Committee Appointments Draw Fire in Ford City
Lou Vergari and Terry “Hoss” Tokarek Ousted.. Tom Shaffer and Chris Zionkowski Appointed to Sewage Authority…
• Ford City Councilman Lou Vergari questions Mayor Marc Mantini why he would not vote in favor of FCBMSDA President Terry Tokarek’s re-appointment to the sewage authority board.
by David Croyle
Members of the Ford City Borough Municipal Sewage Disposal Authority (FCBMSDA) denounced appointments to the Authority at last night’s Ford City Borough Council meeting.
Earlier this year, Council challenged the seats held by Terry Tokarek and Lou Vergari on the FCBMSDA board, citing that their term had expired. They authorized advertising for vacancies and interviewed interested residents.
Councilman Lou Vergari, whose seat was being challenged, began by nominating Terry Tokarek for another term.
“He currently is president (of the FCBMSDA board) and has been for 2 years,” Vergari stated. “We are in the middle of $1.5 million (sewer separation) project. His name has been on the project. I think it would be a mistake not to put him back on.”
Sewage Plant Superintendent James Smerick apologized for miscommunication between the FCBMSDA and Ford City Council. “I have worked with many council members of the past 30 years. Not every person on that board has a full knowledge of the day to day operations. You have meetings once a month. I talk to board members at night to fill them in. Not every one of them is fully up to speed on every detail of the operation, nor do they have to be. Certain ones are well versed on the mechanical end, some on the financial end. Not everyone knows everything. That is why I said, if anyone ask me, I am up there all the time. I will meet you in the evening. I will show you through the plant. It is an open door policy for me. Ask questions to get problems solved.”
The nomination was seconded by Councilman Ron Dillard. However, when the nomination came to a vote, it came to a tie with Dillard, Vergari and Ray Klukan voting yes, and John Lux, Paul Harmon, and Rob Mohney voting no. A tie vote sent the nomination to Mayor Marc Mantini to break the tie. Mantini voted no and the firestorm began.
Vergari challenged Mantini’s vote and asked him why he voted no. Mantini said it was due to the audit issues the past four years.
“No one more qualified of the list that was interviewed than Hoss Tokarek,” Vergari challenged. “This audit problem was resolved. You are not using your common sense. This (sewage authority) board is being run by a person off this (borough council) board. The trouble with sewage authority is they pay all their bills, they take care of everything; they have money saved; they use the old-fashioned way of saving monies before they buy things. We have money. I think there are people who want to get on that sewage authority to get their hands on this money. That is my honest belief. This money that we have is for different projects. Running the sewage authority is a very expensive project. The more money you have, the more credit you have.”
“Council received a copy of all the audits,” FCBMSDA Controller Brenda Vargo chimed. “We had a problem with past auditors. Our current auditor did three years in less than a year. He was completely satisfied with our financial position. PennVest, the banks, everyone is satisfied. Hoss is doing a good job.”
Mantini asked why the FCBMSDA solicitor did not deal with the problem of audits not being completed.
“I was not their attorney until 2008,” FCBMSDA Solicitor Chuck Pascal responded. “Prior to that, Jim Panchik was the solicitor. I do not know what he advised the Board to do, other than I will say were two council members that were on the sewage authority. They should have brought the information back to Council. We found out there was a problem with the audits. It created a problem with the grants and loans we were trying to get for the project and we got them done quickly. As soon as we changed auditors, three years of audits were completed in less than a year.
Vergari elaborated specifically on the problem with the former firm that failed to do the audits in a timely manner.
“(The CPA firm of) Smith Bertocchi and Hall failed,” Vergari said emphatically, stating that the authority took documentation up to them, receiving promises it would be completed, but was not done year after year. “We went up there with police to have to get the papers back. We saw a guy running out the back door. I don’t know what was going on up there. Finally, we said after four years ‘this is ridiculous. We want all of our papers and if we have to get a court order to get them, we will get them’. We got all of our papers and now every audit is up to date. That had nothing to do with Hoss Tokarek at all.”
A motion was then made to nominate Bob Ware, but failed for lack of a second to the motion.
Ware addressed the Council at the end of the meeting under “Citizens Comments” and questioned Council for their reason to not nominate him.
“I had my big interview for the sewage authority,” Ware began. “I see I could not get a second so I guess none of you wanted to vote on it. I thought maybe one of you would second so you could vote and I could see who wanted me and who didn’t.”
Ware took exception to Mayor Marc Mantini participating in the interview with applicants. “Is the Mayor part of Council? Why was he interviewing me for a job in the Council? I want to know in my interview what was wrong about my interview that I couldn’t get a second. When you talk about experience, I was on that sewage board in 1976. I spent time… and we ran it fiscally. I see you put a person on there has no experience at all. Here is a person with experience who has experience for years and doesn’t even get a second. Why? Someone gotta know what I did wrong.
Mohney responded, “No one is saying what you did wrong. Maybe the other two interviewed better. I was at the interview. The Mayor asked if he could ask you a question, and you said yes.”
“Am I the wrong color? I am accusing you of it,” Ware accused Mantini as he paced back and forth in front of Council. Ware stated after the meeting privately that he was not attempting to invoke racism as the reason for his non-appointment, although council members felt threatened by his comments.
Mantini asked to respond to Ware, but Borough Solicitor Frank Wolfe advised him to not respond.
“It is not appropriate that the Mayor sit in on any personnel issues,” Dillard added. “The Mayor is the mayor. Any personnel issues comes under Council. He should not be asked to sit on any interviews.”
Wolfe said there is a fine line. “There is no hard and fast rule. Generally the only time he is there if there is a police matter.”
Ware also attacked Mohney, stating that during the interview he said he was from Kittanning.
