SI ALLASC0ST
VOL. 81 NO. 7
DALLAS, PA.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1970
TEN CENTS
PUC vs.
park, pool
proposed
for area
A complete community recreational package
which would include a swimming pool and equip-
ment for volley ball, shuffleboard and basketball,
has been proposed for the Back Mountain area
by a representative of the Instant Convertible
Playground Company.
George McCutcheon, chairman of Dallas Bor-
ough’s Park and Recreation Authority, has called
a spawial meeting of representatives of Back
Mountain communities to discuss the Philadelphia
firm’s proposal this evening.
y. McCutcheon said that the recreational
package includes activities for men, women and
children from the age of six. Included in the plan
is an open air shed with picnic tables which can
be used for various rainy day activities. Deck
tennis, billiards and table tennis are also listed
as part of the package.
The cost for the complete community rec-
reational package is given as $7900 by company
officials. Although no state matching funds would
be available for a project of this nature, fund
raising information would be provided on request
by the company. Mr. McCutcheon said he had
been informed that the entire unit could be in-
stalled in one week’s time.
A representative of the Instant Convertible
Playground Company met last Friday with several
regional officials at the Hotel Sterling to outline
the plan. Invitations to the meeting scheduled
this evening have wias out, tiwrep: csentativer mf
Kunde, Noxen, Harveys Lake, Kingston Twonship,
Sweet Valley, Lehman; Franklin Township, Lake
Silkworth, and Dallas Borough and Township.
ngighbors polled
on x-rated films
The Back Mountain community appears to be:
evenly split on the question of controversial films,
although a poll gives the edge to those in favor
of X-rated movies.
Fifty-five percent of the respondents of a
write-in survey conducted by The Dallas Post
think X-rated movies should be permitted to be
shown here, 45 percent were strictly against.
On the question of whether 18-year-olds
should have the right to vote, 55 percent said
yes, 45 percent said no. Opinions on that ques-
tion followed exactly the same pattern as on
movies, with one exception. That was that the
right to vote could be given to 18-year-olds only
if in ilitary service.
Reasons for being in favor of or against
X-rated movies ranged from ‘Freedom to chose
the movie you want to go see, whether it is good
or bad,” to ‘They are a waste of money, time
and ftelligence.”
On the question, “Do you think you should
have the right to see any movie you wish?’ the
55 percent in favor of the films replied ‘‘yes.”
Those 45 percent against the films, did not all
continued on PAGE 13
2 youths struck
by passing auto
swo 13 year old boys were seriously injured
Sati¥day at 8:10 p.m. when they were struck
by an automobile near St. Francis Cabrini Church,
Caverton.
Ernest Pliscott, RD 3, Dallas, and James
Prebola, RD 1, Pittston, were struck by a vehicle
operated by Cecil L. Sutton Jr., 36 Franklin St.,
Dallas as they attempted to cross the road.
According to Kingston Township police, the
boys had attended a skating party at the church
and were being picked up by Mrs. Pliscott who
was parked across the road. She called to them
not to cross as the Sutton vehicle advanced. A
companion, Susan Sosnowski, 13, RD 3, Wyoming,
crossed safely.
Kingston Township Ambulance transported
the boys to Nesbitt Memorial Hospital. Dallas
Ambulance later took the Pliscott youth to Geis-
inger Medical Center, Danville, where his condi-
tion is listed as serious.
PG&
Settlement of the continuing union dispute at
Natona Mill appeared one step closer Monday
afternoon as March 5 was established by the
National Labor Relations Board as the union
election date.
Meeting in the Luzerne County courthouse
for an informal conference with NLRB represen-
tative Solomon Spector Monday were Tepresen-
tatives of the Communications Workers of America,
Textile Workers Union of America, United Textile
Workers, and the United Mine Workers, District
50, All four unions are seeking to represent Natona
employees when the union contract currently
held by the Amalgamated Lace Operative of
America, a branch of the TWUA, expires Feb. 28
Polling will be held in the plant cafeteria from
6:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
“Stairway to the mysterious’’ was the thought Scott Saffian
remembers when he snapped this photo near Kunkle.
NLRB election at Natona
to accommodate workers from all shifts. Accord-
ing to information provided by Natona officials,
approximately 280 persons will be eligible to vote
in the election, including several persons on tem-
porary lay-off. NLRB regulations stipulate that
anyone hired by Natona after Feb. 7 will not be
eligible to vote.
According to Mr. Spector, a union must obtain
50 percent plus 1 votes to win as bargaining agent
at Natona. In the event that a clear-cut majority
is not achieved, he said, a run-off election using
the same voter eligibility lists will be held ‘‘as
quickly as possible’ between the two unions
winning the most votes.
