Tony Brooks for Wilkes-Barre City Council

Tony Brooks had a great turnout for his campaign kickoff for the  W-B District B council seat at Le Manhattan Bistro on South Main St. last night.  He reports that the event pulled in almost $3700 which is some serious coin for a city council race. It was also the first event I ever went to were the waitstaff was circulating escargot with the other hors-d'oeuvres

This guy has created more excitement in a local race than I have seen in years but he has big hill to climb to overcome the Democratic registration advantage,but he can do it. In the primary
more Dems voted than Republicans 807 to 167 but in the last General Election in 2011 only 1254 people bothered to vote. If he can identify his voters and increase turnout he wins.

And why not? Like me he was born in the old Wyoming Valley Hospital on Dana St. and left for a few years but came back to place he was born and loves. Tony is a historian known for leading tours of Wilkes-Barre's treasures.

In his address to the crowd he threw out some ideas like residents are the key to the downtown. You need a 5-10 year plan to revitalize Wilkes- Barre not just wing it. We need more neighborhood associations and even look at making downtown into a retirement village where people can actually walk to things to meet their needs. We need walkable neighborhoods like Rick Williams recently proposed on county council  He made a strong point by saying don't move, Improve.   Like me he thinks the KOZ program has been a failure. He also addressed the Sherman Hills problem by pointing out that people won't go downtown because of all the problems but they still go to Wegman's which is closer to the notorious apartment complex. Being a Republican he ruled out a tax increase calling for expanding the tax base. Tony pointed out that many places don't have partisan elections for local offices and he not in this to trade votes for jobs. He then did a Q&A with the crowd and one person reminded us that there a lot of good people living in Sherman Hills.

He delighted in  pointing that the crowd not only included  Republicans but Democrats, Greens and even a Socialist from the soviet of Washington State and claimed that his primary opponents in both parties had endorsed him. 

I teased Shawn Walker of the WB Area School Board that the headline of this post would be Walker Endorses Brooks. He was fine with that saying he couldn't get any more popular with the other board members.

I also had a nice chat with Republican Mayor candidate  Frank Sorick who told me he hates asking people for money for a political campaign because people are taxed enough.

In local elections in the last 20 years I have voted for more Republicans than Democrats because there is no party way to plow the streets or pick up the trash. What matters is competence and integrity .Tony Brooks has both.

No post on local politics would not be complete without these 2 characters. Anchor baby on the left the fashion challenged  guy on the right.

Pictures on my FB page

More on KOZ's

The Legislative Budget and Finance committee released a report last week on the Keystone Opportunity Zone program. The thing that jumped out at me was that there isn't enough data to adequately evaluate the program's effectiveness. From what data that is available it looks like 75% of participants didn’t create any jobs.


Policy Blog: If that wasn’t bad enough, the Department of Community and Economic Development does not even have a method to calculate total program costs. Therefore, it is impossible to run a cost-benefit analysis to determine if KOZ-related “job creations and capital investment” (see above) justify the amount of state and local tax revenues being forfeited.


CV: "We found that many KOZ participants are providing little, if any, job creation of capital investment in return for the KOZ tax abatement and exemption benefits they receive," said study director John Rowe.


The recommendations in the report's highlights are the same I have been advocating for a few years. The tax breaks should only go to someone that has a believable business plan to develop the parcel and if they don't produce in a agreed to time the tax exemption should be revoked. While many of us look at large increases in our property tax bills the owners of the now defunct Lowe's Restaurant didn't pay local property taxes for the last 10 years and didn't create one new job. And I'm sure there are many other sweetheart deals for the well connected that shortchanged our local school districts and local governments.

Keystone Opportunity Zones

It sounds like a good idea. Forgo taxes for a period of time on a piece of blighted land with the hope of enticing somebody to build something on it that will create jobs and eventually the parcel will be put back on the tax rolls. If only it worked that way.

I would like to see an accounting of the program to judge if it is worth it. I'm sure that there are some success stories like Schiel's Supermarket but what about the dead weight?


In 2005 The Times -Leader did a series on the program that questioned it's effectiveness. I can't link to the articles now because the local papers want to be paid for reading old news but I dug into my archives to give you some highlights.


I did some math using the TL numbers for Wilkes-Barre. I may be wrong but I come up with $3.7 million in tax breaks since 1999 that has produced a net 640 jobs.

These items caught my attention:

Half of the KOZ properties in the city are owned by the city itself or government-related agencies. Many are dilapidated or abandoned properties that haven't attracted investors, even with their tax-free status. Others such as City Hall, Public Square Park and police headquarters make little sense as targets for developers.

Thirteen property owners who were granted KOZ status, and have enjoyed about $37,000 in relief from municipal property taxes, have reported no new investment or jobs since joining the program, according to applications filed with the state.


