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Council takes action on initial IIRA, OKs development loan
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
By L.A. TARONE
tarone@standardspeaker.com
After the recent run of long, heavily attended meetings centering on highly controversial issues, Monday night’s Hazleton City Council meeting was relatively light. It was over in less than half an hour.

Still, council took a few significant actions.

Council took the first step of what will be its final action on the Illegal Immigration Relief Act – it repealed the initial version of it. That version was superceded by the one passed Sept. 12.

Since it is an ordinance, the repeal must pass two more readings.

Council President Joe Yannuzzi called the repeal ordinance “a formality that had to be done” in connection with the lawsuit filed against the city over the law.

That lawsuit was filed by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of private attorneys.

“This is so (opponents) can reply to the new version,” Yannuzzi said.

Opponents are expected to amend their complaint in light of the changes made to IIRA earlier this month and re-file. But whether opponents challenge the official English ordinance remains to be seen.

In other business, council took two actions regarding the vacant lots at Broad and Pine streets that once housed a furniture store. It voted unanimously to lend the Wills Development Corporation $100,000 for the proposed office complex that will be built there.

The loan will come from the city’s long-running Business Development Loan Program and will carry a 4- percent interest rate, payable in seven to 10 years.

City Administrator Sam Monticello said that money will be combined with funding from Luzerne County, the commonwealth and private sources. He added that when the office complex is finished, the Joyce Insurance Agency, Pittston, will move into it.

He added the project’s total cost is estimated at $1.125 million and is expected to create 15 jobs – 10 full-time positions and five part-time ones.

Monticello added Wills will also look to rent other office space in the building to other tenants, adding it had already received interest from several prospective tenants.

Council Vice President Jack Mundie asked whether the complex would have off-street parking, and Monticello said it would. Yannuzzi asked when Wills expected to begin construction. Monticello said it originally hoped to do so before the end of the year, but added that looked somewhat doubtful now.

“But it would be no later than early spring (of 2007),” he said.

Bob Nilles asked whether Wills had gone through a planning commission hearing yet and Monticello said it hadn’t.

Council also voted to apply for $271,000 from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. It too would be used for the project, if granted, though Monticello said the formal process is a bit different.

Monticello said the city is applying for a grant. If it receives it, the money will be lent to Wills. Again, the loan would have a 4-percent interest rate and be payable in seven to 10 years.

But council did not discuss biosolids. An ordinance that would ban their importation into the city was left on the table, as no one moved to take it off.

The idea initially came from Nilles. Monday night, he said he didn’t move to remove it from the table because its wording had not been changed.

“I asked (City Solicitor Chris Slusser) to suggest changes in it, but he said there are state and federal laws that wouldn’t allow us to do some of the things in it,” Nilles said. “So I wanted him to draft something we could enforce.”

But Councilwoman Evelyn Graham said there was no law that would force the city to take “anybody else’s waste.”

Last meeting, Nilles and Graham sparred over whether to ban biosolids.