Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza NOW

Over the past decade, Scranton has sold off a majority of its income-generating services to profiteering companies with no loyalty to our area. Revenues from parking, water, and sewage are now funneled out of Scranton into the hands of corporate investors, not unlike the extractive economic relationships our region has had for generations.

At the same time, our city’s largest education and healthcare corporations pay nothing in property taxes while homeowners, tenants, and small businesses bear their burden.

Property taxes, when they were originally conceived, were an effective way to distribute the wealth of rich landowners to fund public services for the rest of us. Across America, as workers joined unions and life expectancies improved, the Middle Class grew. More and more of us have become homeowners, making property taxes a greater burden borne disproportionately by the working class. Many of us are tenants, who pay the taxes with increased rents.

Heather supports a 21st century plan to fund our city’s priorities.

As our city finally rises out of financial distress status, it’s time for Scranton to thrive and fund our city services with more than just trash fees and taxes on our residents.

Prepare for Possible Hospital Sales. Heather supports protecting Scranton taxpayers from increased property taxes by ensuring that any pending sale of for-profit Commonwealth Health’s hospitals or facilities to a non-profit keeps the multi-million dollar properties on the tax rolls.

We know that Community Health Systems, owner of Moses Taylor Hospital and Regional Hospital of Scranton has sold 40 hospitals out of 126 nationwide in the last two years, including Berwick Hospital last year, so we predict more sales are coming to NEPA, if they get offered the right price.

In the past few years, Lock Haven and Northumberland had their for-profit hospitals sold to a non-profit and successfully kept the properties on the tax rolls. Scranton needs to think through a similar strategy and we will need all the counties, municipalities, and school districts in our area to join together if a large health system comes to town and tries to dodge property taxes while assuming control of profitable hospitals.

Heather is a union leader who knows how to collectively bargain with big healthcare corporations and we will need a widespread effort to protect taxpayers if all or part of the Commonwealth Health system is sold. We just have to be prepared regionally.

It is also essential that the Scranton community bands together to support healthcare workers and their union contracts if Moses Taylor and Regional Hospital are sold. If the new employer demands union contracts be negotiated from scratch, it could mean a possible reduction in wages and benefits for a workforce of predominately women and many breadwinners for our working class community.

Make “non-profits” who make millions in profits pay their fair share. Heather supports the right of municipalities in Pennsylvania to assess profitable non-profits as taxable entities. Colleges, universities, and healthcare corporations operating in the city who generate a significant amount of revenue above their operating costs from tuition, fees, and patient bills ought to pay their fair share toward the city that hosts them.

The leverage of assessing property tax may compel them to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) that can support the city’s budget OR invest their profits in their personnel, facilities, and community. If they do neither, a tax on giant non-profits’ significant profits would be called for.

Join in the movement to fix the upside down income tax in Pennsylvania. Heather believes we need local and state income tax brackets, also known as a “graduated income tax”, to relieve the tax burden on working families. The Pennsylvania Budget & Policy Center reports that all of our neighboring states do it this way.

The Institute on Tax and Economic Policy has listed Pennsylvania as one of the “Terrible Ten” states with the most unjust tax system. It’s not hard to understand why. According to the report, state and local taxes take a little over 12 percent of the income of the poorest fifth of households. They take a little over 10 percent of the middle fifth income bracket. But they only take a little over 4 percent from those in the top 1 percent of households according to income.

Working families pay a vastly disproportionate amount of their income toward local and state income taxes while millionaires and billionaires in Pennsylvania enjoy the same tax rates. The richest zip codes, in turn, can afford better schools and services by taxing properties, while cities like Scranton struggle without the boon of revenue a progressive tax system would provide.

What’s the hold up? Unlike most states, Pennsylvania has a “uniformity clause” in our state’s constitution, which prohibits taxing any one class of income at different rates. It has stood in the way of creating what most states with an income tax have, a graduated system in which those with higher incomes pay at a higher rate. NPR reports that “a consequence of our uniformity clause is that our state and local taxes, taken together, are among the most regressive in the entire country.”

