Public safety is top of mind for Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown and the community he serves.
It was a key theme in the mayor’s recently released Year in Review report, which highlighted policy accomplishments for 2024, from levee improvements to new equipment for the city’s fire department and new policing initiatives.
Brown talked about the report — and the health of the city overall — during a wide-ranging interview at his office in City Hall on East Market Street.
“There are several things that we feel are important. Number one is the safety of the residents and the people that come to the city, and business owners,” Brown said.
He has made hiring and promoting firefighters and police officers a priority during his administration, "which is a promise I made," Brown said.
Police department
To that end, the city’s police department added a bicycle unit, with six e-bikes available to 12 officers who are assigned on a voluntary basis. The department also added an additional K-9 team in 2024.
The bicycle unit will mesh with the department’s plans for enhanced community policing, Brown said.
Sergeant Steve Lada, an experienced member of the department, oversees the community policing unit, which Brown said includes five community substations where officers will interact with business owners and people in the neighborhoods.
“Our officers who are in the community policing unit, they want to be visible. They want to be in the neighborhoods and make themselves approachable,” Brown said.
“And hopefully the residents will open up to the officers” about issues on their minds, whether crime-related or perhaps code enforcement concerns that can be passed along to that department, the mayor added.
Fire department
The city’s fire department made $220,000 in emergency equipment and fire station upgrades through Community Development Block Grant funding, $1.5 million in upgrades to department headquarters, and added a new $850,000 state-of-the-art Pierce fire engine.
Brown knew that last purchase was especially important thanks to conversations he had with members of the department, particularly in the wake of a large fire last winter that tore through several North Empire Street homes on a frigid Sunday.
“And at three different places, I stopped to talk to firefighters. They all said, ‘Mayor, we need another fire engine,’” Brown recalled.
The department responded to 3,774 calls in 2024. While 47% of them were medical calls, there were 160 fires reported, and several of those — like the North Empire blaze — were major incidents.
Brown raised the fire engine issue with his senior staff at their 11 a.m. meeting the next morning.
“So what we did was we put down a $50,000 down payment on it, and I took out a loan. It was that important,” Brown said.
Levees, infrastructure, parks
Safety also comes in other forms. The year also saw a $1.1 million renovation project on the Brookside Levee along Mill Creek and $250,000 in repairs to the Hazle Street retaining wall.
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, there are approximately 238 people who live in the levee’s protection area and 105 structures.
“It was worth every penny to make the folks that live in that area safer,” Brown said.
The mayor also said his administration has added a hot pothole patcher to make more lasting repairs and maintains a pothole reporting hotline for residents at 570-208-4237.
Other key accomplishments included “major improvements to Kirby Park, specifically the installation of ADA Accessible walkways and a scenic pier overlooking the park’s pond, the construction of the ADA accessible special needs bathroom, repaving and ADA upgrades to the Kirby Park entrance roadway and parking lot, and the construction of the Kirby Park Recreation and Maintenance Facility,” the report’s summary stated.
“People say, ‘Why are the parks important to you?’ They're in the neighborhoods. They are very visible in the neighborhoods,” Brown said. “I'm also a big proponent of people with special needs. I think most people know that, and I just love to see how we can help the special needs community.”
There is more to come.
Brown noted that work is underway to build special needs facilities at The Bog, a park off East Main Street in the city’s Miners Mills section.
“Why there? It's the home of (Wyoming Valley) Challenger Baseball,” said Brown, referring to the league for people with disabilities, which hosts games at Evercor Field.
“We're building pickleball courts, we're building handball courts, we're redoing some of the tennis courts, and we're also creating more handicapped accessible parking. So that whole park is going to be done over,” Brown said.
Growth and development
These projects have not taken place in a vacuum. They were launched in a city that has steadily rebounded from the challenges of COVID-19, where commercial development has gone hand-in-hand with some population growth.
Twenty-five new businesses opened in the city in 2024, Brown said, and he estimates 55,000 people now live there. That is substantially more than the 43,000 Brown said was reported in census estimates, but he believes the numbers are higher because many people do not participate in the federal headcount.
“We know there's a lot more than 43,000 because over the last several years, we've seen a large amount of increase in garbage collections. That means there's more people living here. We see an increase in the earned income tax. That means more people are working, living here and paying earned income tax,” Brown said.
