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Sorry, Wilkes-Barre, but your claim to the cash just won’t cut it.

City officials contend $2 million held in the bank by the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority rightfully should pay for the eventual extension of Coal Street toward the heart of downtown, finally plugging the missing link between Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and Pennsylvania Avenue.

We’re not disputing the desirability of this project; it’d be nice to see traffic whisk through this corridor – especially if nearby Coughlin High School becomes the site of a newly consolidated school campus.

But, good grief, produce some paperwork that proves Coal Street’s completion to the avenue was formally agreed to while the authority and a trio of taxing bodies were cooperating on street improvements through January 2012. Show where the parties decided to pay all the “local share” of the necessary land acquisition and pavement.

In the absence of legally binding documents, Wilkes-Barre should drop it and let others divvy the cash remaining in the expired Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) Program.

Luzerne County Chief Solicitor C. David Pedri recently wrote to the redevelopment authority, imploring that it return the leftover TIF money.

Begun in 1998, this tax-diversion setup called for the county, school district and township – not the city – to temporarily forego tax revenue from rapidly rising development along Highland Park Boulevard and at the Arena Hub Plaza. Instead, the revenue was to be devoted to improve thoroughfares including the boulevard and Mundy Street. It also gave the authority’s members “sole judgment” to enter into contracts to spend TIF funds on work that furthered the project’s goals.

If side agreements between the authority’s members and city officials were made regarding a finished Coal Street, the people involved apparently no longer serve on the authority and left behind no specific record that would help to definitively resolve this dispute.

Given the interdependence between the county and the city of Wilkes-Barre, the county seat, we’re confident the parties involved will find an amicable solution sometime soon.

Meanwhile, there’s a takeaway lesson in this Coal Street scenario for all Luzerne County residents serving on government authorities as well as nonprofit groups’ boards. This is the 21st century; you shouldn’t be allocating money, or expecting any, based simply on “understandings,” side agreements and handshakes any more than you would do business today by exchanging beaver pelts and beads.

Get it clearly in writing.