Woman fights City Hall over right to petition

updated 11:40 a.m. ET Jan. 11, 2009

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - Overlooking this 200-year-old city is a neighborhood called the Heights, where simple frame homes built for immigrant coal miners, brewery workers and railroad hands after the Civil War stand cheek by jowl along sharply inclined streets and alleyways.

There's little open space among the singles, twins and rowhouses here. One consequence: If a house catches fire, adjacent structures are at risk, too. Seconds count when firefighters get a call.

Generations of Heights dwellers have known this. So when the mayor decided to shutter the neighborhood's lone, dilapidated firehouse — saying it required costly repairs that Wilkes-Barre could ill afford — Denise Carey protested. Loudly.

Thus began a long and spirited campaign by the lifelong Heights resident to save the East Fire Station. Along the way, she became what some politicians dread most: An activist.

"I wanted all of us to be safe," Carey says now, four years later.

So, too, did Mayor Tom Leighton. But he insisted the city's other firehouses could protect the Heights.

He complained Carey was misleading people — and he concluded she had to be stopped.

Their struggle, which finally played out in a courtroom at the end of last year, boiled down to a First Amendment issue:

When citizens petition their government, can the government push back? And if so, how hard?

Risk of fire well understood
The risk of fire was well understood by Carey's family. When her husband Tom was 16, his house burned to the ground. Though not in the Heights, it, too, sat atop a hill that became dangerous in winter weather.

Carey, a 46-year-old social worker, took comfort in the East Station, which was just up the street. At a moment's notice, firefighters could respond to her home, or to her elderly parents' home around the corner.

In October 2004, Leighton was still settling into his new job at City Hall. The real estate broker and three-term city councilman had become mayor the previous January on a pledge to revive the sagging downtown and crack down on crime in this northeastern Pennsylvania town of 41,000.

"I will make the difficult decisions," Leighton told his new constituents.

What to do with the Heights' firehouse would turn out to be one of those tough decisions.

On Oct. 19, a storm pounded the city and exposed serious problems at East Station, including roof leaks that sent rainwater through light fixtures. The next day, the fire chief declared the building a fire hazard and closed it.

"If the money's not insane, we'll amend some things and get it fixed as quickly as possible," Leighton promised, and hired an engineering firm to study how much repairs would cost. The answer: between $241,000 and $340,000.

The mayor said the city didn't have that kind of cash.

Neighbors banded together
The estimate seemed ridiculously high to Carey and her neighbors. Besides, people were willing to donate time and materials to repair the roof. What was the problem?

The neighbors banded together as Citizens for Safety and set out to change the mayor's mind. The fledgling activists packed City Council meetings, staged protest marches, and blanketed the Heights with signs. To raise money for repairs, they sold T-shirts that said, "Come on mayor light my firehouse."

"The closing of East Station was wrong, and it was reckless," Carey lectured the mayor at one council meeting. "You put about 3,000 children, elderly and disabled people at what we believe is a serious risk." She and others especially worried about the difficulty of fire trucks climbing the slippery hills in winter.

Carey's group had the support of the firefighters' union and some council members, but Leighton remained adamant. Years of neglect had taken their toll on the firehouse. He had to be a good steward of taxpayers' funds.

"I can only spend the money we have," the mayor told the protesters.

After months of failed efforts at persuasion, a member of Citizens for Safety had an idea. Why not alter the city charter to allow a referendum on the East Station? That way, residents would have the final say — not the mayor.

A "last resort," Carey called it, and she and her allies began circulating a petition to place a question on the November 2005 ballot. Required to get 975 signatures to qualify, they wound up submitting 1,300 to the Luzerne County Board of Elections.

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