One Natona employee close to the situation
suggested to The Dallas Post ‘that a run-off
election is quite likely between the CWA and the
TWUA.
colleges ired by tax proposal
The possibility that legislation will soon be
written which will tax real estate owned by tax
exempt institutions has stirred up a veritable
hornets’ nest of opposition throughout the state.
What was termed ‘‘deep concern’ over bills
which would tax land owned by institutions of
higher learning was expressed Feb. 5 by Dr.
Francis J. Michelini, dean of academic affairs
at Wilkes College and spokesman for the six-
member Association of Northeastern Pennsyl-
vania Independent Colleges. Schools in this group
include King’s, Misericordia, Marywood, Key-
stone Junior and Wilkes Colleges as well as the
University of Scranton.
Dr. Michelini testified before a special house
committee hearing in Harrisburg, and he main-
tained that the schools he represented fully quali-
fied for exemption as provided by law because
they had enriched Northeastern Pennsylvania by
their cultural, practical and academic influences.
Strictly from an economic viewpoint, Dr.
Michelini said, the colleges warrant their tax ex-
continued on PAGE 13
. largest corporation headquartered
- who regulates who?
utility influence
appears high
in state agencies
(Editor’s Note: This is the third in a continuing series of articles
regarding public utilities in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the related
regulatory agencies charged with protecting the public interest.)
by J.R. FREEMAN
Pennsylvania Gas and Water Company, the
in North-
eastern Pennsylvania, was handed a slap in the
teeth last week, when a Luzerne County cor-
oner’s jury of four men and two women ruled that
the company was criminally negligent in the
deaths of four elderly persons killed in a natural
gas explosion last July 3 in Harding. The case
is now scheduled to be brought before a grand
jury by Luzerne County District Attorney Blythe
H. Evans Jr. :
The jury’s verdict stemmed from testimony
before County Coroner Dr. George Hudock,
which held that the gas compnay, along with two
of its colleague firms, Transcontinental Production
Co., and Joyce Pipeline Co., were responsible for
the blast which destroyed the Winters Boarding
Home in Harding, killing four of its boarders and
injuring seven other persons.
But the significant point brought out in the
three days of testimony, besides who was respon-
sible for the deaths, was just how powerful a
utility can become when its leadership is so en-
twined with the regulatory agencies of the state
that it is hard to determine who regulates who.
During testimony before the inquest, it was
brought out that in the case of PG&W, at least, the
Pennsylvania Attorney General, the Secretary of
Mines and Mineral Industries, and indeed, the
Governor himself, “have little control over the
sprawling "$61 million utility, even when saving of
human life is a concern.
Bruce E. Ziegler, a state petroleum engineer,
told the jury that he and other field inspectors
"and technologists had made a move through Mines
and Mineral Industries Secretary H.B. Charm-
bury to stop PG&W from continuing the presuri-
zed pumping of natural gas into storage wells
across the Susquehanna River from where the
Harding blast occurred. A special report on the
cause of the blast delivered to Atty. Gen. William
C. Sennett last Sept. 24 placed blame for the ex-
plosion on the storage facilities operated by
PG&W, located near Ransom, close to the Lacka-
wanna-Luzerne County line.
When the company refused to heed the
bureau’s directive, first delivered in person to
company officials, then by telephone, then by
telegram to Robert Evans, PG&W president, from
the secretary’s office by order of the governor, the
company, days later, finally relented to release
the pressure from its wells in the face of a meet-
ing with the attorney general in Harrisburg,
testimony revealed.
During the interim, investigators disclosed
that more than 30 homes in the Harding area had
become dangerously polluted with the murder-
ous gas, which was seeping into residences through
water wells. Many families were evacuated until
the gas pressure at the storage wells was released,
at which time state inspectors testified the gas
seepage in the Harding area diminished.
Even in the light of such testimony, PG&W
still maintains, through one of its legal counsels,
Max Rosenn, that it was in no way responsible
for polluting a large segment of the Harding resi-
dential section involving possibly 133 homes, nor
in the gas explosions in the area. The jury, how-
ever, ruled differently.
Despite a rash of natural gas explosions
in the territory serviced by PG&W, which accounted
for more than half of all gas-caused explosions in
Pennsylvania last year, (and the only gas explo-
sion in which fatalities were listed) the company
and its leadership is probably not unlike many
other vested interest enterprisers across the
country.
Rulison and Robert Evans, the father-son team
who head the investor-owned utility and run it
from what one Luzerne County assistant district
attorney described as a ‘‘seat of the pants’ ap-
proach, see as their primary goal as businessmen
the necessity of showing their 13,000 stockholders a
tidy profit, no matter what the cost to the general
public and the more than 200,000 consumers to
which the utility should be responsible.
In the case of PG&W, however, the general
public or consumer is not often the prime, source
of concern. In most areas where PG&W is servic-
ing customers, whether residential, commerical
or industrial, the water and gas distribution com-
pany enjoys an almost complete monopoly, in
continued on PAGE 3