Monessen: Rec board chair drives to meeting to answer charges

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

The chair of Monessen’s Recreation Board was watching Monday night’s city council meeting on Facebook Live and felt compelled to drive to city hall to defend his board members against several allegations. 

During the workshop meeting, Mayor Matt Shorraw said he wanted to have a discussion about the recreation board and asked Councilman Tony Orzechowski to begin. But Orzechowski wasn’t aware of what Shorraw was referring to.

Shorraw said he thought Orzechowski also wanted to talk about several issues, but he would just give a list of the issues he’d seen over the last week or two.

The mayor said the first problem was that the rec board asked the city to advertise its meeting schedule for the year — 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month. Shorraw said the issue is that for at least the foreseeable future, meetings will be held by Zoom and the city can’t advertise the meetings until they know how the public can submit comments, which is a requirement of the Sunshine Act.   

“Also, they had a meeting this month, but they didn’t advertise it,” Shorraw said.

The board hadn’t met much, if at all, last year due to COVID-19. 

Shorraw said when he attended the court-ordered Sunshine Act classes required after the settlement between himself, the city and the Mon Valley Independent for Sunshine Act violations during a January 2020 meeting, he learned that all boards and authorities of the city must advertise their meetings and offer a way for public comment.

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