“Before you interviewed me you said ‘I can’t remember about the thing because I am from Kittanning’,” Ware accused. Mohney denied saying it. “When I said about (serving) back in the 70s, you said ‘I wouldn’t understand it because I am from Kittanning’,” Ware stated again.
“I said I wasn’t aware you were on the authority then, Mr. Ware,” Mohney clarified. “I grew up in Kittanning and didn’t live in Ford City at that time.”
Council refused to provide further explanation to Ware and continued with the meeting.
Then Councilman Paul Harmon nominated Tom Shaffer. Councilman Rob Mohney seconded establishing a four-year term. The nomination passed with Dillard and Vergari voting no.
Councilman Mohney then nominated Chris Zionkowski to fill the final seat on the sewage authority. Harmon seconded the motion and all voted yes.
The entire council meeting can be viewed on the Internet at www.familylifetv.com. (Please note that actual meeting does not begin until approximately ten minutes into video)
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Ford City Borough Council | David Croyle April 13, 2010
By sweetleur, April 13, 2010 @ 6:44 AM
Watched the Ford City comics again last night. No wonder little boro business is taken care of, they fight over too many personal issues.The council should be ashamed of themselves, the boro is sinking into futility while they fight among themselves.Kim Bish makes them solicitor included look like a bunch of school children.
By renee, April 13, 2010 @ 2:55 PM
It is a disgrace to this community that 3 members of council and the mayor voted not to reinstate Mr. Terry Tokarek (a well respected, community minded, life long resident of Ford City) to his seat on the sewage authority. The authority, under Mr. Tokarek, and the other board members, has operated efficiently and with great fiscal responsibility. They instead voted a know CRIMINAL, Tom Shaffer, to oversee a multi-million dollar organization.
Mantini should resign his tenure as mayor immediately. His excuse of the audits is a pathetic cover for his personal vendetta against Mr. Tokarek. Why does he continually endorse a know criminal? He is unable to put aside his personal bias and work for the good of the community as a whole.
Mr. Ware’s accusation of Mantini’s racial prejudices is dead on. I have personally witnessed the mayor make racial, ethnic and sexist degrading remarks on far too numerous occasions. How can a bigot fairly represent a diverse community like Ford City?
Renee Zacour
By Mike Fichthorn, April 13, 2010 @ 6:04 PM
I find it amazing that the SAME people try to run and control every organization they are involved in. They have no clue or concept on how to supervise, zero people skills or common sense… and if you connect the dots.. there are financial umm.. “issues” …yet nobody investigates this..Just keep letting the same people leech off of our community. DISGUSTING.
By concerned citizen, April 13, 2010 @ 7:36 PM
Renee,
1. Speaking of multi-million dollar organizations, why has the CDC not released the audit of their books to the citizens of Ford City? Where did all the money and grants go?
2. Do feel people should represent Ford City Borough that don’t pay their taxes?
3. Personal bias and vendetta’s goes both ways on these issues. No different than the school board debates. So, unless your house is clean, you probably shouldn’t be throwing stones.
4. There may be many more “known” criminals eventually..
By Ruscoe, April 13, 2010 @ 9:42 PM
I watch those FC Council meetings for pure entertainment purposes. They get rid of a council member through the vote in which the public speaks and the governmental body in place, the council, circumvents the will of the people, and continues to try and appease this one individual by continuing to have him appointed to any committee, any board or any study that they come up with.
Democracy and the fundamental principles of local government have been compromised in that town.
Although Ms. Bish can sometimes ramble on, I believe she hit a big nerve last night. She received no answers.
By renee, April 14, 2010 @ 12:20 AM
To “concerned citizen”
1.A The CDC did release the audit. Maher Duessel was contracted in Jan. 2008 and paid in full in Feb. 2008 to perform the 2007 audit. Beginning in July 2008, we questioned them monthly as to why the audit was not completed. August 2009, Maher Duessel released the audit to Ford City Borough before any member of the CDC received it. The 2007 audit showed no material discrepancies.
1.B I was appointed to the CDC in November 2006. Like many residents of Ford City, I was concerned as to where all the money went. I read and reread all the minutes that were available and all grant documents that were in the office. Many documents were incomplete or totally absent. What I do know is, with over 10 million dollars invested, we had one complete building (Foundry Building) that was leased well below market value to a company owned in part by a former operating committee member, another building shell (Shop 2) with a dirt floor and no utilities except for 9000 square feet that was finished for 1.3 million dollars and leased to another company that was owned in part by former board / operating committee members, and another shell of a building (Pattern Shop) without a roof that received $75,000 in grant money to be a museum.
Over one million dollars was paid for engineering and attorney services.
Quoting Mr. Fichthorn above “and if you connect the dots.. there are financial umm.. “issues” …yet nobody investigates this..Just keep letting the same people leech off of our community. DISGUSTING.”
2. I feel if you do not contribute to the tax base then you should not decide how to spend tax dollars.
3. My house is clean.
4. I agree, I hope that the criminals are soon “known”.
(I caught the typo myself after it was too late.)
By Jen16226, April 14, 2010 @ 7:14 AM
To all……
A large part of the problem with why the same people are on different councils, boards, etc is there is such a lack of volunteerism in our community.
I am very sorry to say that, but it is true.
If more people would state their opinion on things instead of being afraid of what the next person over would think, and take 1 or 2 days a month to help the community they live in, we would not have half of these problems.
Yes it is our tax dollars at work, but when voters do not step up to make sure people with the same vision as them get voted in, then you have the same old same old.
In addition, Ruscoe, are you a FC resident? Go to the meetings and voice your opinion!
I am not saying any of this to be mean, but it is the truth……volunteer on a committee and make a difference, when election time rolls around, make sure you help get the voice of the official that you like gets heard or if you have a vision that alot of others share and are willing to step up, run for the office.