A slew of employee resignations has left Donora’s administration office full of vacancies.

Empty positions include borough administrator, bookkeeper, clerk and street supervisor. Code Enforcement Officer Michelle Harris put in a two-week notice during a personal day Thursday, leaving the borough building deserted and closed to the public.

“I got a text from the tax collector saying people were coming to the tax office to pay their trash bills,” Mayor Don Pavelko said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” council President Mike Mc-Dowell added. “I’ve seen people come and go, but I’ve never seen an entire office empty out like this. Now I got word that one of our cleaning ladies wants to quit, too.” Some officials suggest grievances between employees and borough officials provoked the mass exodus. Council member Joe Greco alleged that former borough administrator Terri Petroske may have experienced harassment during her time with the borough. Greco and McDowell clarified that certain information can’t be disclosed to the public at this time.

“I’m not allowed to divulge too much information,” McDowell said. “I will say, these administrative workers were a tight-knit family. And they felt like they were being mistreated — like second-class citizens.”

“I don’t want to speak without consulting the borough solicitor first,” Greco said. “There’s still litigation underway.”

Greco and McDowell explained that Petroske’s resignation in particular caused waves throughout the administration office and sparked successive resignations.

“She was very popular and when she left many of the others felt they had lost a friend,” McDowell said. Petroske, Harris and borough Solicitor Steve Toprani all declined to comment.

Other officials point to the divisions between borough leaders as the root cause of the exodus and suggest the council majority and the administrative office have obscured the reasons behind it.

Council member Cindy Brice illustrated a moment before a council meeting when members called an executive session. They met with former street supervisor Mike Petroske, who told council members he intended to quit.

“There was no letter of resignation, no prior announcement, no nothing,” Brice said. “And they called an executive meeting for it. It was like a surprise attack,” Brice said. “Some council members had to have known — they called the

DONORA • A2 FROM A1 meeting. But the information is so lopsided, and stays with the majority, and the rest of the council is left in the dark.”

Brice and the council majority disagree on a number of issues, with Brice often advocating for greater communication and discussion between council members and citizens. She and others have claimed the council majority keeps private political agendas, which negatively affect the borough.

Brice described a similar situation when Terri Petroske resigned, claiming the former administrator provided no prior notice either.

“I believe some people knew she was quitting and refused to talk to us about it,” she said. “I believe they keep information to themselves to isolate us and make us look bad.”

The councilwoman also reviewed each resignation, pointing out that a portion of them, like the former clerk and the former bookkeeper, quit due to health or financial reasons, not due to mass outrage. Pavelko described a similar belief that the council attempts to isolate him from administrative duties to increase their own influence in the borough. Pavelko explained how the borough has denied him an administrative office during his six-month period as mayor, despite his repeated requests to council to provide him one.

In particular, he requests the office historically designated to the mayor — an office that fell into use by the borough administrator during the previous mayor’s tenure.

“It’s embarrassing,” Pavelko said. “How does it make our borough look when I’m meeting with gas companies, trying to have them bring a gas station into town, and I don’t have an office to bring them to? I’m meeting people up at a restaurant in Speers and taking calls in my truck.”

The mayor described how the layout of the administrative building incorporates certain, practical functions. He explained how the office designated for mayor was designed with privacy in mind to facilitate meetings or conference calls.

He argued that offices for administrative duties, such as bookkeeping, code enforcement and borough administration, were designed with transparency in mind. These offices boast windows and open space. “The mayor’s office doesn’t have windows, and that’s for a reason,” Pavelko said. “The mayor meets people — he doesn’t handle money. I’m not claiming there was any wrongdoing or anything like that taking place. I’m just saying these offices are designed the way they are for a reason.”

Pavelko claimed that when he spoke with Petroske about reclaiming the office, she brushed him off.

During a work session meeting on June 3, Pavelko expressed his frustrations about the council’s dismissive attitude toward him and claimed he would take back his office on June 6 — the anniversary of D-Day.

Pavelko entered the borough administration building that day late in the afternoon, bringing with him a locksmith to open the door of the disputed office. When he arrived, he found a second lock on the door that wasn’t there before. After some effort, the locksmith found the double lock too difficult and gave up.

McDowell met Pavelko and the locksmith at the building and berated Pavelko for attempting to break into borough property.

“If he was on the up and up, why did he go later in the day, when no one was there?” Mc-Dowell said. “He can’t do that — I can’t do that — no one can go in there without council’s approval. The borough administrator has borough as well as personal property in that office.”

Council held an executive session Thursday to address the vacancies and to discuss other borough matters. Pavelko suggested that he may sit out the meeting in protest. He also disclosed that he may seek outside counsel to explore legal avenues for his grievances.

“I don’t feel I’m being properly represented,” he said. “And I don’t want to be a part of any decisions they make. Keep my hands clean. I would never treat any of them this way if they were in my position.”

Pavelko said that, while he remains without an office, residents who need assistance can contact him at 724-825-3563. Borough leaders intend to facilitate citizens’ access to local government resources through a number of measures, including a drop box at the borough building for bills. Council members stressed the importance of getting a bill deposit box set up before the grace period for trash bills ends on June 30.

The borough will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Monday. Council will discuss the bid for exterminators and any business that might come before them.