Scranton City Council members said Tuesday they want a written report from the mayor about the city\u2019s snowplowing response during the big snowstorm in late January.<\/p>\n
The administration of Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti is preparing such a report for council, city Solicitor Jessica Eskra said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Regarding the administration attending an informal council caucus work session to discuss the city DPW\u2019s response to the storm, the administration had offered instead to meet with council in an executive session, which is a private, closed-door meeting.<\/p>\n
But council members said they do not want an executive session because it would be confidential and they would not be able to discuss publicly whatever was discussed there.<\/p>\n
Councilman Sean McAndrew said at Tuesday\u2019s meeting that last week he asked for \u201ca physical document\u201d of a post-storm report.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told we were going to get one so we could learn from it, see what happened, see what steps were taken during and after the storm,\u201d Sean McAndrew said. \u201cWe were told they would talk to us in executive session.\u201d<\/p>\n
An executive session could only be held regarding \u201clitigation, real estate, personnel and security and safety,\u201d Sean McAndrew said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know why they would suggest that, when we just want a report of what happened with the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean McAndrew then raised the idea of council possibly using its subpoena power in the future if council feels that the administration is not fully answering council questions. He asked council Solicitor Tom Gilbride to look into the council\u2019s subpoena power and how the council could use it.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust so we can learn what the process is and what we would have to do to use it going forward, if we ever have to,\u201d Sean McAndrew said. \u201cI hope we never do, but just for learning, and for us to have the knowledge if we do have to use that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council President Tom Schuster also said Gilbride had reached out to Eskra about a post-storm report and \u201cthey did offer that executive session.\u201d Schuster said council would clarify that \u201cwe did not want an executive session but we did want the after-actions report that was promised to us\u201d a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Councilman Mark McAndrew added, \u201cIf the administration was to present to us the after-action report in the form of an executive session, we can\u2019t discuss it outside of that room, or outside of that meeting. We can\u2019t report that out to all of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, The Times-Tribune asked the administration about the matter and Eskra replied via email: \u201cTo clarify, there is no statutory, regulatory or even traditional City document that we utilize called a \u2018Post-Storm Report.\u2019 That being said \u2014 I can confirm that the Administration is in the process of preparing an internal report about the handling of the snow emergency, which we will share with Council once finalized. In addition to referencing pertinent facts, we are considering making some recommendations relative to future handling of snow and other weather-related emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The newspaper also asked about the reason for a potential executive session. Eskra said, \u201cWe do not and will not publicly discuss personnel issues. Those are deemed confidential and protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Jan. 27 council meeting, council members and some residents gave mixed reviews about the plowing and removal of snow during the storm that dumped about 10.5 inches on the city on Sunday, Jan. 25, into early Monday, Jan. 26.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 28, the administration told The Times-Tribune the city\u2019s response was hampered by \u201ccallouts\u201d of over one-third of Department of Public Works employees on each of Monday and Tuesday, and some choosing not to work overtime shifts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe labor contract for DPW does not require mandatory overtime from its employees. Of roughly 90 personnel, DPW had 40 staff members call off on Monday and 33 staff members call off on Tuesday,\u201d city Business Administrator Eileen Cipriani had said on Jan. 28. \u201cThere has been limited participation in overtime shifts. We are grateful to the DPW staff members that have answered the call and gone above and beyond to keep our city safer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scranton City Council members said Tuesday they want a written report from the mayor about the city\u2019s snowplowing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[4784,56002,30818,9365,56000,56003,56004,178,180,179,56001,56005],"class_list":{"0":"post-118028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-council-caucus","10":"tag-council-meeting","11":"tag-council-members","12":"tag-executive-session","13":"tag-jessica-eskra","14":"tag-post-storm","15":"tag-scranton","16":"tag-scranton-headlines","17":"tag-scranton-news","18":"tag-sean-mcandrew","19":"tag-written-report"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}