Written By Caleb Brown (News Director)
During Pottsville’s monthly council meeting, a main focus of discussion was various
appointments to several city authorities. However, one of the topics called for “Correcting term
expiration dates for certain authority positions and individuals…”
City Solicitor Ed Brennan would make a statement during the meeting following council’s public
comment portion where he elaborated on that motion further.
Brennan began by detailing the authorities’ term limits. They are staggered. In Brennan’s words,
“So on any given year, you should just appoint one person to any given authority unless there is
a resignation or death…” The problem is that many of the appointments made to these authorities
were incorrect. “Your job is to correct it,” Brennan said.
Furthermore, he stated, “I’m not sure how it happened. My guess is that when somebody either
resigned or whatever reason could not be on the board, and somebody’s reappointed instead of
appointing them to the unexpired term, they may say, ‘okay, it’s a five-year term.”
He would further state, “You’re not replacing anybody, you’re just simply correcting the terms.”
Brennan came up with these corrections after reviewing the minutes of previous council
meetings. An effort he described as “time-consuming” opting to focus on the municipal
authorities. “It was almost like a family tree,” he later went on to say.
In total, 13 positions needed corrections. However, no action would be taken on these
appointments following a request from Mayor-Elect Tom Smith, who expressed his desire to
work with the remaining members of council and his new administration through these
corrections after believing they may not be correct and wanting his administration to do its own
research.
Councilman Andy Wollyung, who Smith defeated in the mayoral election, stated, “I hope that is
an honest statement Mr. Smith.” Before expressing his desire to see two people on the agenda to
be appointed. He also made a point of dispelling the idea that council was appointing people just
to appoint before the democratic majority was lost.
“The most important thing is to have the right people in these roles, no matter the party
affiliation…” Wollyung would ask Smith to confirm on public record that he would work with
council.
Smith responded with “Absolutely, yes.”
The motion would be tabled with only Councilwoman Dorothy Botto voting against it, citing her
belief that Brennan had done his due diligence in ensuring the corrections were correct.