The first thing you see inside Sunbury City Hall is Mayor David Persing's name on an office window.
Today, Persing's got back-to-back appointments running past 5 p.m. He's taking them at a conference table that fits easily in his chambers, along with a large, sturdy desk and ample shelving.
Persing is the part-time mayor of a town with fewer than 10,000 people.
His vote counts the same as the four other City Council members and he doesn't have veto power, under Sunbury's commission form of government.
But Persing's been in office since 1989, consecutively aside from one four-year stretch.
And Pennsylvania law specifies that in a commission government, the mayor oversees the police department — typically, the biggest local tax expense aside from education.
That's what brought me here.
A report released last week revealed the city has no written procedures for basic matters such as internal affairs investigations and cell phone use by police. The discovery came during an independent review by outside attorneys of an internal affairs investigation.
Read the full version of this reportat Keystone Crossroads' website. Keystone Crossroads is a new statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities. WPSU is a participating station.
