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By JENNIFER LEARN-ANDES [email protected]
Tuesday, September 14, 2004     Page: 3A

FORTY FORT – As part of a promise to improve veteran services despite
cutbacks, Luzerne County Veteran Affairs is moving today to the county
recreation building in the borough.
   
The old Veteran Affairs Office on Water Street is a rundown, one-room
structure, and some veterans have publicly complained that it is not
acceptable.
    Veteran Affairs Director Sam Marranca said his new office is in a space
once used by the county’s Recreation Department, which, like his department,
was recently downsized.
   
Commissioners trimmed the staff from 10 to one (Marranca), but later
reinstated three others for a total of four.
   
Marranca will have a private office where he can meet with veterans or the
spouses of deceased veterans to talk about confidential business.
   
“Before we’d have to go out of our way to get privacy or move to another
part of the room. I have some widows who come in here crying,” Marranca said.
   
“Just having room for a great big dry erase board will be great.’
   
The office also adjoins the recreation department’s hall, which has a
modern kitchen.
   
“That gives us the potential and possibility to be able to host different
events with area veterans. I want to have a simple movie night with veterans,
where all of us get together to watch a good movie, maybe `Saving Private
Ryan.”’
   
“I could cook some snacks, some popcorn. I’ll even pay for the snacks out
of my own pocket,” he said.
   
He also wants to use the room to bring together volunteers who have offered
to help put grave markers in area cemeteries, he said.
   
The Forty Fort office has better wiring for computerization, Marranca said.
   
Recorder of Deeds Mary Dysleski and her staff are scanning veteran
discharge records from the Korean War to the present into a computer program
so Marranca will be able to instantly access that information.
   
Pre-Korean War records were too dark to be clearly scan.
   
Marranca said he and his workers have adjusted to several staff cuts.
   
“We’ve had to tighten up and learn how to strategize a little better.
We’re doing it. It will take a while before we have everything the way we want
it, but I wouldn’t have stood in front of all those veterans and promised
services would get better if I didn’t mean it.”
   
“At some point, services will get better,” he said.
   
MOVING
   
Luzerne County Veteran Affairs will be up and running in its new digs at
2009 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, by Thursday. In the meantime, veterans who have
urgent business with the office can get a message to Director Sam Marranca by
calling the county’s general number at 825-1500.