tell workers how to vote while on county time.&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing in his duties that says he&#8217;s a political animal, that he is to go to a union &#8212; any union &#8212; and tell them who to vote for and tell them who their self-interest is,&#8221; said Urban. &#8220;He was hired by council to be the administrator of the county &#8212;not a politician.&#8221;We certainly agree with those last points. You definitely would not want the manager using his considerable power and influence to twist arms for his favored candidates come election time.But this seems different.First, the reported comments would&#8217;ve had to occur before the 2016 presidential election, which means they are least two years old.Urban just learned about them now from the book, but did the remarks prove so harmful they were worth reviving?And is it in the best interest of the county for a councilman to attempt to publicly embarrass/shame the same man just awarded a new four-year contract? (Urban voted against it.)The same man who finally helped clear a budget deficit of about $9.4 million when he took over just two-and-a-half years ago.The same man who recently said 2017 &#8220;may go down as one of the best financial years in Luzerne County history.&#8221;If Urban was irked by Pedri&#8217;s remarks for the book and just had to say something, he could&#8217;ve done it privately.Doing it in such a public fashion was counterproductive.We want Urban to keep asking questions and to serve as a faithful watchdog for taxpayers, as he&#8217;s done for years now. But he could&#8217;ve exercised better discretion in this instance, especially his call for an investigation.That seems absurd at best; politically motivated at worst.The county has started to shed debt and get its financial house in order over the last few years, a time when there&#8217;s been noticeably less in-fighting than in the past.We don&#8217;t believe that&#8217;s a coincidence.Mr. Urban, the public doesn&#8217;t want to see its leaders drawing battle lines over trivial matters.Let&#8217;s keep the focus on the taxpayers and fighting for what&#8217;s best for them. &#8212; Times Leader<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Pedri </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1_Pedri2cmyk.jpeg-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Pedri </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>

Our View: Call to investigate Pedri over remarks in book was absurd