Scranton mayor Paige Cognetti (D.), who is running for Congress against Republican incumbent Rob Bresnahan, turned a stretch of the street she lives on into a one-way street without properly notifying the city council of the change, records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show. The move has led to dangerous near-accidents and hurt the business of a local trucking company, residents say.
Scranton resident Les Spindler first raised the issue at an April 7 city council meeting. He noted that a construction crew had blocked off a road near his house, Euclid Avenue, at a point next to a busy intersection. The workers told him they were turning the road into a one-way and said "everybody" supported the change. Spindler told the council he did not and asked its members if they knew anything about the project. They didn't, according to the council's president, who asked his clerk to contact the mayor's office—which is supposed to inform the council of such projects under Scranton's city code—for more information, meeting minutes reviewed by the Free Beacon show.
In the meantime, Spindler kept showing up to council meetings with updates. Drivers were not adhering to the new traffic pattern, he said, citing a neighbor whose "daughter was almost hit head on" and another who said, "people are going down the wrong way and somebody's going to get killed there." A local trucking company located near Euclid, Emiliani Trucking, was also unaware of the change and didn't think its 18-wheelers could navigate the new route, indicating that emergency vehicles would have the same problem, Spindler added.
"There's no way a fire truck is going to fit up there. … I looked down to where they're doing the project and an ambulance went out the wrong way, an ambulance," Spindler said during an April 28 meeting. "They didn't talk to anybody that it's going to affect. I mean, my five-year-old granddaughter could have designed that project better than whoever did it."
The mayor's office defended the change around the same time, telling the council that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation had suggested it to improve traffic safety. The department pushed back, writing in a September 17 letter to the mayor that "PennDOT representatives have stated that the change to one-way was presented by the City Engineer" and that Cognetti repeatedly violated city code by failing to "send written communication to Council to notify of the proposed regulation and the reasons for the change."
The ordeal has generated some local coverage, including in a recent WBRE Wilkes-Barre piece headlined, "A one-way road, a two-sided fight." But none of that coverage has noted that Cognetti herself lives on Euclid, according to property records reviewed by the Free Beacon, which show that she and her husband purchased a home on the street in 2021 for $349,000. Euclid connects to the heavily trafficked North Main Avenue, which is lined with businesses. The one-way road could cut down on through traffic by encouraging drivers coming from north of Cognetti's home to use a different route to connect to North Main and avoid the one-way.
It's the latest example of Cognetti taking heat for her moves as mayor as she campaigns for a promotion to Congress. Though Cognetti has centered her congressional campaign on her record as mayor, saying on her campaign website that she "reformed the office" by "battling corruption in City Hall," she has faced criticism from residents and city council members over a $1.9 million deal she brokered to purchase the old Scranton headquarters of Fidelity Bank. Cognetti's uncle-in-law sits on the bank's board, all nine members of which have contributed to Cognetti's campaign.
"We got a mayor who's not here," Scranton resident Rik Little said during a July 16 council meeting that included debate of the deal. "The mayor should be here every week."
Cognetti has also said she helped "lower costs" as mayor by "properly managing city assets" and "adding modern infrastructure." But changing her street to a one-way had the opposite effect for Emiliani Trucking, which has been located about a mile from Cognetti's home for 90 years. The company's trucks use Euclid to access North Main, a route they can no longer take. The road the company is supposed to use under the new setup, meanwhile, is not big enough to accommodate the trucks, as Spindler warned.
"This is a residential neighborhood, but we've been grandfathered in since 1936," the company's co-owner, Jack Emiliani, told WBRE Wilkes-Barre. "And basically, now, we can't even pick our trailers up. We have to leave them up in Archbald, Pennsylvania. We can't bring them to our yard, I can't even bring them to my yard to work on them. … It comes right off of our profit for our trip."
Cognetti did not respond to a request for comment.
Emiliani's hope is that Euclid goes back to being a two-way street, something the council says it thought would be happening all along. Under Scranton's city code, Cognetti's administration can change traffic regulations for a 90-day "trial period" after providing written notice to the council. Any changes "cease to be effective" after that period if the council does not approve legislation making them permanent.
When it comes to Euclid, the council says it did not receive written notice before Cognetti's administration started the "trial period" by installing "one-way signage." It unanimously rejected legislation making the one-way permanent on Sept. 3, the Times-Tribune reported. Still, councilman Patrick Flynn said it would be impossible to return to the street's former traffic pattern because "sidewalks were pushed out substantially, essentially making this a forced one-way. There's no possibility right now the way it's set up to be a two-way."
Cognetti condemned the council vote as a "disheartening display of political rhetoric over public safety." The mayor's office pointed the Free Beacon to its previous statement on Euclid Avenue, which, in addition to arguing that the council did pass the change to Euclid by approving a grant application, says Cognetti's administration "obtained PennDOT approval prior to submission of the traffic changes to City Council, as we normally do. It would be irresponsible to present a plan that PennDOT would not support or allow us to legally implement." The council says that application "did not include a one-way street."
At least some of the criticism could turn into a positive for Cognetti's campaign. During a May 26 city council meeting, Spindler said Cognetti's handling of the one-way was so "ridiculous" that "when it comes to November, everybody vote for Paige for Congress so we get her out of here."
