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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; After hearing complaints from residents Thursday night city council plans to scrap an agreement the administration has with groups dealing with feral cats in the neighborhoods.</p><p>Council chairman Mike Belusko said he intends to meet with Mayor Tony George.</p><p>&#8220;My understanding is there is a verbal agreement with them for six months and, apparently, it&#8217;s not working,&#8221; Belusko said.</p><p>Kit Griffiths Kelchner of the Heights pleaded with council to allow city animal enforcement officer Adam Olver to come onto her property and traps the cats.</p><p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe that I can&#8217;t come out of my house and sit on my front porch. There&#8217;s cats everywhere,&#8221; Kelchner said.</p><p>The deal allows Whiskers World and another organization to trap the feral cats, have them neutered, spayed, vaccinated and released back into the areas where they were taken from.</p><p>Olver acknowledged he&#8217;s not trapping the cats.</p><p>&#8220;I was told, you know, I&#8217;m out of this now,&#8221; Olver said. He alerted council that despite the promise of the groups, there is no way to verify they are upholding their end of the agreement.</p><p>City Administrator Rick Gazenski added that it&#8217;s a tentative agreement. &#8220;Right now if we get more issues than we can handle, we can always terminate that agreement,&#8221; he said.</p><p>The deal caught councilwoman Beth Gilbert off guard.</p><p>&#8220;How did we enter into an agreement without a vote? Even if it&#8217;s a tentative agreement,&#8221; Gilbert said. She did not receive an answer.</p><p>Council vice chairman Bill Barrett said the property has the right to decide what goes on their property, adding, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s up to us to decide who goes where and does what.&#8221;</p><p>Assistant City Attorney Maureen Collins explained the organizations have &#8220;the first opportunity to address the complaint.&#8221; But if it&#8217;s not handled satisfactorily &#8220;then the city is to be notified immediately and they&#8217;ll address the complaint,&#8221; Collins said.</p><p><strong>Recycling fee comment</strong></p><p>Not all the public comment focused on the cats. Jessica McClay said she was upset that the mayor tried to increase the recycling fee by $10 to $60 a year while the city has $784,000 in delinquent fees.</p><p>&#8220;I did pay mine, a little late, but it does say overdue notice. So these are going out to let people know that it&#8217;s overdue,&#8221; McClay said.</p><p>Gazenski said the administration determined the bulk of the delinquent fees are over 10 years old and most likely not going to be collected. &#8220;We&#8217;re actually collecting about 95 percent of the delinquents at this point in time,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Kurt Sauer, former director of the Office of Community and Economic Development, responded to criticism from the mayor about not providing any help on the Solomon Creek wall reconstruction project before his retirement last year. The mayor replaced Sauer with Joyce Morrash Zaykowski.</p><p>The project has been put on hold due to the city&#8217;s failure to publish a legal notice seeking public comment. Sauer said he provided the office staff with contact information for the project along with his personal email.</p><p>&#8220;Again, regarding this project I did not receive one call,&#8221; Sauer said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wilkes-Barre City Administrator Rick Gazenski</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/web1_WB-City-Administrator-Rick-Gazenski-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wilkes-Barre City Administrator Rick Gazenski</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Delinquent recycling fees also a concern</subheadMeta></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>

Wilkes-Barre residents complain to council about feral cats and delinquent recycling fees