Some of the other gems that were included in the original KOZ were Coughlin High School and Hollenback Park. Lowe's Restaurant on W. Market St was also designated a KOZ and at the time everyone involved said that it had nothing to do with the political connections of the owner but that is another story. I wondered about including a high school and public square on a list that would never be developed and I got my answer.


"If a property is already designated as a Keystone Opportunity Zone but cannot be developed due to developing restrictions or environmental issues or other issues, the state is providing an opportunity for that property to be decertified as a Keystone Opportunity Zone property and for an equivalent or lesser amount of acreage to be swapped into the program in the same municipality."


It sounds like bait and switch.

Some members of the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board objected to being told that they had to approve the swap with little time to consider it.


Lynn Evans asked why they waited until the last minute to present the district with the resolution. Board member Theresa McGuire told city officials they almost always come to the school board at the last minute for approval. While the resolutions are typically items the board would agree with, she doesn't appreciate being handed a resolution and told to act immediately.


The Scranton City Council has had enough.


Scranton KOZ issue is about to boil over


"The last thing we need is more people not paying taxes in our city," school Director Chris Phillips said....Almost a third of the KOZ requests on council's agenda belong to companies of businessman Louis DeNaples.


In Luzerne County


“What was supposed to be a 10-year program for blighted land is now permanent,” Drew Magill said the program’s expansions and extensions have snowballed.


Wilkes-Barre property owner Walter Griffith said KOZ properties rely on police and other government services without paying for them.

Extension requests include:
• 100 parcels in Wilkes-Barre.
• About 150 acres by the Hazleton Municipal Airport owned by Hazleton.
• 135.12 acres in Nanticoke and Hanover Township.


KOZ's are not the only "revitalization" tool out there. A program called Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) actually makes more sense because a project has to be a going concern.

Then there is just writing off the past due taxes owed.

This is also from 2005


Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton said his desk is stacked with developers willing to revitalize the former Old River Road Bakery, Radnor Building on South Washington Street, Academy Street Market and First National Bank building on Public Square. Outstanding taxes are the only obstacle, he said.


So what is happening with those properties?


Many people in Luzerne County have seen their property taxes go through the roof because of the recent reassessment and ask "is this fair?"

Walter opposes Corporate Welfare

KOZ approval

Walter L. Griffith Jr., the Republican nominee for Luzerne County controller, is not pleased with votes to put new properties in tax-free Keystone Opportunity Zones.

“The same players get all the breaks. … This has got to stop,” Griffith said.

Luzerne County commissioners on Friday removed Hollenback Park in Wilkes-Barre from a KOZ and replaced the 26.5-acre property with 37 new properties. On Thursday, Wilkes-Barre City and the Wilkes-Barre Area School District approved the KOZ switch.

The Wilkes-Barre properties will lose KOZ status on Dec. 31, 2010. KOZ properties are exempt from property, business privilege, mercantile and earned income taxes. Properties in KOZs from extensions or swaps only get the tax-free status when developed and occupied.

“I see the school district is looking to levy a tax increase on the taxpayers as well,” Griffith said. “Maybe if we would stop the corporate welfare and stop the giveaways, the money would be there to help all the taxpayers.”

Amen to that.

Gatorade and corporate welfare

WRIGHT TWP. — Construction of Pepsi’s 500,000-square-foot Gatorade distribution center began in November...The $37 million capital investment by Pepsi will add 93 new jobs to a workforce of 236 already employed at the company’s manufacturing plant in the park. State, county and local taxing authorities agreed to tax incentives to ensure the project.

Just how much Incentive did PepsiCo get. Under the terms of the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance plan, the county would waive an estimated $52,741 in annual property taxes per year between 2010 and 2016....Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development granted $1.25 million for the project, primarily in infrastructure costs for roads. Luzerne County donated a $100,000 grant to the project....The seven-year LERTA will reduce property taxes for Pepsi by about 50 percent and kicks in after the Keystone Opportunity Zone status expires in three years. KOZ sites have temporary state and local tax breaks. The combined tax breaks guarantee Pepsi reduced tax status for 10 years. Rapid Edward tells us that The Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce supported efforts to obtain a $1.25 million funding offer for the project from DCED that includes a grant of up to $1 million through the Infrastructure Development Program and a grant of up to $250,000 through the Opportunity Grant Program.

I just got my county/municipal property tax bill for 2007 and will pay the full amount. We've done many improvements to the property over the years keeping local contractors busy without any government loans or tax breaks. How did we do it? Remember this and all the other sweetheart deals when you get your new valuation if the reassessment is ever done.

Capitol Ideas suggests a payoff may be involved:

What the statement failed to mention is that Rendell will now have 36 cases of Diet Pepsi delivered to the governor's mansion each week until he leaves office.