Pocono News Section

Luzerne County Commissioners React to Indictments

Luzerne County Commissioners React to Indictments - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 04:15AM EST

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Wednesday March 17 2010
WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY -- The indictments in Lackawanna County are raising a lot of questions with the Luzerne County commissioners.

They want to know if taxpayers paid too much because contracts may have been impacted by "alleged bribes."

The indictments of current Lackawanna County Commissioner A. J. Munchak and former Commissioner Robert Cordaro on corruption charges is having an impact on their neighbors to the south.

Federal investigators say they took bribes and kickbacks from contractors who did work at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport as well as other Lackawanna County projects, including signing contracts involving the Triple-A baseball team of which Luzenre County has a stake.

Commission chairperson Mary Ann Petrilla is not pulling any punches. "I have serious concerns, very serious concerns. Tomorrow we have an airport board meeting. I think some questions have to be answered, who put pressure on whom - how did they all get awarded - what can Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties do as a board to recoup money if these contracts were inflated due to kickbacks Tat were alleged had been given?"

Commissioner Steve Urban also wants answers. "I want to get to the bottom of it, find out what contractors were paying bribes to elected officials. Its not proper for elected officials to take bribes and totally wrong for contractors to offer bribes," said Urban.

The airport board meeting is set for 10:30 Thursday morning.