By Jennifer Learn-Andes
The [Wilkes-Barre] Times-Leader

Luzerne County Manager Robert Lawton is scheduled to present a “state of the county” report required by home rule during Tuesday’s county council meeting.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the council meeting room at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre.

Council is scheduled to meet in closed-door executive session before the meeting to discuss proposed revisions to the county ethics code, but some council members are backing Kingston resident Brian Shiner’s argument that the matter should be discussed in public to comply with the state’s open-meeting law.

County Chief Solicitor C. David Pedri said council may discuss legal issues involving the code, but council members Jim Bobeck and Linda McClosky Houck sent emails to Pedri and council colleagues saying any discussions about the actual legislation changes should be public.

“I cannot in good conscience ever attend an executive session to discuss legislation,” Bobeck wrote. ” Perhaps I have too much ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’ regarding legislative discussions, but the possibility of litigation has been discussed on so many issues before us, and we always still did it in the open.”

McClosky Houck said council members fully discussed revisions to the original drafts of the ethics, administrative and personnel codes in public. Councilman Rick Williams made an “excellent” suggestion for a committee to focus on changes to all three codes proposed by council members and the public, she said.

“I suggest that we direct our attention to the actual revisions rather than argue about the forum for the discussion,” she wrote.