WB_VOICE/PAGES [A01] | 05/10/18
voice
22:26 | DONLINKEVI
the citizens’
iT’S a deal
LEGACY OF A GENIUS
Tentative agreement reached to avoid teacher furloughs at Crestwood.
Inventor’s death went largely unnoticed. Page A13
Page A7
www.citizensvoice.com
NORTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA’S LARGEST NEWS TEAM
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2018
Newsstand 50¢
Northeast Fair won’t be held this year Organizer blames lack of volunteers, shrinking profit for one-year hiatus. BY Bill Wellock STAFF WRITER
County officials say the project has ended and the money should be disbursed among the county, WilkesBarre Twp. and Wilkes-Barre Area School District, the three taxing bodies that deferred tax revenue. T he city last month requested an injunction from a county court judge to stop the county redevelopment authority from disbursing the funds. A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 12.
PITTSTON TWP. — A symbol of summer in Northeast Pennsylvania won’t be around this year. The Northeast Fair will not take place in 2018, said Allan Capozucca, deputy chief with the Pittston Twp. Volunteer Fire Department. The event benefits the fire department, but a lack of volunteers and too little profit will put it on hiatus this year, he said. The fair started as a fire company carnival decades a go. In 2003, the state Department of Agriculture recognized it as an agricultural fair. It hosted agricultural contests and awarded trophies and prize money according to state rules. From a small firemen’s picnic, it g rew into an attraction that drew thousands of people. About 30,000 people attended in 2014. Rain kept people away in 2015, but 17,000 people still came out to the fairgrounds that year. Last year’s fair ran June 20-25 and featured rides, live entertainment, agriculture contests, monster trucks, a beer garden and more. The state has allowed organizers to suspend the fair for a year and return by June 2019 in order to retain the status as a recognized agricultural fair, Capozucca said. “That’s what we’re doing this year until we can figure it out,” he said. Fairs can take a hiatus for a year and return as state agricultural fairs without any penalties from the Department of Agriculture, said spokesman Will Nichols. If fairs return from hiatus within the deadline, they are still eligible for grants and for some reimbursement for prizes given to agriculture contest award winners.
Please see land, Page A7
Please see fair, Page A7
SuMMiT iS SeT ALEX BRANDON / ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump, accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, back, shakes hands with former North Korean detainees Kim Dong Chul, with Kim Hak Song, upon their arrival Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Trump-Kim talks scheduled for June 12 in Singapore WASHINGTON — Envisioning “a very special moment for world peace,” President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for highly anticipated summit talks in Singapore on June 12. He set the stage for his announcement by hosting a 3 a.m., made-for-TV welcome home for three Americans
held by Kim’s government. “We welcomed them back home the proper way,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Indiana Thursday evening. Final details in place, Trump and Kim agreed to the first face-to-face North Korea-U.S. summit since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. It’s the most consequential and perhaps riskiest foreign policy effort so far in Trump’s presidency as North Korea’s nuclear program approach-
es a treacherous milestone — the capacity to strike the continental U.S. with a thermonuclear warhead. Trump says the U.S. is aiming for “denuclearization” of the entire Korean peninsula, but he has yet to fill in just what steps that might include and what the timing would be. “We’re starting off on a new footing,” Trump said of himself and Kim as he welcomed the detainees
in a floodlit ceremony at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington. He hailed their release as a potential breakthrough in relations between the longtime adversary nations. He and Kim “will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!” he said of the summit later on Twitter. He told his rally crowd, “I think it’s going to be a very big success.” Please see SuMMiT, Page A7
County could tell city: No land for you County council could declare parcel for Coal Street project is no longer for sale. BY eric Mark STAFF WRITER
WILKES-BARRE — Luzerne County council might soon declare that county-owned parcels needed for the proposed extension THE CITIZENS’ VOICE FILE of Coal Street in WilkesTraffic moves along Coal Street in Wilkes-Barre. City offi- Barre are not for sale. cials want to use the remaining tax increment financing The potential development plan money to complete a Coal Street expansion. would add a new twist to an
ongoing dispute between the city and the county over a 20-year-old tax increment financing plan that spurred development along Highland Park Boulevard and Mundy Street, widely known as the Highland Park TIF. The plan later expanded to include Coal Street. City officials say the $2.9 million remaining from the TIF should go toward the long-planned extension of Coal Street across WilkesBarre Boulevard to connect with East Union Street.
8TH conGreSSional diSTricT
ADVE RTISE M E NT
Chrin, Peters ramp up attack ads BY BorYS kraWcZeniuk STAFF WRITER
One candidate tells the ballad of Joe and Josh, the other targets John from Jersey. John Chrin and Joe Peters, two of the Republican 8th Congressional District candidates, have attacked each other in advertising during the past two weeks. Chrin fired first. In a flier mailed to Republican voters days before their May 3 debate, Chrin highlighted Peters’ September 2016 endorsement of state attorney general Josh Shapiro. At the time, Shapiro was the Democratic attorney general nominee and running
cHrin
PeTerS
against state Sen. John Rafferty, who beat Peters earlier in the year for the Republican nomination. The flier says Peters “supported Shapiro because of his position on our ‘immigration system.’” “As part of Shapiro’s liberal immigration agenda, he has sued President Trump to try to stop his tough immigration policies,” the flier says.
Peters shot back in a radio commercial that began airing last week. “Chrin doesn’t even live in NEPA, registered to vote in the Lehigh Valley and New Jersey. He’s not one of us,” a female narrator says. Back when he endorsed Shapiro, Peters called Rafferty “a fine man” in an interview, but said Rafferty never sought his endorsement. He predicted Shapiro would make “a very well-rounded attorney general.” Shapiro’s news release announcing Peters’ endorsement quotes Peters as saying, “Josh thinks for himself, and has taken common-sense
steps to address tough issues from drug use to our broken immigration system.” Peters said he believes “the attorney general’s office shouldn’t be a partisan place.” Last August, Shapiro joined attorneys general in 14 other states and the District of Columbia to challenge President Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, immigration program in federal court. Chrin said he’s only stating facts about Peters’ support for Shapiro. Please see 8TH, Page A7
BREAking nEWS, viDEOS, BlOgS AnD mORE AT ciTizEnSvOicE.cOm © 2018 The Citizens’ Voice
TODAY’S WEATHER BIRTHDAYS. . . . . . A2 CROSSWORD . . . C2 LOTTERY . . . . . . . . A2
High 67º Low 50º
Some sun
BUSINESS. . . . . . . C1 EDITORIAL. . . . . . A12 OBITUARIES A14-15 CLASSIFIED . .C4-16 HOROSCOPE. . . . C2 TELEVISION . . . . . C5
B8
COURT NOTES . . A4 LOCAL . . . . . . . . . . . A3 WORLD/NATION A10
Subscribe to The Voice 570-821-2010
Area’s Largest Purchaser Of Precious Metals BUYING GOLD, PLATINUM, SILVER, UNWANTED & BROKEN JEWELRY, DENTAL GOLD, GOLD & SILVER COINS, BULLION, SILVER BARS, PAPER MONEY, STERLING FLATWARE, OLDER COSTUME JEWELRY, MILITARY ITEMS, ROLEX & HIGHER END WATCHES, LARGER DIAMONDS, ETC...
R
BOW N I A
JEWEL
OPEN Tues. - Fri. 10am - 6pm Sat. 10 am - 4pm losed Sunday & Monda
570-287- 6257
789 Wyoming Ave., Kingston
ERS
80807056D
BY Zeke Miller, Jill colVin and MaTTHeW lee ASSOCIATED PRESS