Carbon County went through a lot of changes over the last year, some big, some small. Here is a look back at some of the notable events that happened in 2021.

• January started off with the county salary board splitting on whether or not to give the county employees raises. In a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Chris Lukasevich voting no, the board approved a 3% raise, but spoke about changes that were needed to the pay scale.

• On Jan. 22, the pay-by-plate parking kiosks in the county parking lot in Jim Thorpe went into effect. The system was purchased in August 2019 but necessary steps had to be taken before the project was able to be completed.

• On April 22, Carbon County officials terminated prison Warden Tim Fritz and corrections officer Dexter Sandy following an incident that took place in the county prison on Feb. 7. Another corrections officer, Gerard Anthony Babb Jr., 31, submitted his letter of resignation before he could be terminated by that board.

Babb has been charged for assaulting an inmate in February.

The state Department of Corrections was brought in to provide professional services and named Panther Valley graduate Laura Banta as the acting warden until a replacement could be found.

• Also on April 22, the commissioners terminated longtime chief public defender Gregory L. Mousseau, but would not give a reason for why they terminated him from the position.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich posted on his personal commissioner Facebook page that the board “lost confidence” in Mousseau’s ability to manage the department, but didn’t give any specific reasoning on why the board lost confidence in Mousseau less than a month after making him full-time.

Mousseau had served as the chief public defender since January 2002. The position was a part-time position until 2021.

A representative for Mousseau’s family said at the time that he was not terminated, but rather submitted his resignation the morning the commissioners took the action.

• On May 6, Carbon County’s railroad commission and the board of commissioners approved the sale of the Panther Valley line to Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad for a total of cash and in-kind services of $4.7 million.

The 19.5-mile line, which runs between Packerton Yards and Haucks Junction in Schuylkill County, had been owned by Carbon County since Sept. 30, 1981, when the newly formed railroad commission purchased the former Nesquehoning Valley Branch Line 1009 at a cost of $991,500.

Of the sale, Lansford will receive 25 percent of the cash total as part of an agreement that was created in 1980 when Lansford helped Carbon secure a federal grant for the purchase.

The deal for the sale was closed on June 24.

• On June 17, longtime public defender Paul J. Levy of Allentown was promoted to the chief public defender spot.

Levy had served in the public defender’s office for over 25 years before taking over the department.

• On July 22, Carbon commissioners officially took the first step in correcting the employee pay scale, hiring Evergreen Solutions LLC of Tallahassee, Florida. The company will provide the board with a classification and compensation study of all current positions in the county. Carbon County currently has over 300 employees.

The cost of the study shall not exceed $48,000.

The current employee compensation document includes about 16 levels for salaries for nonsupervisory positions and about 21 levels for supervisory.

• Carbon County aimed to help veterans by creating a regional program through a partnership with the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

In September, “Together With Veterans” began working to help veterans at risk of suicide after a study showed that Carbon County had the highest veteran suicide rate in the state at 27.2 per 100,000 residents.

• Sept. 30 marked the official ground breaking of the $5.2 million emergency operations and training center on the Broad Mountain in Nesquehoning.

The building will be used by fire companies, police and other emergency responders to provide close-to-home training.

The project has been in the works since 2015.

• Longtime chief juvenile probation officer, James Dodson retired on Oct. 1.

He had served in that position since Aug. 6, 1993.

Joseph A. Greco, who served under Dodson, was selected to take over the department.

• Carbon County made its first $500,000 payment to Lansford as part of the sale of the county-owned railroad line in October, but a post on Facebook brought much debate about security after Lukasevich posted the check, without redacting account information, on social media.

The check was taken down and then reposted after information was redacted, but county officials questioned if the general fund’s clearing account could be compromised.

After much discussion, it was decided that a new account would be opened at the end of the year so that an uncompromised account would be handed to incoming treasurer Kevin Zelienka.

• In November, the county prison board approved hiring James Youngkin as the prison’s new warden, effective Nov. 29.

Youngkin previously served in this capacity from 2007 to March 2010 when he retired from the position.

• County Treasurer Ron Sheehan is retiring at the end of his fifth term.

Sheehan, who previously served in the county controller’s office, was elected in 2001 and has overseen the county treasurer’s office ever since.

• Carbon has seen a banner year in hotel tax collections.

Sheehan reported in December that for the first three quarters of 2021, the county collected $1,546,905.50 and was able to retain $61,976.21 in administration fees and $204,690.55 as part of the agreement with Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau, which is then put in the parks and recreation budget to maintain Mauch Chunk Lake Park. Carbon County negotiated an agreement that it will receive 20 percent of the first $500,000 collected and 10 percent after that.

The remaining $1,280,338.74 goes to PMVB, which then in turn uses it to promote the county tourism industry.

This amount surpasses the $1.327 million the county collected from the tax in 2020.