The city council Monday hired the current interim executive director of the Pottsville Area Development Corp. as its new business privilege tax administrator.
Nora C. Chiplona, Pottsville, will start work Feb. 22 and her salary for 2016 will be $35,000, according to Lisa M. Kral, the city clerk.
Chiplona was the finance officer for PADCO, a nonprofit organization, for 14 years before she was named its interim executive director on Dec. 22. She handed in her resignation letter last week, Theodore R. “Ted” Dreisbach, the president of PADCO’s board of directors, said Feb. 3.
“She’s informed us she’ll be moving on to another position somewhere else,” Dreisbach said Feb. 3.
Chiplona would not comment on her resignation when asked about it that day.
The previous city business privilege tax administrator was Leo Schwartz. He was hired Oct. 31, 2007, and resigned in late 2015. His last day of work was Dec. 31, 2015. His salary for 2015 was $40,189.45, Kral said.
“He went back to school to become a paralegal,” Kral said.
City Administrator Thomas A. Palamar said there were six applicants for the position.
In other matters at the council’s February meeting, Palamar ran a slideshow to highlight a collection of properties on the city’s blight list.
“Between June of 2013 and November of 2015, 80 properties have been highlighted to city council and the community,” Palamar said.
On Monday night, he unveiled properties ranked 90 to 81 on the blight list. And he reviewed them in countdown fashion:
90. 529 N. Centre St., owned by Denise Yushan.
89. 629 N. Centre St., owned by Ruiz Giovanni.
88. 1020 W. Market St., owned by Joseph Holland.
87. 815 Mount Hope Ave., owned by Kitara and Timothy Schlauch.
86. 1834 W. End Ave., owned by Brian and Donna Turnier.
85. 800 Laurel Blvd., owned by Andrew Smith.
84. 732 Schuylkill Ave., owned by Max Wily Saint-Juste.
83. 714 W. Market St., owned by Irahim Melhim.
82. 525 S. Centre St., owned by Andrew Silver.
81. 734 Schuylkill Ave., owned by Rita Delp.
There are 453 properties on the city’s blight inventory. So far, 449 have been visited, photographed and rated. And 273 are active cases, Palamar said.
At the February meeting, the council appointed:
• Mary Ann Conway Gursky to the Pottsville Zoning Hearing Board to fill the unexpired term of Morris Brill, which will expire Jan. 9, 2018.
• Stanley Burke to the Planning Commission for the City of Pottsville for a four-year term to expire Feb. 9, 2020.
• Benjamin Shollenberger and Yongchoel Kim to the Board of Appeals for the City of Pottsville for a three-year term to expire February 2019.
• William C. Brior and Jeffrey N. DeAngelo as sewer enforcement officers for the city.