On February 11, 2026, Politico’s Daniel Lippman reported that Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti — the Democrat challenging Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s 8th District — had her city buy a building from Fidelity D&D Bancorp while her husband’s uncle sat on the bank’s board, after collecting roughly $14,600 from Fidelity directors and helping the bank secure a $5 million state grant. Every NEPA outlet picked it up. The NRCC turned it into an attack line. Cognetti denied everything. Then everybody moved on.

Nobody went back to the documents. We did — the bank’s SEC proxy, the council vote record, Bresnahan’s financial disclosures, Fidelity’s own website, the FBI crime data. We found ten things Lippman’s story didn’t contain.

1. The Building Isn’t a “Municipal Annex.” It’s an $8.3 Million Surveillance Center.

Every story about this deal — Lippman’s included — called the building a “municipal annex” or “City Hall expansion.” That’s the administration’s phrasing, and it’s true the way “storage facility” is true for an armory.

The second floor of 334-346 N. Washington Avenue is designated to become the Scranton Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center — a centralized command hub that will fuse the city’s surveillance cameras, 41 automated license plate readers, every officer’s body-camera feed, and AI-driven analytics into a single monitored platform. It is one component of an $8.3 million surveillance buildout the Cognetti administration has assembled across seven separate funding streams since late 2024, none of which were ever presented to the public as a single number.

When Police Chief Thomas Carroll was asked about the RTCC going into the building, he called it “a gold mine for us.” That quote appeared in the Times Leader on March 12, 2026. Nobody followed up on what “gold mine” meant in the context of a $1.88 million real estate deal with the mayor’s family’s bank.

Cognetti’s defense of the Fidelity purchase has been to point at the building’s purpose: “The city plans to use the building as a real-time, anti-crime center for police.” The surveillance center is doing triple duty — it’s the stated reason for the purchase, the deflection shield when donors are questioned, and a campaign credential for her congressional run. One building. Three political functions.

Politico saw a real estate story. The real estate is the shell for a surveillance apparatus.

2. John T. Cognetti Isn’t Just “On the Board.” He’s the Corporate Secretary, the Real Estate Advisor, and on the Building Committee.

Lippman described the mayor’s connection to Fidelity as having an “uncle-in-law” who “sits on the board.” That’s true. It’s also the least interesting version of the fact.

Fidelity D&D Bancorp’s DEF 14A proxy statement, filed with the SEC on March 26, 2025, identifies John T. Cognetti, age 75, as the corporation’s Secretary. His signature closes the document: “By Order of the Board of Directors, /s/ John T. Cognetti, Secretary.” He has been a director of the company since 1999 and a member of the bank’s board since 1988 — thirty-seven years.

The proxy describes him as the former president of Hinerfeld Commercial Real Estate in Scranton, with “forty-six years’ experience in real estate brokerage.” His stated value to the board: he “provides guidance to the Board on Bank owned real estate issues.” He sits on the bank’s Building Committee.

So the board member who advises Fidelity on its real estate, sits on the committee overseeing its buildings, and signs its SEC filings is the mayor’s uncle by marriage. On December 9, 2025, the City of Scranton agreed to buy one of Fidelity’s buildings for $1.88 million — the building that will house the surveillance center.

When Cognetti told reporters she “did not know when she first learned an extended-family member was on the board,” she was describing a man who has held his seat since she was eight years old and who signs the bank’s SEC filings.

Politico called him a board member. He’s the board’s real estate authority.

3. The Purchase Was Rammed Through by a Lame-Duck Council on December 9, 2025 — Thirty-Five Days After One Yes Vote Lost His Seat and the Other Had Already Quit.

Lippman reported the purchase as a done deal. He didn’t report how it passed — or when, or why.

On November 4, 2025, three Scranton council seats were on the ballot. Council President Gerald Smurl, running as an independent after petition problems knocked him off the Democratic primary, lost — 5,223 votes, 13%, last among serious candidates. Bill King, the other Cognetti ally on council, had already chosen not to run. Both were done.

Patrick Flynn (10,197 votes, 25%), Tom Schuster (8,787 votes, 22%), and Sean McAndrew (7,846 votes, 20%) won the three open seats. Fox56 reported on election night, November 10, 2025, that the incoming council “is expected to be less predictable — and potentially less cooperative — with the mayor.” The station noted that “Rothchild and outgoing Councilman Bill King have often aligned with Mayor Cognetti on key votes, providing reliable support for many of her initiatives.”

