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Residents press council on long-standing pave cuts and street deterioration; council seeks update on new enforcement process
Summary
Multiple speakers and council members raised long-running complaints about pave cuts, potholes and utility repairs. Council members asked the administration for a status update on a recently announced pave-cut ordinance, inspection program and pothole hotline responses.
Residents and council members used the June 24 meeting to press for repairs to persistent road damage from utility pave cuts and to demand the city hold utilities accountable.
Les Spindler, a resident, called attention to multiple damaged streets and said "We're letting these utilities get away with murder," describing locations including the 1400 block of Boulder and North Main Avenue by Catalano’s. Spindler asked the city to hold utility companies accountable for repeated pave cuts and deteriorating pavement.
Several other commenters and council members cited specific problem locations: Spruce Street alley crossings, Lackawanna Avenue near the former Scranton Dry Goods, and pavement conditions around Pine and Forest Court near Cooper Electric. Council members referenced prior presentations about a tightened pave-cut ordinance and a new, trackable inspection process introduced at a previous meeting.
Councilman McCandrew asked the administration for data on results since the ordinance rollout, including how many potholes reported to the pothole hotline had been fixed and the split between repairs addressing older pave cuts versus newly completed cuts. "To be honest with you, about a week ago, 2 weeks ago, in front of Garrity's on West Side, it was torn up. Right? And, within, I don't know, less than a week, there was a paved cut done, and it was, it was repaved, and you know what, it's the nicest 1 I've ever seen," he said, and asked whether the new process is only being applied to new cuts rather than addressing existing, long-standing repairs.
Council members agreed to request a follow-up from administration and city departments. The transcript records multiple statements promising escalation to DPW, code enforcement or the city engineer for specific locations and requests for the traffic officer to respond to a separate parking/line-of-sight concern at the Right Center parking lot on South Washington Avenue.
No formal ordinance or funding change was adopted at this meeting to create new pavement repairs; instead, council members sought administrative updates and enforcement actions on existing complaints and the implementation status of the new pave-cut procedures.
