December 6, 2021
Lackawanna County – December 7, 2021– Today, State Senator Marty Flynn announced eight Lackawanna County projects and organizations will receive $12,000,000 through grants from Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP).
“These projects are very worthy of investment,” said Senator Marty Flynn. “They perfectly embody the spirit of the RACP program – taking an already strong community and making it even stronger and more sustainable going forward. I’m excited to see these projects get underway.”
Organizations and projects that received funding include:
- Scranton City Hall, Scranton – $1,500,000 – This project seeks to repair the roof and facade of the Scranton Municipal Building (City Hall), a 3-story, Victorian Gothic Revival Style structure, located at 340 N. Washington Avenue. The goal is ultimately to ensure that the building remains the center of the city government and continues to be accessible to the public.
- 326 Adams Ave. – Allentown Redevelopment, Scranton, $500,000 – The project will renovate the former Scranton Counseling Center to construct apartments with ground floor retail. The project will specifically address the façade and building envelop. It will remove the 1980’s stucco façade and return the building to its original appearance complete with new open storefront and expansive façade windows.
- Glenmontage Commercial Development, Moosic, $1,000,000 – As part of the Lackawanna County community revitalization effort, the Glenmontage Commercial Development Project involves the property acquisition of an existing improved commercial property and new construction of a 30,000 square foot two-story office building. The site will include new parking of approximately 240 parking spots, associated landscaping, and underground stormwater retainage. The existing and new buildings will house many tenants.
- Lackawanna College Center for Technology Innovation, Scranton – $2,000,000 – The project will feature remediation, construction, and renovation to transform the 891 Providence Road property into the Lackawanna College Center for Technology Innovation (LCCTI). The project includes abatement and remediation of environmental conditions and construction (interior and exterior demolition, construction, and renovations) to restore the property for educational and commercial use.
- Abington Redevelopment, Clarks Summit – $3,000,000 – The project aims to repurpose existing real estate for medical and neighborhood commercial venues. It will also expand small business enterprise and small business employment growth with the construction of approximately 35,000 additional square feet of usable commercial space.
- Larch Street Redevelopment, Scranton – $1,000,000 – The Larch Street Redevelopment Project will redevelop the 1.4-acre Larch Street property, construct two new stair towers, and install a new elevator, to provide 10,000 SF of clinical and office space, and 21,000 SF of space to be used for their pre-Kindergarten/daycare program. The project site will be regraded to develop approximately 80 new parking spaces.
- Fellowship House, Scranton – $1,000,000 – The project seeks to establish a transitional living facility in Lackawanna County for individuals who have already successfully completed a course of in-patient drug/alcohol treatment and medically supervised detoxification. The project involves the purchase of an improved parcel of land and various renovations to the building on site and its grounds. Building renovations are expected to convert the existing facility into a 25-bed facility consisting of single/double/triple bedrooms, associated bathrooms, a full-service kitchen, a recreational room, and meeting rooms. Additional improvements include updates to the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems.
- Fidelity Bank Headquarters, Scranton – $2,000,000 – This project will renovate a nationally recognized, historic commercial building and repurpose it as the bank’s new headquarters. The project will also renovate a vintage building located in Dunmore, updating the vintage location to showcase the bank’s growing digital capabilities.
The Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) is a Commonwealth grant program for the acquisition and construction of economic, cultural, civic, recreational, and historical improvement projects. Administered by the Pennsylvania Office of the Budget, RACP grants focus on projects that have a wide regional impact and generate substantial increases of employment, tax revenues, or other measures of economic activity.
The full statewide list of projects and awards can be found at: Office of the Budget.
November 22, 2021
I’m hosting a town hall at the Throop Community Civic Center on December 5th at 6pm where we’ll be joined by representatives from Pennie, the state’s official destination for quality health insurance.
Experts from Pennie will be on hand to discuss all things healthcare and answer questions from our audience. We’ll also have healthcare navigators available for one-on-one conversations about what options are available to you and your family.
