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Panera Bread: Wilkes-Barre Twp. store to re-open in fall

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Propane torch cause of Wilkes-Barre fire

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis said Monday she will be seeking her third and final four-year term in this year&#8217;s election.</p><p>The county&#8217;s home rule charter limits the district attorney to three terms.</p><p>A Republican, Salavantis oversees a staff of 68, including 23 full-time and six part-time assistant district attorneys and nine detectives. The office&#8217;s annual budget is $4.57 million this year, with around $842,000 in revenue expected.</p><p>The 36-year-old Kingston resident said she focused heavily on reorganizing the office during her first term to create specialized regional units that worked closely with law enforcement and community members in their prosecution.</p><p>&#8220;I wanted to move us into a direction that we&#8217;re an office people look up to and admire and be one of the leading district attorney offices in the state,&#8221; she said.</p><p>In her second term, she has been largely working on building relationships with law enforcement at all levels, expanding resources for local police departments and looking &#8220;outside the box&#8221; for programs to increase public safety and rehabilitate offenders so they are less likely to return to crime.</p><p>&#8220;Our office is much more than just locking people up and throwing away the key,&#8221; she said.</p><p>Salavantis said she accepts many speaking engagements, attempting to let the public know she is &#8220;approachable.&#8221; She receives emails daily from people informing the office of suspicious activity in their neighborhoods.</p><p>If elected for a third term, her mission would be expanding or adding effective programs, possibly through grant funding.</p><p>For example, the Coalition to STOP Overdoses, which she helped to create, is working with the county drug task force to explore a pre-arrest diversion program that has been working in other areas, especially in the opioid epidemic. The program would all allow law enforcement the option to refrain from filing certain types of charges if offenders fulfill a contract to undergo treatment and meet other requirements, she said. Those with substance use disorder could be more likely to obtain or keep employment if they don&#8217;t have a criminal record, she said.</p><p>&#8220;We want them to remain productive members of society,&#8221; Salavantis said.</p><p>Salavantis said she is seeking a balance but would not swing to the extreme of some who &#8220;look toward the defendant and ignore the victim.&#8221;</p><p>While some offenders &#8220;deserve to be sent to jail&#8221; for their crimes, she supports allowing eligible offenders into diversionary drug treatment, mental health and veteran&#8217;s courts.</p><p>&#8220;These are great programs that work. It&#8217;s proven that they work, so I am the type of district attorney who isn&#8217;t just about being tough on crime. Although I am tough, there are times you have to look at other programs in order to have a brighter future for Luzerne County, a more positive one.&#8221;</p><p>In her current term, the district attorney&#8217;s office assumed full control of the drug task force and established the county&#8217;s first ever investigative grand jury.</p><p>The grand jury was needed to gather evidence from witnesses who were hesitant to cooperate with law enforcement because they feared retaliation in cases involving gangs, drugs, domestic violence and child abuse, she said. Witnesses often are more cooperative in the secret, confidential grand jury hearings, she said.</p><p>Some scoffed when she created a gang task force during her first time, maintaining gangs weren&#8217;t a problem here, she said. The task force obtained grant funding to create a criminal intelligence database that has become valuable to area police departments, she said.</p><p>&#8220;We get a lot of these individuals traveling here due to our location between New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey,&#8221; she said of gangs.</p><p>Salavantis is seeking grant funding to expand the drug task force, possibly to fund overtime for local police who want to participate in a county SWAT team.</p><p>The office recently received a dog trained to detect electronic devices and equipment through outside funding due to the aggressive efforts of its Internet Crimes Against Children Unit supervised by Det. Charles Balogh, she said.</p><p>Salavantis also is working with county courts to implement central booking with an electronic fingerprinting system that provides a more current accounting of an offender&#8217;s criminal history than ink fingerprinting.</p><p>She noted she has kept spending below budget since she was elected in 2012 and stressed her accomplishments are a reflection of the entire office.</p><p>&#8220;We work as a team. We&#8217;re a family here,&#8221; Salavantis said. &#8220;I hope that residents will give me another opportunity to serve them as district attorney.&#8221;</p><p>She invites supporters to a formal campaign kick-off event from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the River Grille on North River Street in Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>It&#8217;s unclear if anyone plans to run against Salavantis for the position, which currently pays $182,184 under a formula set by law. Salavantis faced Democratic competition in both prior races &#8212; Vito DeLuca in 2015 and then-incumbent Jackie Musto Carroll in 2011.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis is seen at a 2017 press conference in the County Courthouse. Salavantis announced Monday that she will seek a third term in this year&#8217;s election. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_TTL052517DJ2toned-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis is seen at a 2017 press conference in the County Courthouse. Salavantis announced Monday that she will seek a third term in this year&#8217;s election. </caption0><photoCredit0>Times Leader file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

UPDATED: Luzerne County DA Salavantis seeking third term