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Eugene Kelleher to resign from Luzerne County Council

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Your view: Brown: Hold off on appointments until new mayor takes over

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, something smells rotten in Wilkes-Barre.Well, to be perfectly honest with you, a few of things didn&#8217;t pass the smell test at Tuesday night&#8217;s Wilkes-Barre City Council work session.As News Editor Roger DuPuis reported, there was quite a kerfuffle over proposed appointments to several authorities.City Administrator Rick Gazenski &#8212; who along with his wife were among the proposed appointees &#8212; suggested Democratic and Republican nominee for mayor George Brown had asked council members to hold off on appointments because Brown &#8220;has promises to a lot of people.&#8221;But let&#8217;s put that issue on hold for a second. (We told you a few of things didn&#8217;t pass the smell test).In an area with a long history nepotism and cronyism, we question the propriety of appointing the current city administrator and his wife to authorities. While Gazenski may be the perfect choice for the Parking Authority and there may be no one better than his wife, Patricia, for the Housing Authority, the choices just don&#8217;t paint a good picture for us.Certainly more than a few city residents will grumble, right or wrong, about outgoing Mayor Tony George taking care of his friends on his way out the door.Why would George want to go down a road that even leaves a whiff of favoritism is beyond us. It&#8217;s important to emphasize here that we are not accusing George or the Gazenskis of wrongdoing, but sometimes perception is more important than reality.Now back to George Brown, a man who has every reason to believe that he will be the city&#8217;s mayor in January 2020.However, it&#8217;s not 2020 and Brown is not mayor yet.While admitting he did ask council to hold off on the appointments, Brown insists he has made no promises. The presumed winner of the November general election said this about Gazenski&#8217;s allegation: &#8220;That&#8217;s an untrue statement.&#8221;Still, citizen Brown would be well advised to read the advice we just gave to the current mayor &#8211; sometimes perception is more important than reality.We believe Brown and the city would be best served if he keeps his hands off city business until he is actually elected mayor. Finally, there is the matter of how Councilwoman Beth Gilbert handled the situation Tuesday night.Gilbert said she would abstain from voting because she has worked with the proposed appointees.Only after being pressed by Gazenski did Gilbert say she had been contacted by Brown and asked not to approve the appointments.&#8220;I think that Mr. Brown&#8217;s concern is that Mayor George is going to staff these boards before his term is over &#8212;&#8221; she said, according to DuPuis&#8217; story.As is his right.It would have been nice, however, if Gilbert had told us from the start that she was asked not to approve the appointments by Brown. Whether that is the right or wrong decision, don&#8217;t the residents of Wilkes-Barre have the right to know that?Like we said, there was plenty that didn&#8217;t smell right in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday night.&#8211; Times Leader

Planned Wilkes-Barre appointments, reaction don’t pass smell test