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By JON FOX [email protected]
Tuesday, May 03, 2005     Page: 3A

The city’s General Municipal Authority met Monday in a session closed to
the public to discuss a developer’s contract that is crucial to securing a
$1.5 million grant that expires on May 31.
   
Asked why the public was excluded from the meeting, Susan Maza, authority
solicitor, said the executive session was legally merited to discuss a
“service contract.”
    The Pennsylvania Sunshine Act, which requires public agencies to hold
certain meetings open to the public, lists six reasons that justify an
executive session. The words “service contract” are not included in any of the
six.
   
Maza declined to indicate which of the six reasons encompassed discussion
of a “service contract.”
   
When a representative of the Times Leader objected to the exclusion of the
public from the meeting and asked to have that objection recorded in the
minutes of the meeting, Maza refused that request.
   
The act provides any person the right at any time to raise an objection to
a perceived violation of the rules governing open meetings.
   
The three board members, Robert Bray, Chester Beggs and Stephen Buchinski,
discussed the “language” of a proposed contract with the Susquehanna
Development Group, according to Bray. In March, the authority selected the
group as the exclusive developer for a portion of downtown in order to take
advantage of $1.5 million in federal funds earmarked in 2002 for the creation
of 100 jobs in Nanticoke.
   
Maza circulated a draft of what she called a “complex contract” to the
members of the authority. Bray, who received that draft on Saturday, told
members he had “some questions on it” before Maza suggested the executive
session.
   
The contract with the developer is just one aspect of a scramble to utilize
the federal funding. The authority must also show “solid plans and specs” and
a firm commitment from a tenant to create 100 jobs, according to Paul Raetsch,
regional director of the Economic Development Administration, the agency that
oversees the aging grant.
   
“It’s no secret that this needs to be completed by the end of the month,”
Bray said.
   
Reached after the meeting, Bray said the contract is the first step to
pinning down a tenant company.
   
“The tenants come along once the developer has the contract, and then we
can start making those inroads,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, but I
think we can do it.”
   
Authority members plan to hold special meetings Thursday and Monday at 7
p.m. to finalize the agreement with the developer before the next regularly
scheduled meeting on June 6, after the grant expires.