A2O-lancaster Fuming, Saturday, May 9, 1992
Grange Celebrates 125th,
VERNON ACHENBACH
JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
HARRISBURG (Dauphin
Co.) The Pennsylvania
State Grange held its annual
legislative day and banquet
Monday at the Harrisburg Sher
aton with hundreds of members
attending workshops during the
day and meeting and dining
with state and federal legisla
tors during the evening.
The Grange is a rural organi
zation devoted to educating,
acting as a collective voice, and
working to improve living con
ditions for its members.
While the spring Grange
legislative meeting normally
coincides with the state legisla
ture’s last session before sum
mer break. Grange policy was
not decided during these work
shop sessions. Policy is decided
during the organization’s
October meeting.
This meeting was also
noteworthy because this is the
1251 h anniversary of the
National Grange, of which Pen
nsylvania is an affiliate. The
occassion was marked with the
presentation by state Secretary
of Agriculture Boyd Wolff of a
plaque of appreciation for the
efforts of the Grange for
agriculture.
Indicative of some of the top
ics included during the day’s
afternoon workshops was a pre
diction by Eric Rabe of Bell of
Pennsylvania, that businesses
could possibly be attracted tot
rural areas is a broad-banned,
fiber optic telephone network
were installed.
According to Rabe, the com
bination of low real estate
prices, lower real estate taxes,
and local work ethic in rural
areas with dependable commu
nication links to higher-density
areas could provide an attrac
tive package for businesses
seeking a home.
“This is an issue that we need
a lot of public debate on, parti
cularly in terms of who’s going
to pay the cost and how soon it
is done,” said Susan Shanaman,
a representative of an opposi
tion group to Bell of Pennsylva
nia’s costly proposal for a net
work of fiber-optic lines.
The two-sides of an issue
presentations were indicative of
the format for the workshops,
designed to provide informa
tion and allow members to
make their own decisions.
Currently, the majority of
phone lines that are in place are
voice capacity lines which have
limited computer and video sig
nal transmission capabilities.
The proposal by Bell is to
install the optic telecommuni
cation network which has the
capability of tramsitte voice,
video and computer signals
rapidly.
According to Rabe, the
impact would be better service
for such things as rural medical
services, which could have
clear video signals relayed to a
specialist in a city for diagnosis.
“If you live in a rural area,
you can see what kind of advan
tage this would be,” Rabe said.
Shanaman represented Pen
nsylvanians for Fair Affordable
Competitive Telephone Service
(PennFACTS), which is a coali
tion of organizations which
oppose Bell’s efforts.
According to Shanaman, if
Meets Legislators
the okay were given to Bell to
go ahead with the project, by
the year 2015, 20 percent of
Pennsylvania still would not
have the service, but would
have been paying for it all
along.
A cheif executive officer at
Bell has stale that the cost of
putting in the fiber-optic lines
would cost between $ IS- to $5O
billion, Shanaman said.
PennFACTS is also opposed
to legislation which would
remove the Pennsylvania Utili
ties Commission from review
ing telephone- industry rate
hikes.
“It is wonderful to talk about
additional access to health care,
access to education, but a lot of
that is happening now, without
giving up any kind of PUC
review of how rates are set for
the telephone industry,” she
told attending Grange
members.
In another workshop, the
One Plan concept, which prom
otes farm resource management
as a total integrated strategy for
the entire farm, was discussed.
Since each farm is different,
no two plans can be exactly
alike. A One Plan system would
include every resource on the
farm, access to other resources,
quality and quantity of those
resources, ways to improve,
(Turn to Pago A2l)
igK pi >gi
award to Karan Mohn, national 1991 Ramona Lecturer of the
Year.