From improving infrastructure to combating blight, four candidates are vying for three Democratic nominations to serve on Dunmore Borough Council.
Dozens of other candidates throughout Lackawanna County are contending for their party’s nominations across other contested municipal races spanning the Upvalley, Midvalley, Downvalley and Abingtons. Voters across Lackawanna County will have the chance to select their future municipal leaders during the May 20 primary election, casting their votes in contested races for borough councils, boards of supervisors and mayors.
With a population of just over 14,000, Dunmore is Lackawanna County’s second largest municipality after Scranton, and the county’s largest borough. Democratic Dunmore council incumbents Tom Hallinan, William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven seek to retain their seats against newcomer Drew Marion. With no Republicans on the ballot, securing their party’s nominations will likely give the Dunmore candidates the inside track to victory in November and four-year council terms.
Dunmore council members earn $3,000 annually, with the council president earning $6,000.
Other contested municipal races in Lackawanna County are Archbald mayor and council, Clarks Green mayor, Clarks Summit council, Glenburn Twp. supervisors, Jermyn mayor, Jessup council, La Plume Twp. supervisors, Olyphant council, Ransom Twp. supervisors, Taylor council and Throop mayor.
Tom Hallinan (COURTESY OF TOM HALLINAN)
Drew Marion (COURTESY OF DREW MARION)
William “Trip” O’Malley (COURTESY OF WILLIAM “TRIP” O’MALLEY
Katherine Mackrell Oven (COURTESY OF KATHERINE MACKRELL OVEN)
Priorities in Dunmore
As he seeks his fourth term on borough council, Tom Hallinan, 68, a retired assistant county manager in Susquehanna County with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation managing more than 100 employees, will prioritize using Community Development Block Grant funding to continue improvements to Chestnut Street, including new drains, sidewalks and paving, along with prioritizing other infrastructure work, like trying to replace the Bunker Hill bridge, improving the Keystone Industrial Park Road with grant funding, beginning work next year on a five-intersection improvement project near the Dunmore High School and streetscaping in Dunmore Corners.
Hallinan considers Dunmore’s drainage systems to be the biggest issue facing the borough, and if reelected, he wants to improve that infrastructure to remedy problems with drainage and catch basins.
“We’ve got to improve and take better care of our infrastructure, which would be draining and paving and piping,” he said.
He attributed his decision to seek a fourth term to the community.
“I really enjoy what I’m doing,” he said. “I love helping people.”
Newcomer Drew Marion, 46, is the director of the Lackawanna County Community Traffic Safety Program — a grant-funded position covering Lackawanna and Pike counties that works to educate children on traffic safety. Marion said he decided to run for council after seeing a decline in borough neighborhoods over the last decade. A former business manager of the Scranton Sewer Authority who worked closely on the sale to Pennsylvania American Water, Marion said his top priority is public safety, which includes blighted properties and neighborhoods in the borough.
“As I walk around, I see these properties that are being bought up by absentee, out-of-town landlords,” Marion said. “They’re doing work on these properties without the proper borough oversight.”
Without proper borough oversight, those properties are affecting neighborhoods, he said, calling neighborhoods “essential to the prosperity of any borough.”
Marion also prioritizes the borough’s financial issues. He pointed to council raising property taxes by nearly 23% for its 2023 budget, as well as the borough operating on a $1.3 million structural deficit, he said. Marion additionally wants to back a collective effort in the borough to “really keep on the (Public Utility Commission)” to keep utility rates down.
If elected, he wants to address borough neighborhoods as his top priority, explaining the borough lacks a licensed code official to crack down on issues and then forward them to a magistrate.
William “Trip” O’Malley, 49, a Dunmore High School teacher of 26 years, hopes to secure reelection alongside his fellow incumbents to “continue the work in creating the positive change for our borough.”
“We’ve changed the way the borough operates,” he said. “There was a lot of secrecy before, and now there’s never been more light shining on our borough government.”
He pointed to council instituting a rental registration ordinance this year to help control blight and hold out-of-town landlords accountable — something he brought up after he won his seat on council four years ago but prior to taking office.
If he wins a second term, O’Malley will prioritize addressing blight, paving and patching throughout the borough; completing an intersection improvement project near the Dunmore High School by adding new streetlights, crosswalks, sidewalks and paving; and addressing the troubled Bunker Hill bridge, which Dunmore took possession of, he said.
Shown is the Dunmore Municipal Building on Monday afternoon. The May 20 primary election features four candidates for three seats on Dunmore Borough Council. Democratic incumbents Tom Hallinan, William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven seek to retain their seats against Drew Marion, a Democratic newcomer. (CHAD SEBRING/STAFF PHOTO)
Shown is the Dunmore Municipal Building on Monday afternoon. The May 20 primary election features four candidates for three seats on Dunmore Borough Council. Democratic incumbents Tom Hallinan, William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven seek to retain their seats against Drew Marion, a Democratic newcomer. (CHAD SEBRING/STAFF PHOTO)
A Hallinan for Council election sign dots a yard in Dunmore. The May 20 primary election features four candidates for three seats on Dunmore Borough Council. Democratic incumbents Tom Hallinan, William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven seek to retain their seats against Drew Marion, a Democratic newcomer. (CHAD SEBRING/STAFF PHOTO)
A Drew Marion election sign dots a yard in Dunmore. The May 20 primary election features four candidates for three seats on Dunmore Borough Council. Democratic incumbents Tom Hallinan, William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven seek to retain their seats against Marion, a Democratic newcomer. (CHAD SEBRING/STAFF PHOTO)
An election sign for William “Trip” O’Malley and Katherine Mackrell Oven dots a yard in Dunmore. The May 20 primary election features four candidates for three seats on Dunmore Borough Council. Democratic incumbents Tom Hallinan, O’Malley and Oven seek to retain their seats against Drew Marion, a Democratic newcomer. (CHAD SEBRING/STAFF PHOTO)
O’Malley previously considered the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s Phase III expansion to be the most significant issue facing Dunmore, but with that out of council’s control now, he considers blight to be the major issue in the borough. He also believes odors from the landfill are a major concern.
