I hope the influx of younger candidates in the city will help to turn things towards the right direction for a change. Mayor-Elect Jason Klush, who holds a Bachelor's Degree and is a manager in the construction industry, is only 32 and has a younger wife and infant daughter. He's overwhelmingly enthusiastic about revitalizing the city, as is Michael Lombardo, a young Pittston attorney who dominated the city council race. Slightly older yet still very vocal, Terry Best also won a council seat and will be stepping down from his post as school board member in January 2010, when he is sworn in to serve the city in his new elected capacity.
I've grown up in both Jenkins Township and Pittston Township, two municipalities that border the city, and I've always felt that Pittston wasn't living up to its fullest potential. It needs to capitalize better upon its largest asset---its
convenience. One can live in the town proper and be within a 15-minute drive to the core of either Scranton or Wilkes-Barre, which is something that has made rapidly-growing adjacent Pittston Township very popular for dually-employed couples where one spouse works in either city, but Pittston proper has never pounced upon that grandiose opportunity in the same manner. The city is a short jaunt to the casino, the international airport, and busy interchanges for I-81 and I-476, along with having prime access to the Susquehanna River, just below the confluence with the Lackawanna River.
The city is troubled though with an aging housing stock with generally small lot sizes. One can find a decent home in the city for well under $100,000, which can either be an asset (good way to lure in fresh college graduate first-time home-buyers who will bring new ideas to the city) or a burden (good way to pander to low-life drug-dealing trash from the inner-city). For some reason or other even though many Pittston homes that are typically two stories with three bedrooms, one bathroom, and perhaps 1,400 square feet on a 40' x 100' lot once housed families of four, five, six, or more, now today's families of even just three or two "need" a 4 BR, 2.5 BA vinyl-clad piece of tract-housing garbage in a suburban subdivision on a 3/4-acre lot. Another issue is that the density of housing in the city proper has led to major on-street parking issues in some neighborhoods. In Pittston's heyday many were able to get by without a vehicle, as they were able to walk to Main Street for movie theaters, JCPenney, Woolworth's, delis, bakeries, markets, restaurants, bars, and everything else imaginable. Today Pittston's downtown is largely a hollowed-out shell of its former self, and EVERYONE needs a vehicle to reverse-commute out of the city to major employment/shopping areas in Jenkins Twp. and Pittston Twp. The fact that many Pittston homes lack off-street parking, let alone attached garages, has caused many newcomers to overlook it in favor of the suburbs.
There are some bright spots on the horizon though for the city's housing stock. The long-stalled Musto Condo Towers on the downtown waterfront just got a major funding boost, and progress should be underway by next year on the twin towers with impressive views that will cater to upper-middle-class professionals and empty-nesters. The rather large Stauffer Pointe upscale townhome community in Pittston Twp. is bleeding over the municipal jurisdictions into Pittston city, adding some much-needed modern housing units on that front. Also, the already massive Bluberry Hill Estates in Duryea has plans to expand greatly across that border into the city's "Junction" neighborhood as well. Finally, the city's dirt cheap housing prices afford opportunities for investors from NY/NJ to come in and "flip," netting them a cool profit while also netting the city more middle-class residents attracted to the eventual upgraded housing stock.
The city habitually raises taxes because it is caught in an incessant "Catch-22." The city's current population is barely above 7,000, which is only 1/3 of its heyday population of around 21,000. As more taxpayers move OUT of the city limits, city council must either raise property taxes to offset that lost revenue to pay for services OR cut some of those services---neither of which is a popular option. The city's infrastructure is crumbling; potholes are commonplace, and sidewalks are largely absent.
Casino gaming revenues paid for the popular new streetscape that now adorns downtown area streets with brick patterned crosswalks, period lighting, underground utilities (which I hope is a trend that spreads throughout the ENTIRE city to eliminate those unsightly poles and wires), etc. A few new businesses have just opened or will soon be opening---City Perk, Rooney's, Turkey Hill, Quinn's, and the antiques store all come to mind. However, some other businesses are closing down, such as Frankie's (and I know a few others are hanging on literally by a shoestring). People in Greater Pittston are largely lemmings who shun our independent mom-and-pop operations in favor of Wal-Mart because they claim they are all on "fixed incomes" (even though every other vehicle in many neighborhoods near me is a late-model one in excess of $25,000, proving them as being liars, but I digress).
The city is barely on life support at this point. MOST of the educated youths flee. A good friend of mine hopes to marry his long-term girlfriend, and both of them will live in Duryea, where he will soon be running for public office. Both are intelligent and well-educated. They're the exception, not the rule, as I can't name ANY other educated and intellectual younger folks from my Pittston Area graduating class who plan to stay in the Greater Pittston area to establish their careers and raise their families. If people in this area want to see a perfect case study on "Brain Drain" they need only look at Pittston (or for that matter here in Pittston Twp. where two people who are barely able to form a coherent sentence were just voted in as supervisors by a landslide!)
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Pittston Mayor Resigns.
Linear Mode
