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Legislators discuss hot topics at League of Women Voters event

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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; City Controller Darren Snyder announced this week he is running for a second term.</p><p>Snyder, 42, a Democrat, said if re-elected, he would like to continue his work to cut costs and increase revenues for the city. He has a challenger in the May 21 municipal primary. Patricia Unvarsky, also a Democrat, announced her candidacy earlier this month for the office that has a four-year term and a budgeted annual salary of $51,083 plus benefits.</p><p>During his first term, Snyder conducted annual audits of city finances that came back clean with no discrepancies. He listed a number of accomplishments:</p><p>&#8226; A state grant presented to the administration of Mayor Tony George became the Early Intervention Program meant to stabilize finances and avoid designation as a distressed city.</p><p>&#8226; A review of the city&#8217;s insurance policies will have saved taxpayers more than $1 million in premiums during his term.</p><p>&#8226; The identification of city streets not included in PennDOT calculations increased the Liquid Fuels Tax revenue used to maintain streets.</p><p>&#8226; Assisting with decriminalizing parking tickets and improving the collections process.</p><p>Snyder identified other areas to be addressed by his office, such as improving the process for the collection of the Business Privilege and Mercantile taxes; lowering the hourly rate for parking meters to $1.50 from $2 to increase the number of people parking and shopping downtown; and conducting a new traffic study to improve the safety of streets and identify additional parking spaces.</p><p>Snyder believes the city&#8217;s 3 percent Earned Income Tax on wages is too high compared to surrounding communities. &#8220;We need to start reducing it by 0.1 percent per year to help hard working middle class families and make the city more attractive to homeowners and developers,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Snyder graduated from King&#8217;s College with a degree in Economics. For the past 18 years, he has been a real estate broker at Marilyn K. Snyder Real Estate Inc. He was the past president of the Downtown Wilkes-Barre Business Association and served on the board of directors of the Diamond City Partnership and the Wilkes-Barre Association of Realtors. He coaches for Wilkes-Barre Little League and W-B Skyhawks Soccer. He is a member of St. Nicholas Parish. He is married to Atty. Kelly Bray Snyder and the couple has four children: Patrick, Alexander, Gregory and Genevieve.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Snyder </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_Darren-Controller.jpg</photo0><caption0>Snyder </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Snyder running for second term as Wilkes-Barre controller