Pottsville Councilman Admits City Has “Accountability Problem”

Pottsville Councilman Andy Wollyung said Tuesday the city has “an accountability problem.”

He wasn’t speaking just of himself or colleagues in City government either.

“All over … everybody from top to bottom from City Hall all the way through to everyday business owner to everyday resident,” Wollyung told The Canary following the first of what he says will be a series of informal City Council meetings. “I think we all need to step up and start pointing with our thumb and stop pointing with our finger.”

Wollyung, along with newly-appointed Councilwoman Cat Mahon, gathered interested Pottsville residents inside Alvernia University’s city campus Tuesday evening.

Wollyung, who is running for mayor in November, emphasized that Tuesday’s event was intentionally non-political, with campaign events planned separately. In fact, the word “election” was only mentioned once and in a very general sense.

The purpose, Wollyung said, was to inform attendees of city government function and engage them, especially if they’ve previously been turned off by it.

And while Wollyung said everyone in Pottsville needs to be accountable, he focused most of his remarks on how government has — or hasn’t — functioned in recent years.

“People really are pointing out that things have to be altered and different. And I think people are tired of not having a voice,” Wollyung said.

One way Wollyung believes things can be altered is to get the right people in the right positions within City government.

He was careful to point out that he doesn’t believe that every person on any board within City government was doing a bad job or was wrong in what they’ve done.

“We’ve had a lot of great developments downtown. But we’ve also missed out on a lot of opportunities because everybody was like, the boat’s afloat so we’re OK,” Wollyung said. “When things got a little rocky, I think we needed to reevaluate.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Wollyung had a sign-up sheet for people interested in joining various City boards in the future.

“It’s about how you can help. Recently, a business owner said, the parking sticks … we had to take them down and thank God they’re dead,” Wollyung said. “Well, I want to put that guy on the Parking Authority. That’s who should be on the Parking Authority, not me. I don’t have a business downtown. I hardly park downtown. We should appoint the right people for those positions.”

As for why the hypothetical person he described isn’t already on such a board, Wollyung said the City appoints people because they need to fill a position.

“We’re filling them with people that came to us and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.'”

In addition to the oft-maligned Parking Authority, Wollyung also noted the Pottsville Redevelopment Authority.

“Let’s have Redevelopment get advice from PADCO (Pottsville Area Development Corp.). Why wouldn’t they be a part of that,” he asked.

Since Wollyung acknowledged what he sees as the recent disorganization and misalignment within City government, it prompted the questions: Why is it now a priority and how did it get to this point that he felt a Town Hall-style event was necessary?

“There was so much that happened in the past two years, both with me personally and on City Council,” Wollyung said. “We went through three mayors. We’ve had multiple council seats open. We had a City Administrator leave. We’ve had countless issues within our police department. We’ve had countless issues within City Hall.

“On top of it, I spent six months recuperating in a hospital,” he added. “I went to one council meeting and then called in dead. I had a lot of catching up to do and it took a long time.”

Despite his criticisms of how City government may not have been doing all it could have in the recent past, he believes those issues are mostly behind them but obviously need some improvement.

“I think now, for the first time, I can honestly say I feel confident that we’re going to start building the relationships that needed to be built since I first came on council,” Wollyung said.

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