Open enrollment ends January 15th, so now is a good time to get covered before the holiday season! Register to attend the town hall at www.senatorflynn.com/aca.
For more information on Pennie and how to sign up for health insurance, visit their website here: Welcome To Pennie & Open Enrollment 2021.
November 19, 2021
November 19, 2021 – Senator Marty Flynn secured a total of $2,547,418 in grants that were awarded to eleven projects across the 22nd District of Pennsylvania through the Multimodal Transportation Fund and the Act 13 Program. Both programs are administered through Pennsylvania’s Department of Community & Economic Development; Senator Flynn serves on the Senate Community, Economic, & Recreational Development Committee.
“This grant money will be used to improve the day-to-day lives of the people of Northeast Pennsylvania,” Senator Flynn said. “Better roads, better flood control, better parks for our children – I’m proud that these funds will go towards projects that set out to make NEPA a better place to live.”
The Multimodal Transportation Fund provides grants to encourage economic development and ensure that a safe and reliable system of transportation is available to residents of Pennsylvania. The five district projects that received grants through this fund are:
- West Scranton Streetscape Project (Scranton) – $779,483
- Dickson City Main Avenue Streetscape Phase 2 – Jackson St. to Dundaff St. (Dickson City) – $700,000
- Lackawanna River Heritage Trail – Hull Creek Bridge (Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority) – $71,998
- Chapel Road & Ridge Road Roadway Infrastructure Enhancement Project (Pittston Township) – $150,000
- Aston Mt. Road Paving Project Phase 3 (Spring Brook Township) – $500,000
The total amount awarded to District 22 through the Multimodal Transportation Fund is $2,201,481.
The Act 13 Program assists statewide initiatives that seek to improve abandoned mine drainage abatement, abandoned well plugging, sewage treatment, greenways, trails and recreation, baseline water quality data, watershed restoration, and flood control. The six projects that were awarded funding through this program are:
- Blakely Borough Watershed Flood Control & Protection Project (Blakely) – $75,500
- Archbald Borough Flood Mitigation Project (Archbald) – $62,500
- S. Webster Avenue Flood Mitigation Project (Scranton) – $71,825
- Hillside Park – AAJRB Pole Building Construction (Abington Area Joint Recreation Board) – $55,000
- Jefferson Street Park – Park Enhancement (Fell Township) – $40,890
- Urban Greenpeace Development (The Garden of Cedar, Scranton) – $40,222
The total amount granted to District 22 through the Act 13 Program is $345,937. Both the Multimodal Transportation Fund and the Act 13 grants are a product of the Commonwealth Financing Authority, an independent agency of the Department of Community and Economic Development established in 2004.
November 5, 2021
Lackawanna County − November 5, 2021 − Senator Marty Flynn was joined by local state representatives today outside of the Lackawanna County Courthouse to discuss the ongoing strike of the Scranton Federation of Teachers. Flanked by a raucous crowd of Scranton School District teachers, paraprofessionals, faculty, and their supporters, Senator Flynn, Rep. Kyle Mullins, Rep. Elect Thom Welby, Rep. Bridget Kosierowski, and Rep. Mike Carroll fittingly stood in front of the John Mitchell Statue to show their support for the Scranton Federation of Teachers in their labor dispute with the school district’s administration.
“I’m proud to stand here today, not just as your State Senator, but as an AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) brother,” Senator Flynn began. “I’m proud to have my colleagues here with me. We’re all on the same page here; we all agree that our teachers are not the problem.”
Senator Flynn went on to admonish the administration’s attempts to solve their issues by cutting successful, popular programs in the district. “The administration made class sizes larger, which placed an even greater burden on the teachers,” Senator Flynn said. “They cut art. They cut music. They cut preschool. They cut counselors for students in elementary school. You can’t cut your way to prosperity. You can’t cut your way to recovery.”
Rep. Elect Thom Welby used his own personal experience as a student in the Scranton School District to highlight the negative impact the program cuts could have on the city’s children, highlighting his experience in the now-cut theatre program and crediting it for “helping so many children become fine, upstanding adults.”
