Jan 8, 2022 3 min read

MONESSEN – When council voted in November to retain special counsel to handle alleged improper recording of collective bargaining agreement negotiations, newly elected Mayor Ron Moser said the motion would have to “go away.”

After a unanimous vote by council at a meeting Wednesday, it has.

“There is no wiretapping,” said Moser, who was sworn-in as mayor on Monday. “State police did a complete investigation and found nothing wrong here. Why do we keep wasting money on this?”

The 5-0 vote terminates the services of attorney Romel Nicholas of the Pittsburgh firm of Gaitens, Tucceri and Nicholas to handle the alleged improper recording of the negotiations with city employees.

At a special meeting in November, former Mayor Matt Shorraw, former Councilman Gil Coles and Councilman Donald Gregor approved hiring the attorney to work with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, District Council 83 (AFSCME), on the matter.

The move to hire Nicholas came about after an Oct. 15 letter from Harrisburg attorney Alidz Oshagan, representing AFSCME, stated recordings of negotiations took place in 2018 at City Hall.

The letter stated the belief that the recordings were a violation of the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act. However, the union never did file a lawsuit.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Gregor voted to terminate the agreement with the attorney, sort of a change in his vote from November.

Gregor said the main reason he voted to terminate the attorney was that the union didn’t file a lawsuit.

“The union had informed the city administrator that they weren’t going to pursue any legal proceedings, so the city itself didn’t have any standing as far as I was concerned,” Gregor said. “If the union doesn’t pursue it, why would we need an attorney? On the other hand, if the union were to institute a lawsuit, we would need someone to take a look at it. But right now, there’s no need for one.”

Shorraw said at the time that audio of labor negotiations was recorded, and he sent footage to AFSCME. He also posted meeting footage on Facebook.

“The city has to protect itself,” Shorraw said at the time. “Employees have serious concerns about it.”

Shorraw could not be reached for comment Friday.

Moser said at the time that the cameras act as a security system between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m., meaning the system is activated if motion is detected. He said if there was movement during negotiations something may have been recorded, but it was never used.

Special counsel also had been retained at Shorraw’s urging to remove Donald “Buzzy” Byron and Lou Mavrakis from the redevelopment authority, claiming they were illegally appointed to the board by Councilman Tony Orzechowski, who was acting mayor while Shorraw was absent from meetings for nearly two years.

The 5-0 vote terminates the services of the law firm in that matter as well.

“It was totally wrong. It was a waste of money,” Moser said. “I think it was like $23,000 that was spent on those cases thus far and the city couldn’t even make payroll. There was no wrongdoing whatsoever. Let’s be realistic about what’s going on here. It was entirely a personal, vindictive thing the previous mayor had done, and it had to be stopped.”