The vacuum of revenue from a progressive income tax leaves Scranton with fewer and fewer options as our housing stock, built in the early 20th century, depreciates and curtails property tax revenue while the city and state’s income tax must remain flat.

It will take a constitutional amendment in PA to change the “uniformity clause”, but it is the best and most permanent way for us to relieve the burden of local taxes on our residents. In doing so, the state could raise badly needed revenue for schools, roads, and services. Across the state, municipalities and school districts could use that revenue to offset property taxes.

While we wait for an amendment to the state’s constitution, the proposed “Fair Share Tax” makes sense in the interim. According to the Pennsylvania Budget & Policy Center, the PA Senate bill would amend the tax code, cutting taxes on wages and interest for the middle class and increasing taxes on the richest Pennsylvanians’ big business profits, capital gains, dividends, royalties, and estates. Under that plan, Pennsylvania would still have a more competitive tax rate than New York and New Jersey.

Heather will step up and lead Scranton’s fight to call on our state’s legislature to pass a fair tax structure.

Public Health

Last year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Cognetti proposed a new position in city government: Public Health Coordinator. At a time when our nursing homes were overwhelmed with infections and our hospitals rushed to accommodate COVID-19 patients, neither the city nor Lackawanna County had a health department to respond.

Unfortunately, city council did not see fit to fund the position. Thankfully, Mayor Cognetti has assembled private funds to get the position funded initially and, if elected to city council, Heather will apply her expertise as a nurse to make sure the position is supported into the future.

The position is posted on the city’s website and the City is accepting applications. The description lists the short-term and long-term role a public health coordinator would play.

Initially, the coordinator will work with individuals, clinics, congregations, educational institutions, restaurants, businesses and other local organizations to help them develop COVID-19 prevention and response protocols and guidelines for reopening as well as access to vaccination for their employees and members.

Those relationships will help the coordinator quickly identify new infections and conduct contact tracing to stop the spread and prevent another surge in COVID-19 cases.

In addition to helping our community defeat COVID-19 once and for all, the Public Health Coordinator will communicate the latest public health information and measures to our community, train and deploy volunteers among the workforce, and assure that public health information is evidence-based.

Housing

Heather believes housing is one of Scranton’s greatest assets, but our housing stock is aging and many homes have badly needed repairs to make. Homeowners, tenants, and landlords can all benefit from programs like window and door weatherization, renovations, and affordable housing policies.

Heather will make sure all of the weatherization programs currently offered by the Scranton Lackawanna Human Development Agency are widely known to residents, especially landlords and tenants. We can give our residents a “stimulus” by helping them save on heating and electric bills that skyrocket when a home isn’t weatherized.

We know that the best way to ensure a home is well taken care of is to have the homeowner residing there. Too often, people remain tenants in neglected rental units because the cost of buying a home is too high. Heather believes that greater awareness and participation in Lackawanna County’s First Time Homebuyer Assistance Program will root down proud homeowners within our City and guard against the negative effects of gentrification.

Heather will also support the city taking a proactive role in offering grants and low-interest loans for repairs to owner occupied homes within the city limits, based on the City of Williamsport’s successful program, where Heather worked as a nurse midwife for 6 years. Williamsport’s program finances qualified households making code, safety and other needed repairs to their homes up to $30,000. Eligible work includes roofing, electrical, plumbing, lead paint hazard reduction, insulation, window replacement, and many other items.

The City should also coordinate energy companies’ sponsorship of these projects in low income neighborhoods. In 2008, the PA state legislature passed Act 129 and ordered big utilities to pay for energy efficiency programs. Heather will make it a priority to make sure those funds are directed from the coffers of UGI and PPL more effectively to fund projects like the wholesale purchase of materials, training of qualified construction professionals, and financing of costs.

Finally, but equally important, Heather will take seriously her role of approving funding and appointing board members to the Scranton Housing Authority. Everyone who lives in public housing has a right to live with dignity.

