Senior Investigative Reporter
Consignment shop owner Kimi Reisinger aims to breathe new life into the former Harold Snowdon Funeral Home, located at 607 Carey Avenue in Wilkes-Barre. Reisinger and her family purchased the former funeral home and have transformed it into a plethora of treasures untold, with room after room of old and new merchandise just waiting to be discovered.
Walsh has been very outspoken over the past several months, attending nearly every city council meeting, and questioning both council and the administration as to the infrequency of display of our nation’s flag, city wide. Walsh has even gone so far as to form a committee to raise funds to cover the costs of buying and displaying flags along city streets, bridges, and flagpoles, all in an attempt to overcome the financial hardship rebuttals offered by council and the administration.
Back in July 2013 the Independent Gazette reported on Wilkes-Barre Parking Enforcement Officer Nicholas Cave after a Wilkes-Barre resident made a complaint to the paper alleging that Cave was engaging in harassing behavior at her residence. The July article spurred a subsequent Gazette investigation and piece on Cave when a reader who noticed the initial report notified the Gazette that unrelated harassment and simple assault charges against Cave seemed to have disappeared following a magisterial recusal by Magistrate Rick Cronauer on September 2, 2012.
The Wilkes-Barre City Employees Federal Credit Union recently became the focal point of an FBI investigation into public corruption, according to Sean Quinn, new director of the FBI’s Scranton office. The investigation grabbed local headlines following the death of Jim Payne, longtime manager of the credit union. Payne was found dead in his Bear Creek Township home in early March. The cause of death has been reported by the Pennsylvania State Police as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Independent Gazette dispatched emails to both city administration spokesperson Liza Prokop, and Deputy City Administrator Greg Barrouk, also vice-president of Hawkeye, seeking more information on what may have transpired, resulting in neither one of the two cameras — located just a few feet from the store — being able to captured anything of value on the morning of the robbery. As of the time of printing, neither email had been returned.
Tom Torbik, executive director of the Wilkes-Barre City Parking Authority, confirmed at the authority’s April meeting on the 15th his receipt of a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in Scranton.
According to the city’s 2013 Series Bond debt service schedule — enabling principally the $5.9 million Johnson Controls, Inc., energy efficiency project that was entered into September 2012 by a 4–1 council vote — the city will be required to make soaring balloon payments in 2016 and 2017, years four and five of the 13-year, $10 million note.
During the Wilkes-Barre Parking Authority’s January reorganizational meeting board members reviewed both the previous and current renewed Hawkeye Security Solutions contract in which the parking authority agrees to pay Hawkeye $100,000 per year for the three-year term. This is the same rate the authority initially agreed to pay Hawkeye to offset the cost of the purchase and installation of the cameras at the city parking garages.
All seven members of the Lackawanna County Government Study Commission overwhelmingly support abolishing the commissioners’ form of government in favor of a strong executive form of government, an arrangement in which the county executive will be elected in a countywide at-large election. This stands in contrast to the home rule charter adopted by Luzerne County with its appointed county manager position. In addition the study commission by majority vote is recommending a seven member “part-time” council, elected by districts throughout the county.
On November 20, 2013, Independent Gazette contributor and Wilkes-Barre City administration critic Mark Robbins appeared before District Magistrate Donald Whittaker of Nanticoke for a preliminary hearing. City police had charged Robbins with summary harassment and misdemeanor stalking after he reportedly spoke with Cathie Bella, of Sherman Hills, by phone for a cumulative duration of 2.6 minutes, transmitted one Facebook message, and mailed Bella a copy of the charges he was filing against her.