Monessen: Meeting set in rec board dispute
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
The Monessen Recreation Board and city council plan to hold a joint meeting at 2 p.m. Saturday in City Hall.
According to recreation board Chairman Ed Lea, the meeting was initially set for 6 p.m. tonight, but he was concerned that would violate the Sunshine Act because it would only have been advertised a few hours before the meeting began.
After discussing that concern, Mayor Matt Shorraw and the city agreed to reschedule the meeting for Saturday afternoon. Shorraw said anyone who can’t attend in person can phone in.
The meeting is intended to give the two groups a chance to discuss what Shorraw has referred to as the ongoing drama of the last month or so.
For much of the last month, Shorraw has detailed many complaints about the recreation board and the way it has handled its business.
The mayor has found fault with how the recreation board collects money, including cash, for rentals of the Civic Center; with the board members’ child safety clearances; with several children who were allegedly injured at the Civic Center that he was told about after the fact; with an alleged lack of supervision at the Civic Center; with unreported repairs that need to be made in the building and with what he’s called interpersonal issues between board members.
Lea drove to City Hall during the February workshop meeting so he could defend his board members from many of the accusations, which he said were unfounded. During the ensuing conversation, Lea and the mayor agreed to work together to develop a new process for handling the Civic Center’s rental proceeds, among other things.
Instead, less than a week later, Shorraw put forth a resolution that he wrote with input from the city’s auditor, he said, that outlined new procedures for the board’s finances and made other sweeping changes, according to Lea.
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