“I got involved with the theatre group and with some of the arts groups, and my exposure to the arts literally changed me as a person, that brought me out of my shell,” Rep. Elect Welby said. “It’s so important to our students. We need exposure to the arts from Pre-K all the way through high school.”
Rep. Welby was followed by Rep. Kyle Mullins, who noted that the lack of proper funding for the school district has led to its current situation. “Decades of insufficient funding from the state to school districts like Scranton has set teachers and district management on a collision course,” said Rep. Mullins. “While I’m committed to ending this disparity, this unfairness, we need students back in the classroom with teachers who were put on this earth to care and to teach, teachers who deserve health care and pay comparable to other school districts.”
Rep. Bridget Kosierowski commented on the administration’s decision to suspend teachers’ and paraprofessionals’ health insurance during the strike. “When I say I believe health care is a right and not a privilege, I don’t just mean it as a campaign slogan every two years; I actually believe it,” Kosierowski said. “As a registered nurse of more than 25 years, I saw firsthand the cracks in a broken healthcare system, but never did I think I would see the day that restricting healthcare access would be used as negotiating tactic and a bargaining tool. It is not only cruel, but it is simply immoral.”
Finally, Rep. Mike Carroll laid out a plan to get the district out their current state of crisis and into a position of greater financial stability. “There are three things we need to do: Reinstate health insurance, negotiate a contract for the teachers that is aligned with other Lackawanna County school districts without offsetting healthcare savings, and reduce property taxes by 1%,” Rep. Carroll said. “We know this is in conflict with the recovery plan, but no recovery plan can substitute for the more than $30 million annual shortfall from the state.”
October 29, 2021
Nacero Inc. announced plans today to build a $6 billion manufacturing facility in Luzerne County, making it the single biggest economic investment in the county’s history.
The production plant will be used to take natural gas and renewable natural gas and convert it into gasoline. The massive facility is to be located in Newport Township and Nanticoke on the site of a former coal mine, and will bring thousands of jobs to the area. Upon completion, the plant will produce tens of thousands of barrels of low- and zero-lifecycle carbon footprint gasoline every day.
Based in Houston, Texas, Nacero Inc. specializes in taking natural and renewable natural gas and converting it to new gasoline, eschewing the use of crude oil, which has been used in the past and which produces more harm to the environment than the method that will be used in Luzerne County.
Of the plans to build the facility, Senator Marty Flynn (D-Lackawanna/Luzerne/Monroe) said:
“This is exactly the kind of economic boost Northeast Pennsylvania needs. A plant like this just makes sense in our area, given our storied history of industry, energy, and production. It’s appropriate that it will be located on the site of an old coal mine – that’s where this area gained its hard-working, blue-collar reputation, and it’s what made us a prosperous city in the past. I’m happy that we can do all of this – providing jobs for thousands of people, giving a nice economic boost for our local businesses – while looking to the future, too, as this new method of producing gasoline is much better for the environment than how it was done in the past.”
October 27, 2021
The Scranton Federation of Teachers announced yesterday that it will strike beginning November 3, after failing to come to an agreement with the Scranton School Board regarding health care provisions in their new contract.
“This strike is the result of years of systematic underfunding of the Scranton School District by the state, and now the school board is left with zero good options,” Senator Marty Flynn said of the pending strike. “All the board is doing now is cutting resources, but they can’t cut their way to prosperity, it’s not possible.”
The strike comes after more than four years of teachers working on an expired contract, and more than five years without a pay increase. Tensions reached a boiling point this week over what the Scranton Federation of Teachers feel is inadequate health care coverage in the board’s proposed plan.
Regarding the state of the Scranton School District, Senator Flynn said, “108 teachers wouldn’t have left if it was a great place to work, if things were running smoothly, if the district was doing a good job.”
Pennsylvania’s Public School Code authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Education to initiate injunctive proceedings when the length of a strike would prohibit a school district from completing 180 days of instruction by June 15.
