Kutztown Borough Facts 2-23-09

Kutztown Borough Facts 3-24-09 www.marinoreport.com
From the Kutztonian of Summer, 2001
The Council determines the policies and direction of the Borough operations. The Manager provides recommendations, is the Chief Administrative Officer of the Borough and is responsible to the Council as a whole for the proper and efficient administration of the affairs placed in his charge. The powers and duties for the administration of all Borough business are vested in the Manager, unless imposed on other Borough officers. In an effort to minimize overhead expense, some staff personnel wear many hats. The Borough Manager is also the Treasurer (Finance Director) and Purchasing Agent, the Kutztown Municipal Authority (KMA) Manager and assistant Treasurer, the Kutztown Transportation Authority (KTA) Manager and Assistant Treasurer, and performs the responsibilities of personnel manager and risk manager.
It is unusual that a municipality that deals with a Budget our size and operations as complex as Kutztown’s does not have a full time Finance Director, a full time Human Resource Director, and a full time Public Works Director.
The above article is the boasting and bragging by former Everything Director Keith Hill in the Summer 2001 Kutztonian. One year later, in July of 2002 he secretly filed a Human Rights violation against the Borough and Mayor Marino with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission. He continued to work at the Borough until he resigned in October of 2002. Two days after he left the Borough he illegally and unethically went to work for the Borough Engineers, Spotts, Stevens and McCoy at an hourly rate of $84 an hour. He sat at the same desk he resigned from because the hostile environment which he falsely accused me of creating.
When the Borough found out about his secret complaint with PHRC he was fired in January of 2003. He then filed a complaint in Federal Court and the Borough Council and some Borough employees conspired with him to defraud the Borough’s insurance company of $162,000. There was no fault or guilt found, it was an insurance settlement with no opportunity for appeal. He later went to work or Atlantic Engineering the contractor that he awarded a contract of over $2 million to install the fiber optics system without a public bid.
He further brags about his proposed internet that will have access to everything imaginable. He states if you thought your 56K modem was fast, you ain’t seen nothing yet and then he states a new laser-printed electric and water bill format will be introduced in July.
Here we are in March of 2009 and none of his boasts or brags have materialized. He also bragged that he was a Civil Engineer and the Information Technology Director has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Business Management and Associate degree in Computer Management and was a principal owner in a computer software programming Company. With all of their credentials both of them could not produce a Business Plan or Marketing Plan for Hometown Utilicom. To this day the Borough has never produced and is incapable of producing a Business Plan or Marketing Plan. In fact the Borough has never published a Financial Report on HU since its inception in 2002.
You can see from all his titles that the Borough Council relinquished all their power and put Keith Hill in complete charge of the Borough and when he realized his projects were failures he filed a complaint and literally ran away blaming the Borough and I. Borough Managers\Treasurers Vettraino and Khalife continued to follow his lead and falsify the Borough budget, publish fraudulent reports and award contracts without bids. The most recent illegal contract was for $119,511.87 with Blonder Tongue Laboratories Inc. of Old Bridge, N.J to upgrade the dish for HU. I am already pursuing additional Borough Information through the New Right to Know Law. Gennaro A. Marino P.E.