SCRANTON, Pa. — Serving as the mayor of a city long-plagued by financial instability and more recently by corruption is an obvious challenge.
"We certainly had our challenges you know in the very first week, we, we had our my first act of was, unfortunately, to have to hire legal counsel to battle a $50 million lawsuit,” said Mayor Paige Cognetti.
Newly minted Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti laid out her goals in her first news conference.
One of her priorities is upgrading the tech in City Hall, transitioning from filing cabinets filled with decades-old documents to an online archive system.
“For example, you would be able to go online and understand, you'll see a map of the city and see where, when the last inspection was on a business or on a home, who's up on their garbage fee and who isn't.”
Another item on the mayor's to-do list: making the city cashless.
Interim Mayor Wayne Evans already got the ball rolling on that front, taking cash out of the Licensing Department.
Next is the treasurer's office.
"I think it's a real great idea to pay a check instead of cash because cash seems to disappear very easily. You know, 20 here, 40 there, next thing you know, they're calling you to let you know you're short on your bill,” said Joseph Ambrose of Scranton.
Cognetti also took the opportunity to show that the city would be prepared in the event of a coronavirus outbreak.
She put acting fire chief Al Lucas in charge of emergency management for the city.
“We have to be prepared for a mass sick outage if it were to hit here directly. So, we all, again, dust off our plans look and make sure that we all have the plans in place to continue the operations to serve the citizens,” Lucas said.
Because dealing with unforeseen challenges like an international health emergency is just part of the job.
Two months down, 22 more to go.