Those developments are a far cry from what Brown encountered during his first term.
The mayor, a businessman and former city councilman, was elected to lead the city in 2019 and inaugurated in January 2020 at the age of 68.
He took over the reins of a municipality where his predecessor had unsuccessfully sought distressed city status, the aggregate pension fund was "severely underfunded," and the police and fire departments were understaffed, Brown recalled.
"So these are all things I knew I was coming into," he said.
Three months into Brown's first term, the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the region. Businesses sent their employees home to work remotely, and community events were canceled, turning downtown Wilkes-Barre into a ghost town.
"We lost about $4 million that year in revenue due to COVID. People were not downtown, restaurants are hurting, everybody's hurting," he said.
But the difficulties didn't end there.
In April 2020, an intense windstorm swept through the region, tearing the roof off Wilkes-Barre City Hall. During the cleanup asbestos was discovered and had to be removed.
Later that year, the building's aging elevator broke and was out of service for an extended period, as replacement parts were hard to find. With the Mayor's Office and Council Chambers located on the fourth floor, that made those locations inaccessible to people with disabilities.
In August of 2020, a sudden thunderstorm caused flash flooding and brought down a string of telephone poles on South Main Street, temporarily trapping a woman in her car.
In September of the following year, the remnants of Hurricane Ida deluged Northeast Pennsylvania, causing flooding and evacuations in the city.
"It was a rough couple years," Brown said.
Post-COVID recovery
Things have been looking up since.
Business activity resumed as the pandemic waned, and the city's financial picture has improved through growing earned income tax revenue, careful management of overtime and a focus on grants and partnerships to help fund projects.
The city also drew on COVID relief funds to provide assistance to low-income residents, new businesses, and homeowners seeking to make repairs — aid the mayor says helped boost the local economy.
The result, Brown said, has been a series of balanced budgets with no tax or fee increases, including this year's $58.46 million spending plan.
Easily reelected in 2023, Brown credits the work of his team.
"It's not because of me, it's because of my staff and the great job they're doing," he said. "And we're very fortunate to have a great fire department, well-trained police department, DPW people and support staff that are here in case something happens."
The mayor also relishes his role as the head of a growing and diverse community. An estimated 20,000 residents are Latino, and an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 are Black, the mayor said.
Official city advertisements in the local newspapers have been running in English and Spanish, and Brown meets regularly with Latino business leaders.
"We want them to know everyone's welcome here," Brown said.
Looking ahead
And Brown's thoughts on his political future?
It is, he conceded, a bit early to know what the next election might bring, but he also won't rule anything out.
"The voters may say, maybe someone with fresh blood, you know, might come in and do a better job. You never know," Brown said.
"But I love this job. My family knows I love this job," he added. "When you love something, it's not work. It's a great job, it's a great city, and I love helping people."
"So let me put it this way," Brown said. "I work out every day. I'm in good shape, I try to stay in good shape. I eat, right, you know, and God willing, he'll keep me healthy."
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Key activities highlighted in Mayor George Brown's Year in Review report include:
■ Paving and installing ADA ramps on four city streets and demolishing one dilapidated property.
■ Improving the city’s traffic signal infrastructure and making renovations at City Hall.
■ A skid steer loader and bucket truck were purchased and delivered for use in the Department of Public Works. A new pickup truck and dump truck were purchased and are scheduled to be delivered this spring.
■ Over 25 DPW employees completed training for the bucket truck. Four department of Public Works employees earned their CDL license through a collaborative effort between the City, PA CareerLink, and Luzerne County Community College.
■ DPW patched 265 potholes and used 2,975 tons of salt on city roads during winter weather events.
■ DPW crews also completed field and building renovations to Casey Park’s softball field, field renovations to Barney Farm’s Gibby Baseball Field, and upgrades to the fields, signage, and painting in Kirby Park.
■ The Wilkes-Barre City Health Department instituted new software for food establishment inspections, completed 3,261 rental inspections, and administered 1,391 vaccines. The animal control officer was certified as an animal humane officer.
■ The Bureau of Preventative Health participated in seven community events, reaching over 4,700 people.
■ The City of Wilkes-Barre hosted or co-hosted over a dozen events in 2024, including the annual St. Patrick’s Day and Christmas parades.