Vying for her second term on council, Katherine Mackrell Oven, 55, a wealth adviser at Fidelity Bank, said she will prioritize fiscal responsibility, creating a safe environment for residents and promoting programs and projects that encourage young families to move to Dunmore.
“I’m running for reelection because I love Dunmore, and I want to make the borough the best that it can be for all the families that live here,” she said.
Oven, who started and manages Dunmore’s trap-neuter-return program for feral cats, said the single biggest issue facing Dunmore is the borough’s finances. She emphasized wanting to make the borough as financially stable as possible.
“I think we have done that, and we continue to do that through contract negotiations … and responsible employment decisions,” she said.
On the Keystone Sanitary Landfill
For more than a decade, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill and its Phase III expansion have packed meetings and shaped borough politics as the 714-acre landfill in Dunmore and Throop sought to triple its volume of waste over the next 40-plus years, adding just over 94 million tons of garbage, or about 188 billion pounds. In a win for landfill opponents, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board remanded the landfill’s Phase III expansion approval back to the state Department of Environmental Protection in April after determining the department erred by approving the expansion without adequately addressing leachate and odor issues.
While the DEP’s process to reconsider the expansion is outside Dunmore Borough Council’s control, all four candidates shared their views of the landfill and what they would like to see changed as the DEP revisits the expansion.
Oven is “adamantly against” the Phase III expansion, though council has no control over it, she said.
“All I can do is … encourage the DEP to do their job and monitor the landfill to make sure it’s compliant with the environmental regulations of the state,” she said.
Oven does not want the expansion to go through once again.
“I would like to see it addressed in the correct way, where it does not put the residents of the borough and surrounding areas in harm’s way,” Oven said.
O’Malley lives a mile from the landfill, smelling it from both work and his home. He criticized the DEP’s response times to odor complaints, saying it’s taken three hours to get a callback when reporting odors. He advocated for the DEP to have an office closer than Wilkes-Barre.
“The smell that comes from the landfill, it is so bad,” he said. “People are constantly contacting me about it. … Every resident in the borough smells it.”
As the DEP evaluates the expansion, O’Malley wants the department to “end it” and kill the expansion.
“We took our fair share of garbage from New York and New Jersey,” he said.
Marion also would like to see the expansion denied, and if not, drastically reduced in size.
“My stance on the landfill is: Nobody likes the landfill, nobody,” he said. “Nobody likes the landfill as a neighbor. I don’t like it, it smells from time to time, but it’s there.”
While the decision-making press is between the DeNaples and environmental regulators, Marion said as a borough council, Dunmore can make sure the landfill is in compliance and held accountable day to day.
“We need to keep an eye on that,” he said. “I’m against the massive expansion, but again, it’s not in council’s hands.”
For Hallinan, the biggest complaint he receives from residents is DEP response times when reporting odors, with the smells fading by the time a DEP employee responds, he said.
“I think that there’s got to be a better way, a faster way, for people to report when there’s odors,” Hallinan said.
Hallinan said he has opposed the expansion, and if the DEP moves forward with it again, he wants strict accountability and oversight on soil, water and air quality, especially in the Swinnick and Sherwood sections of Dunmore.
“I just would love to see more oversight on the air, soil and water,” he said, floating the idea of independent oversight outside Dunmore and the landfill. “When it’s independent of both bodies … then everybody’s happy.”
Archbald
Incumbent Mayor Shirley Barrett will face challenger Cynthia Snyder for the Democratic nomination. On borough council, five Democratic candidates will vie for three nominations, with incumbents Francis Burke and Marie Cooke Andreoli facing James Moran, Kimberly Simon and Tom Aniska.
Clarks Green
Incumbent Democratic Mayor Joe Barrasse will face challenger Louis A. Nivert.
Clarks Summit
Four Democratic council candidates will contend for three council seats, with incumbents Gerrie Fitzgerald Carey and Josh Mitchell looking to secure new terms against Doug Craig Jr. and Susan Fitzpatrick Grady.
Glenburn Twp.
In a contested race for township supervisor, two Republicans will vie for their party’s nomination, with incumbent Daniel B. Farnham running against Bernadette Rubino Menendez.
Jermyn
No candidates filed to run for Jermyn mayor to replace outgoing Mayor Tony Fuga, which means write-in candidates will likely advance to November’s ballot.
Jessup
Five Democrats will seek four nominations for borough council seats, with incumbents Roberta Pitoniak Galati, Thomas Fiorelli III and Gregg Betti facing Ronald Richard Kordish and Robbie Martin.
La Plume Twp.
Like Jermyn’s mayoral race, La Plume Twp. did not have any candidates file for a seat on the board of supervisors.
Olyphant
Five Democratic candidates are seeking three nominations for borough council seats in Olyphant, with incumbents James Baldan, David R. Krukovitz and Joseph Collarini facing challengers Eric Hartshorn and Rosemary Davis. Collarini was appointed to council in March to replace Councilman Jerry Tully, who resigned.
Ransom Twp.
With an open board of supervisors seat, no one filed to run in Ransom Twp.
Taylor
Five Democrats will seek four of their party’s nominations for borough council, with incumbents Kenneth F. Mickavicz, Dick Nezlo and John Fox and challengers Jeanie Sluck and Adam Piasecki.
Throop
Incumbent Democratic Mayor Joe Tropiak will face Anthony Amico for the Democratic nomination.
Jeff Horvath, staff writer, contributed to this report.