Luzerne County Council is set to fill 15 vacant board seats Tuesday but will hold off on those with choices to be made, said Vice Chairman Brian Thornton.
“We’re only going to pick the ones that are uncontested. There will be more discussion on the others, so this will give council an extra two weeks to peruse the names,” said Thornton, who oversees the council committee that publicly interviews citizen applicants.
The Luzerne County Community College Board of Trustees will be pushed to the Jan. 28 meeting because there are three open seats and 11 citizens on the eligibility list for possible appointment.
Seats held by Joseph Long, Holly Evanoski and Susan Unvarsky expired the end of last year.
Long and Unvarsky are on the eligibility list along with the following: Arthur Breese, Joseph Timothy Cotter, Bernard Graham, Robert Linskey, Brian McBride, Tim McGinley, Joseph Oprendick, Robert Watson and Patrick Wills. McGinley chairs the county’s elected Government Study Commission and previously served on county council.
Another deferral to Jan. 28 is the filling of one seat on the county Housing Authority, which provides affordable housing to low-income individuals and families. Six citizens are on the eligibility list for possible appointment to the seat: Kathleen Chernavage, Mary Lada, Scott Letcher, Devin Reese, Ralph Sharp and Dawn Simmons.
The county Transportation Authority has three applicants for two open seats — Dennis Driscoll, Scott Letcher and Lynette Villano. Villano and Driscoll served in seats that expired the end of 2024.
All county board, authority and commission seats are unpaid except for the Board of Assessment Appeals, which provides a stipend for members presiding over requests for real estate assessment reductions.
Tuesday seats
Among the seats to be filled Tuesday is a Democrat on the county ethics commission.
Two citizens (one Democrat and one Republican) serve on the commission along with the county controller, manager and district attorney.
Diane Dreier served in the Democratic citizen seat and is not seeking reappointment.
Democrat Jay Notartomaso is the lone applicant on the eligibility list.
The other seats to be filled Tuesday along with the applicants on council’s eligibility list:
• County Flood Protection Authority, which oversees the Wyoming Valley Levee System along the Susquehanna River — John Maday (reappointment).
• County Redevelopment Authority, which administers various government programs and a short-line railroad — Scott Linde (reappointment) and Erik Laskosky.
• Conservation District, which has responsibilities related to soil and water conservation — John Hanish and Gary Moyer (both reappointments).
• Arts Advisory Board, which promotes the arts — Donald Armstrong (reappointment), Michele Millington (reappointment) and Brian Gill.
• Farmland Preservation Board, which preserves farms through the purchase of conservation easements — Jon Lucas, Linda Thoma and Richard Yost (all reappointments).
• Forty Fort Airport Advisory Board, which focuses on the county-owned Wyoming Valley Airport in Forty Fort and Wyoming — Scott Serafin and Shawn Stanford (both reappointments).
• Planning Commission, which approves or denies land development and major subdivision applications — Carl Naessig (reappointment).
Resignations
Council’s Tuesday agenda also includes the declaration of three vacancies on county boards due to the resignation of members.
Denise Williams resigned from the five-citizen election board last month because she is running for county council.
Under the home rule charter, the four council-appointed board members — two Democrats and two Republicans — must select a fifth citizen of any affiliation or no affiliation to fill the fifth seat, which is also the chairmanship. Williams, a Democrat, had been unanimously selected to fill the fifth chairmanship seat in April 2021 by four prior election board members.
The election board had unanimously added a chairperson selection procedure to its bylaws in June that formalized a past practice of publicly advertising the seat and interviewing applicants using questions pre-determined by the board and reviewed by the county law office. Details about applying for that vacancy will be released by the board, which meets Wednesday.
In the second vacancy to be declared Tuesday, Peter Bard has resigned from the three-citizen board of tax assessment appeals, citing time constraints. There are no citizens currently on the eligibility list for that board.
Information, including applications, is posted in the council section at luzernecounty.org.
Finally, Rodney Kaiser resigned from a seat on the county Industrial Development Authority, expressing an interest in serving on the county Zoning Board.
Tuesday’s council meeting is at 6 p.m. in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Instructions for the remote attendance option will be posted under council’s online meetings section at luzernecounty.org.