Wilkes-Barre Council Chair finds out about ARP funding after the fact

May 28—WILKES-BARRE — City Council Chairwoman Beth Gilbert McBride said she and other council members were kept out of the loop on how federal funding they approved for tourism was spent by Mayor George Brown.

McBride Friday said Brown should have presented Council with the $300,000 request by the Diamond City Partnership for a marketing program to bring people to the downtown to patronize businesses, restaurants and arts and entertainment venues adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city issued the first of three annual $100,000 payments to the DCP earlier this month for its "Downtown Rebound" program.

McBride said Council was made aware of the funding for the program earlier this week by City Controller Darren Snyder.

In March, by a 3-2 vote, Council approved spending $6 million of the $37.1 million in pandemic relief American Rescue Plan funding for eight separate projects including the purchase of road repair machinery, addressing homelessness and affordable housing and tourism expansion.

The projects were vaguely worded and the purpose of the resolution approved by Council was simply to earmark funds, McBride said.

"When we put this resolution together, we didn't name any organization for a reason. We thought there would be further conversation on that," McBride said.

But rather than seek Council's input, Brown filled in the blank and the city cut a check.

Absent its input, Council can't properly do its due diligence for the taxpayers if it isn't "being told where the money is going," McBride said.

With regard to the DCP, McBride said she and Councilman Tony Brooks serve as non-voting members on its board. Had the request been presented to Council, McBride and Brooks would have had to abstain from a vote, she said.

McBride added that Brown should have reached out to Council on the DCP proposal. "I think it's just professional courtesy," she said.

"They're the ones that asked me to spend the money. I'm doing what they asked me to," Brown said.

Initially, Brown was reluctant to fulfill Council's wish list, pointing out at the March meeting some of the expenditures were ineligible under the ARP program and his administration had already allocated funding toward similar projects.

Assistant City Attorney Maureen Collins, at the request of Councilman Bill Barrett who questioned the resolution introduced by McBride, offered an opinion that Brown was under no obligation to carry out Council's wishes.

Nonetheless, Brown said the DCP program presented to him weeks after the March meeting made sense and fell under the tourism category.

"In my opinion, I can allocate these moneys," Brown said.

In its funding request to the city, the DCP which promotes downtown economic development, compared the downtown pre-pandemic to the present:

—Of the 11,300 downtown workers before the pandemic, an average of 3,500 are back with the other 7,600 absent due to remote work.

—Downtown restaurants and small businesses lost their customer base and seven restaurants have closed.

—The emptiness downtown exacerbated existing issues connected to a growing number of at-risk people, many who travel to center city for services near and on Public Square.

"No other business district in Luzerne County has been affected like Downtown Wilkes-Barre, which has seen multiple pillars of its economy simultaneously undermined by the COVID emergency," the DCP said.

The proposed solution was the "No Business Left Behind" marketing program to help small storefront businesses diversify its customer base beyond office workers. It also proposed expanding its College Ambassador program so King's College, Wilkes University and LCCC students can provide free marketing, website instruction, brand building and social media planning to small retail and restaurant owners.

Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.