Business

Eliminate the Business Privilege and Mercantile Tax. Heather supports eliminating the business privilege and mercantile tax on goods and services sold in the city. The collection rate is poor and the mercantile tax is stifling small businesses. Instead of taxing businesses' gross revenue, Heather supports a payroll tax based on how many employees they have.

If we are going to attract new businesses and retain businesses that have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to make sure they can afford to pay their workers family-sustaining wages and stay open, without passing an additional tax on to consumers through higher prices.

Attract new and diverse employers. Heather believes the Electric City, situated among major interstates, rail lines, agricultural production, and within commuting distance to major metropolitan areas, can be a prime center for manufacturing and production. Warehousing and landfills, while steady employers, aren’t the only industries our valley should be known for.

We must seek out and attract employers that pay family-sustaining wages, don’t harm our environment, and insulate us from the booms and busts of the national economy.

Attracting employers to our area shouldn’t be a zero sum game where cities compete with boroughs who compete with townships. Our neighboring municipalities have the industrial zoning, Scranton has the marketing and workforce, and we all benefit when the working class in our area thrives.

Heather believes in a community planning approach to attracting new business, starting with our community prioritizing what businesses we want to see, not vice versa. Then, as a united region, we can submit proposals to industry associations to draw them in with the community’s support.

Foster immigrant and POC-owned businesses. In 2020, the City spent countless hours attempting to censor a restaurant owner in South Side for a clever business name they chose. That’s backward. People of color and immigrants who choose the hard path of starting a business in Scranton should be supported and welcomed. Generations of diverse people have chosen Scranton to pursue their dreams and we ought to be proud of that history. Diversity is what makes us strong.

Human Rights

Non-Discrimination - In 2003, Scranton passed our own non-discrimination ordinance and established the Scranton Human Relations Commission to enforce the law in workplaces, public accommodations, and housing. In addition to race, color, religious creed, ancestry, age, and national origin, the Scranton ordinance protects from discrimination by sexuality or gender identity.

Heather is committed to making sure every Scranton resident understands their right to file a discrimination complaint and that the work of the Scranton Human Relations Commission is supported and fully funded.

Police Accountability - Heather agrees with the Black Scranton Project that a Police Review Board is the most sensible approach to any alleged misconduct by Scranton Police officers. A review board would be empaneled with volunteers and the city would fund a forensic investigator to review evidence when a complaint is filed. If a complete investigation finds misconduct, the board would recommend a course of action, from re-training up to and including discipline or removal.

Many cities have chosen this route to ensure both that residents’ complaints are thoroughly investigated and that police officers are not arbitrarily or wrongly accused. An independent review board is a fair system that should be celebrated in a democratic society and put into practice.

Immigrant Justice - Scranton is home to many undocumented immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families, just like many generations before them. Until Congress passes comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship, these immigrants remain vulnerable to the ongoing persecution of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

In fact, within the first month of the pandemic, ICE raided Geisinger Community Medical Center (where Heather works) to arrest a patient in the Emergency Department. The presence of ICE agents at a hospital can intimidate immigrants from seeking life-saving care.

In December 2019, ICE detained an El Salvadoran woman legally in the United States seeking asylum from gang violence and a better life for her children. According to the Scranton Times-Tribune, “agents boxed in her car at a Scranton convenience market, handcuffed her, then drove her home to search for a man, who is her boyfriend. Agents banged on the front door for an hour, demanded he come outside, scared her children and left with their mission incomplete, the woman and her lawyer said. They also threatened to take away her four boys, all American-born citizens.”

From 2014 to 2019, ICE abducted more than 700 immigrants in NEPA, including 74 in Lackawanna County. They have waited at the county courthouse downtown for immigrants attending court dates and conducted dawn raids at homes in our neighborhoods.

The Pike County Jail, where ICE leases space from the county government to incarcerate immigrants detained in our area, has a pattern of alleged health care abuses and at least two COVID-19 deaths among inmates.

Heather will not rest as ICE intimidates our neighbors and will make sure that the city continues the current policy of not assisting in ICE raids. It is important that immigrants feel safe in their homes, at healthcare facilities, at work, and while interacting with local Scranton police officers when reporting dangerous crimes in the community.