Thirty-five days later, on December 9, 2025, the outgoing council voted 3-2 to approve the $1.88 million purchase.

The three yes votes: Gerald Smurl, rejected by voters 35 days earlier; Bill King, who had walked away; and Jessica Rothchild, the one continuing member and a known Cognetti ally. The two no votes — Tom Schuster and Mark McAndrew — both stayed on the new council.

That new council, seated in January 2026, never voted on whether to buy the building. They inherited a signed contract and a $188,000 deposit already paid to Fidelity.

The question isn’t whether Smurl or King were paid for their votes. It’s simpler: why did the administration schedule a $1.88 million purchase from the mayor’s family bank for December 9, instead of waiting three weeks for the new council?

The math answers it. The administration had three votes in December and knew, from election night, it wouldn’t have them in January — Flynn and Schuster had been “more critical of Cognetti’s policies,” per Fox56, and Sean McAndrew ran on dual-party lines. Wait until January and the purchase fails, likely 4-1, with only Rothchild voting yes. So the deal went to a vote while two lame ducks were still there to carry it. Neither would ever answer for it.

The NRCC, in a March 11, 2026 release citing Lippman, claimed Cognetti “used her official position to call a special session in order to ram through a sweetheart deal.” That’s partisan framing — but the vote math isn’t.

On June 30, 2026, the new council introduced the ordinance to complete the purchase, then tabled it 5-0, demanding total costs and a long-term plan. Schuster said he remains “concerned about expanding the footprint of government.”

4. Rob Bresnahan — the Congressman Attacking Cognetti Over This Deal — Bought a Building From the Same Bank in 2021.

Nobody has printed this — not Lippman, not the Times-Tribune, not WNEP. Cognetti’s own team gestured at it in a single defensive sentence in March 2026 that no journalist developed.

In 2021, Rob Bresnahan — then a construction executive, now the incumbent Cognetti is trying to unseat — bought a four-story building at 2 South Main Street in downtown Pittston through his firm RPB Ventures LLC. Built in 1929 as Miners Savings Bank, it’s called The Landmark.

He bought it from Fidelity Bank.

In a July 24, 2022 interview with the Sunday Dispatch, Bresnahan was effusive about the seller. “They (Fidelity) have been great,” he said. “Obviously they were the prior owners of this building and they bring 25 people to the downtown.”

His congressional financial disclosure, filed January 2024, lists a stack of Pittston real estate LLCs: RPB Ventures Miners SB LLC (valued $1M-$5M), RPB Ventures Pittston III LLC ($1M-$5M), RPB Ventures Pittston LLC ($500K-$1M), and TomVest LLC. The “Miners SB” in the first entry is Miners Savings Bank — the Landmark building he bought from Fidelity.

5. Fidelity’s Board Routinely Does Business With Itself — $9 Million in Insider Loans, Contracts to Members’ Companies, Leases to Members’ Properties.

Lippman treated the city purchase as a standalone event. Fidelity’s SEC filing shows a pattern.

The proxy’s “Certain Business Relationships and Transactions with Management” section:

Fidelity leases property partly owned by board member William J. Joyce Sr. and his brothers. The bank pays ETA Inc., owned by Chairman Brian J. Cali, for loan-closing representation. The bank paid $149,940 in 2024 to Content du Jour LLC, a marketing firm whose principal, David Turkington, is the husband of bank executive Ruth G. Turkington (Executive Vice President and Chief Consumer Banking Officer).

As of February 28, 2025, total loans outstanding from the bank to its own officers, directors, their immediate families, and companies in which they hold a 5% or greater ownership interest totaled $9,255,438 — roughly 5% of total shareholders’ equity. The largest aggregate indebtedness to this group during 2024 was $10,663,318.

Cali, the Chairman, is also the bank’s largest individual shareholder, holding 407,108 shares (6.96% of outstanding stock). Vice Chairman Michael J. McDonald holds 206,318 shares (3.53%).

6. The Appraisal That Would Prove the Price Was Fair Has Not Been Released.

The city paid $1.88 million for 32,802 square feet — roughly $57 per square foot. Downtown Scranton commercial real estate currently lists at an average of approximately $179-$180 per square foot, according to LoopNet and CityFeet. On that basis, the city appears to have gotten a bargain, and Cognetti has said the price was “below market value.”

