Woman fights City Hall over right to petition

Ballot push turns contentious
As Carey came to see it, direct democracy was an opportunity for citizens to assert more power for themselves. At the same time, this approach threatened to take authority from the mayor's office.

Leighton told his lawyer to stop the activist. "She can go (expletive) herself," he allegedly said, according to later trial testimony, a claim he denied under oath.

Leighton argued that Carey and other canvassers had deliberately misled residents by telling them they were signing a petition to reopen the firehouse when, in fact, the petition's intent was to revamp the city charter to add the tools of initiative and referendum.

Carey hotly denied any attempt to mislead. Perhaps some circulators weren't as clear as they might have been, but the petition itself spelled everything out, she said.

The mayor asked a judge to toss Carey's petition. But a few days before the adversaries were to square off in court, an unexpected development changed everything: A canvasser pulled all of the hundreds of signatures he'd collected, citing technical flaws. Without them, Carey knew the petition could not qualify for the ballot. As she sent a letter of withdrawal to the election board, Carey thought she had let everyone in the Heights down.

But the fight was about to take another dramatic turn.

Since the effort to change the charter was now moot, Carey thought the hearing on the city's challenge would be just a formality. Instead, Luzerne County President Judge Michael Conahan demanded to know why no one had informed him about Carey's motion to withdraw. He had cleared his schedule for a hearing that was no longer needed.

"Does anybody recognize that we're all kind of busy here?" he hollered.

"I do recognize that, sir," Carey replied meekly. She had never appeared before a judge before and was petrified.

City's legal bills mount
Leighton's lawyer also responded, telling the angry judge that the city had wasted time and money fighting Carey's petition — and that the activist should have to pay the city's legal bill.

"Court awards attorney fees against Ms. Carey," Conahan quickly ordered. Then he pronounced the amount:

"$11,056."

Carey collapsed, sobbing, into her husband's arms. The couple lived paycheck-to-paycheck and had very little savings. Where would they get that kind of money? Would they lose their house?

Tom was furious and vowed to appeal. But his wife wasn't sure she had the stomach for a protracted legal battle. Not after her experience in Conahan's courtroom, which left her feeling steamrolled.

Neither of them got much sleep that night, or in the weeks to come.

'Keep your mouths shut'
Public condemnation of Leighton and Conahan was swift.

"The system put Carey in her place," fumed Casey Jones, then a columnist for the Times Leader. "Did you get the message, folks? Resistance will not be tolerated. Pay your taxes, peons, and keep your mouths shut."

The local Green Party offered to lie down in front of Carey's house if the sheriff tried to sell it to satisfy the debt.

Others showed their support in less public ways. Occasionally, Denise or Tom would find a cash in the mailbox. An elderly woman sent three dollar bills, accompanied by a letter saying she wished she could afford to send more. There was no return address.

Leighton, who was taking a public-relations beating, complained, "This is not about making someone a martyr."

In a letter to the editor, he wrote that Carey and her group engaged in "deception" and "committed a fraudulent act against the City of Wilkes-Barre by misleading residents and violating the election process. They must be held accountable for their actions."

When Carey read this, she thought: First the mayor raided my pocketbook, and now he's trashing my reputation. ("Is it true what they're saying about you?" asked a concerned client in her social work practice.) A steely resolve began to replace Carey's ambivalence about an appeal. She and Tom met with a pair of out-of-town lawyers.

Cynthia Pollick, who had years of experience in civil-rights work, listened to Carey's tale with growing outrage. Attorney Lisa Welkey had a similar reaction: "I absolutely believed it was a way to silence her, to teach her a lesson about challenging local government."

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