The Wyoming County Commissioners (top) heard from 2011 flood victims like Kevin Ray (above, left) and Lizz DeWolfe for the third time in two months at their regular public meeting on May 2. The county and the state have separately and repeatedly blamed each other for a confusing buyout application process without the face-to-face meetings needed to resolve the issue.
Photos and Story by Rick Hiduk
As much as some people are tiring of the ongoing saga related to the potential buyout of flooded properties in Wyoming County, homeowners who have been promised assistance by PEMA and other government agencies vow to continue their fight until 1) someone is held accountable for what they contend to be a mishandled application process and 2) the state makes a final determination on theirs and the plights of others.
Residents of Forkston Township returned to the courthouse today to confront the Wyoming County Commissioners with new information indicating that the state will not acknowledge any part of the selection process for buyout grants for which the commissioners and other county officials have already blamed them.
“In no way, shape, or form have we ever had an opportunity to pick or choose,” Commissioner Tom Henry said again Tuesday morning.
Henry reported that the commissioners had received an email from the Gov. Tom Wolf’s office asking for bank account information so the CDBG funds announced in March that were earmarked for Meshoppen Borough could be deposited.
He and the other commissioners were clearly frustrated by Forkston resident Lizz DeWolfe’s assertion that the governor’s local office manager and the regional DCED director told her that the process was flawed, was on hold, and might be renegotiated from scratch.
DeWolfe participated in a conference call on April 21 with Cassandra Coleman, manager of Gov. Wolf’s NEPA office in Pittston, and Paul Macknosky of DCED who has an office in the same building at 2 N. Main Street.
DeWolfe asked of them who decided whose homes would qualify for the buyouts. According to DeWolfe, Coleman and Macknowsky agreed that the responsibility fell to the Housing Authority and Wyoming County EMA and specifically named Gene Dziak.
DeWolfe contends that she was told that Dziak prioritized the applications and that a committee in Harrisburg made up of representatives from PEMA, DCED, PennDOT, DEP and DCNR rubber stamped them. “They were under the impression that a committee here had reviewed the applications,” DeWolfe stated in an interview prior to this morning’s meeting. “They approved them based on what they thought was the county’s recommendation.”
Attempts by EndlessMtnLifestyles.com to verify DeWolfe’s claims were ignored by Macknowsky’s office. Coleman deferred questions to a Harrisburg phone number. The commissioners maintain that they are not getting answers from anyone either.
“I’d like to know why they pointed it back to us,” Judy Mead said of the DCED.
“I don’t know why I can’t get anyone from the governor’s office to tell us that this is ‘on hold,’” Henry remarked. “I’ve called them, and they just said that everyone is ‘on track.’”
Ron Williams said that he had spoken with Coleman on the phone and that she said she’d have Macknowsky call him. As of this morning, Williams had not received the call. “I want clarity, and I don’t see clarity,” he remarked.
DeWolfe called for Dziak’s resignation, saying that he is not doing his job nor is he telling the truth. She cited a 2013 meeting at which Dziak reportedly said that he would never help people in Forkston again because they were “a**holes,” which Williams recalled.
“Those were intense times,” Henry responded. “We all said some things then that we didn’t mean to say.”
Kevin Ray of Forkston questioned how, if Dziak doesn’t have anything to do with the applications, he could say definitively on April 18 that a property in Meshoppen on which a mobile home sits had been removed from the buyout list. (Read here: http://www.endlessmtnlifestyles.com/?p=7268)
Henry would not speak for Dziak, nor would he openly entertain DeWolfe’s suggestion. “I wish we had asked him to be here again today,” Henry said softly. It appeared, however, that he and his fellow commissioners better understand that this mass miscommunication and largely unsubstantiated finger pointing is a problem that needs to be fully resolved.
“Certain people have been overlooked,” said Henry. “If it’s because of us, I’d like to know that.”
To read the specific CDBG block grant application in its entirety, click here: http://dced.pa.gov/download/cdbg-disasterrecovery-2015f-pdf/?wpdmdl=57883