It’s said: “There are three sides to every story – yours, mine, and the truth.”

Tonight’s council “meeting of the whole” began at 6:02 pm with a packed house of nearly three dozen people had only two or three in the gallery when it was drawing to a close.

That’s when one citizen grabbed the attention of the councillors, the mayor, the acting borough manager and the codes officer with a series of accusations and issues relating to the apartment she rents from a landlord who owns 14 rental properties according to the County’s property ownership Website.

Until just about the adjournment point of 10:41 pm, she unleashed a string of charges about codes violations, codes department intransigence, unsafe and difficult to deal with issues including what can be narrated as “retaliatory eviction” because she brought a number of unsafe conditions to the attention of two borough councillors and the mayor. She claimed she’d previously informed the codes department of ceiling leaks and other public safety issues and the landlord has initiated eviction procedures.

Pennsylvania state law (68 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 250.205, 399.11) prohibits landlords from retaliating against tenants. It is illegal for a landlord to retaliate against a tenant in PA who has exercised a legal right, including:

• complaining to a government agency, such as a building or health inspector, about unsafe or illegal living conditions

• assembling and presenting your views collectively—for example, by joining or organizing a tenant union, or

• exercising a legal right allowed by your state or local law, such as withholding the rent for an uninhabitable unit.

This was not the sole agenda item discussed tonight, but as at so many meetings, this meeting dealt more than once with codes violations and codes department inaction. There were discussions about the egregious and olympic debacle on Locust Street as citizens asked for action, but the borough spokespersons maintained the lethargic “Well, we’ll have to talk with the owner,” display.

One person said it’s totally wrong to “shore up” a multi-story structure with wooden two-by-fours. He stated he has more than 25 years of experience and that only metal shoring should have been used.