That comparison misleads. The $180 figure is asking prices for occupied, income-producing space. A vacated bank branch — vault, drive-through, teller-line layout — is a different animal, and empty single-tenant branches are notoriously hard to sell and expensive to convert. Whether $57 a square foot was fair for this building, in this condition, is a question only one document answers.

The city has not released the appraisal.

7. Fidelity Already Runs a City of Scranton Housing Program and Operates a Municipal Banking Division That Serves NEPA Governments.

The building deal isn’t a transaction between strangers. It sits inside an ongoing financial relationship between the city and Fidelity that nobody covering this story has disclosed.

Fidelity administers the City of Scranton Homebuyer Program. It’s on the bank’s own mortgage page: a “forgiven, deferred payment loan to help with down payment and closing expenses,” $5,000 minimum, contact Fidelity@fddbank.com.

That program runs on federal housing money administered through the bank. And the June 30, 2026 budget amendment funding the building purchase references “Community Development Block Grant funding and other city sources.” Federal housing money flows to the RTCC building; federal housing money also flows through Fidelity in the homebuyer program. The seller and the city’s federal housing partner are the same institution.

Fidelity also operates a Government & Municipal Banking division serving “municipal governments and authorities, cities, counties, and school districts throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania.” Its menu: deposits, tax-exempt lease financing, Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes, Bond Anticipation Notes, general obligation notes, lines of credit, treasury management.

8. Scranton Was Borrowing Millions Annually Through Exactly the Instruments Fidelity Sells to Cities.

S&P Global Ratings, in its report on Scranton’s credit upgrade, noted the city cut its “annual Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes from $10 million in 2022 to $4.9 million in 2023.” TANs are short-term instruments cities use to bridge cash-flow gaps between tax collections.

Those are the same TANs Fidelity’s municipal division sells. So is the tax-exempt equipment leasing the bank markets for — its own words — “police cars, street sweepers, plows, fire trucks, computer hardware, construction vehicles.”

9. The City Ran No Competitive Process for a $1.88 Million Purchase Partially Funded With Federal Money.

The City of Scranton maintains a public procurement portal through ProcureNow at secure.procurenow.com/portal/scrantonpa. Bid solicitations — RFPs, RFQs, construction contracts — go through it.

The $1.88 million Fidelity building purchase did not go through any documented competitive process. No RFP for alternative properties. No public solicitation. No evidence of a comparison of other available downtown buildings that could have housed the RTCC or served as a City Hall annex. The administration identified the building next door, negotiated directly with Fidelity, and put it to a lame-duck council vote on December 9, 2025.

The purchase is partly funded with Community Development Block Grant money, which carries HUD procurement rules. Under 2 CFR 200.320, CDBG-funded acquisitions require either a competitive process or documented justification for why competition wasn’t feasible. Whether the city filed that justification — and what it says — is a question nobody has asked.

10. Crime in Scranton Is Falling. Nobody Has Asked Why They’re Building This.

This is the question underneath all the others, and nobody has asked it.

The FBI’s 2024 Uniform Crime Report, released September 2025, puts Scranton’s total crime rate 23% below the national average. Violent crime fell 9% year over year, property crime 5%, total crime 6%. The city has 170 officers for roughly 76,000 people — 22% above the Pennsylvania per-capita average. Nationally, the FBI’s preliminary 2025 data shows violent crime at its lowest recorded rate since 1969.

The grant application the city filed in March 2026 cites “evolving crime trends” and “increasing public safety demands.” Read it closely: it never says crime is rising, because it isn’t. Language which promotes urgency, as vaguely as possible.

What Should Happen Before August 2, 2026

The building closes August 2, 2026. These questions aren’t hard to answer.

Release the appraisal and let residents judge the price. Have Cognetti say, on the record, when she learned her uncle sat on Fidelity’s board. Disclose the full scope of the city’s relationship with the bank — deposits, program administration, notes, leases. And have the council, before it approves another dollar, ask whether this purchase was ever at arm’s length from the woman who runs the buyer.

Lippman had the shape of this on February 11. The documents were always there — the SEC filings, the vote tallies, a congressman’s disclosures, the bank’s own website, the FBI’s crime data. They tell a bigger story than a mayor and a building: a surveillance center built inside a financial relationship between a government and a bank, running through federal housing money, municipal lending, campaign donations, a $5 million grant, and a family tie to the one director who advises the board on exactly this kind of deal.

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