Scartelli Olszewski Declines Legal Fees in Luzerne County Sunshine Act Matter

Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. told Luzerne County Council on August 27, 2026 that Scartelli Olszewski, P.C. would not bill the county for legal work the firm performed on behalf of County Manager Romilda Crocamo and Councilman John Lombardo. County Manager Crocamo described the waiver to council as a courtesy to the county.

What the complaints alleged

Council members Chris Belles and Joanna Bryn Smith filed private criminal complaints on April 7, 2026. Both alleged violations of Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act arising from closed meetings of the Commission on Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement, an advisory body council created in 2023 to recommend how the county should spend its opioid settlement money.

Lombardo held a council-appointed seat on that commission. Crocamo had served as its chair. Belles and Bryn Smith each filed against Lombardo, and Belles also filed against Crocamo.

District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce, himself a commission member, forwarded the matter to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. The AG’s office closed the complaints without further action, citing insufficient evidence to support any prosecutable charge.

Why the firm waived its fee

Olszewski Jr. and Rachel D. Olszewski handled the research and analysis. Neither submitted a bill.

Olszewski served as Luzerne County District Attorney and later sat on the Court of Common Pleas bench. Questions about what a county advisory body owes the public are the kind of thing he spent years on from the other side of the table.

When does the Sunshine Act reach an advisory commission?

Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act, 65 Pa.C.S. §§ 701 through 716, requires agencies to deliberate and take official action on agency business in public. Section 703 defines “agency” to include a governing body and all committees “authorized by the body to take official action or render advice on matters of agency business.”

That last phrase carries weight. A committee that only recommends can still land inside the Act, because making recommendations under a statute or ordinance is itself official action, as Section 703 defines the term.

Case law has cut the other way too, treating some purely advisory groups with no delegated authority as outside the statute’s reach. The analysis is fact-bound. Who created the body, what powers the creating resolution gave it, how much independent judgment the parent body actually exercises over its recommendations, and whether the group controls public money all matter.

The commission had taken the position that its meetings were not public, reasoning that it only advised and that every earmark still required a public council vote. Several council members read the statute differently. Before any complaint was filed, the commission agreed to open its meetings, starting April 1, 2026.

For county boards and authorities across Northeastern Pennsylvania, that sequence is the practical lesson. A defensible legal position on the scope of the Act is not the same as a defensible public one, and the cost of guessing wrong runs past legal fees.

Read the full coverage

Jennifer Learn-Andes reported the story for the Times Leader on August 27, 2026. Attorney won’t bill for representing 2 Luzerne County officials

This post describes a matter of public record and is offered for general information only. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Scartelli Olszewski, P.C.

Scartelli Olszewski P.C.