= SALLASCP0ST
VOL. 82 NO. 15
“THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1971
DALLAS, PA.
FIFTEEN CENTS
taxes’ key word at first candidates night
by Shawn Murphy
If a single word could identify the primary
concern expressed by all of the Dallas school board
hopefuls at the first candidates’ night held Monday,
that word would have to be ‘‘taxes.”’
Democrat Paul Lauer told the audience of 50
persons, assembled at the Dallas <lementary
School that “people are finding taxes and inflation
threghening their economic survival’;
William H. Dierolf remarked that taxes on his
house had risen steadily in the years he has been a
home owner;
Patricia Gregory decried the rise of all taxes
by “181 per cent in the last 15 years’;
William E. Price declared that ‘‘quality educa-
tion does not necessarily mean an increase in
taxes.”
The word was the evening’s leit motif, the
theme upon which each of the candidates played.
The first candidate to be introduced by PTA
President Clarke Bittner was Leonard Nordfors,
thegother Democratic candidate and an assistant
press foreman at Valley Paperback Manufacturing
Inc. Mr. Nordfors indicated he is against ‘“‘any
further building of new schools” and for ‘better
security against vandals at the school buildings.”
He spoke of a ‘very great drug problem’’ which he
“knew personally goes down to the third grade.”
When asked to expand on this statement during the
question and answer period later, Mr. Nordfors
stated that his daughter, a third grader, had come
home from school with pills given to her by a fifth
grade student.
Did he know what kind of pills they were? a
reporter .sked. “Yes,” he stated.
opposition nil to lodge
No opposition was expressed to the Troup
Fund’s application for a private club on the New-
berry Estate Development at a public hearing
Tuesday night before the Dallas Township Zoning
Hearing Board. :
Board Chairman Carl Goeringer opened the
meeting by inviting any persons present to state
their views on the proposed application. Several
favorable comments were made by spectators.
(Dallas Township Solicitor Frank Townend re-
viewed the application and read aloud a letter sent
[t[ candidates launch campaign
Earl E. Booth and Ellis W. Hoover are among
the candidates who will be challenging incumbents
J. Franklin Patton and Arnold Garinger for posi-
tions on Lake-Lehman’s School Board in the up-
coming primary election May 18. The candidates
seek to represent the citizens of Region 1, which is
comprised of Harveys Lake Borough, Noxen and
Lake Townships.
When contacted by The Dallas Post, Ellis
Hoover refused any comment on his candidacy,
stating only that ‘I don’t want to have anything put
in (the newspaper) at this time.” A welder by
ii, Mr. Hoover is a resident of RD 4, Dallas.
iar] E. Booth was born and raised at Loyal-
ville and lives now with his wife and family on
Vo Street in Harveys Lake Borough. A former
Bibye Protestant minister, Mr. Booth is a 1948 grad-
uate of Laketon High School. He attended Wyoming
Seminary for one year following his graduation
from high school and then attended the Philadel-
phia College of Bible for three years. In 1954 he was
Several iohintees firemen attempt to repair Old Engine No. 1 of
the Dr. Henry M. Laing Fire Comapny. The truck broke down in
the midst of the brush blaze Tuesday afternoon which swept
over 50 acres of land near Frances Slocum Park.
Wayne H. Luke and Bob Muffoletto, two photographers from up-
state New York, posed with all their gear in a Dallas parking lot
before answering a fire alarm Tuesday afternoon and “shoot-
ing’’ the blaze. ]
ordained by an independent ordination council and
served in the following years as pastor of churches
in Hammond, N.Y., Hardingville, N.J., and Cass-
ville, Pa., before yeti ning to the area and estab-
lishing a ‘television repair service.
Mr. Booth told The Post that he decided to seek
a position on the Lake-Lehman School Board at the
behest of a citizens’ organization whose name he
could not recall.
“It is my intention to serve the citizenry of
Region I by helping to promote better education at
a lower cost,”” Mr. Booth declared. ‘I will try to
hold taxation at the present level or possibly lower
it—although that would be a phenomenal feat in
this day and age.”
Mr. Booth stated that he “would, if possible, do
without a new elementary school in order to hold
taxation down.’”” While admitting that ‘“‘there is no
question but that a crowded situation does exist in
the school system,’’ Mr. Booth stated that he was
(continued on PAGE SIX)
a
Portable fire-fighters’ tanks like the one shown in this photo
were but one of several. sophisticated types of fire fighting
equipment brought into use in controlling the brush fire.
Over 65 firemen of the Trucksville, Shaver-
town, and Dr. Henry M. Laing Fire Compan-
ies responded to the fire alarm Tuesday after-
What were they? the questioner persisted.
‘““‘Anacin,” he replied.
Mr. Lauer, director of the Luzerne County
Tourist Promotion Agency, drew chuckles from the
audience when he confessed that he was a
“member of a radical group in the Back Moun-
tain—the Democratic party.” He lambasted the
Dallas Area Municipal Authority and the high cost
of sewers and proposed a “close look at all expendi-
tures, the tenure law, and the possibility of ex-
tending the school year.”
to the zoning hearing board by Dallas Township
Planning Commission. The letter read in part:
“Planning Commission is not satisfied with
plans and other information submitted in regard to
‘the private club or inn.’ In order to emphasize the
position of Planning Commission it is recommend-
ed Troup Fund be forbidden to use the word Inn or
similar word, such as tavern, which might indicate
a public nature for establishment. Planning
Commission is satisfied that a private club may
and probably should be established on Newberry
Estate, but that it should be planned primarily for
the accommodation of residents of the Develop-
ment. Therefore, since the Development has been
planned for about 275 families and is limited to not
more than 400 families, 'in order to avoid compli-
cated questions of supervision of any club, the
Commission recommends that membership in any
planned private club on the premises be restricted
to not more than 250 families who are not residents
of Newberry Estate. Planning Commission also
recommends that. assurances be obtained per-
sonally from officers of Troup Fund and associated
organizations that club will operate conscientiously
as a private club and will not be made available to
General Public.”
Atty. Thomas Roberts, spokesntan for the
Troup Fund, took up several points of the letter. He
said that instead of using the word ‘‘inn,’’ the Troup
Fund would use the word “lodge” if that word was
acceptable to the board. Again, Troup Fund repre-
sentatives asked that their original application for
600 non-residential members be granted, instead of
the 250 families recommended in the Planning
(continued on PAGE FOURTEEN)
Characterizing himself as an independent,
objective, minority voice, Mr. Lauer promised to
act as ‘‘an early warning bell’ against extrava-
gance in school spending.
A more conciliatory note was sounded by Mr.
Dierolf, who allowed that he had “no particular axe
to grind” and suggested that the “school system’s
progress has been exceptionally good.” A retired
Army colonel, Mr. Dierolf noted that he had only
recently returned to the Dallas area. He would, he
said, ‘look forward to meeting with the taxpayers
to find out what job you want the school board to
do.”
Vice president of The Hanover National Bank
in Wilkes-Barre, Ernest Asbridge promised to
bring ‘‘good, solid reasoning’’ to bear in all of his
decisions as school director. There would be no
“snap decisions,”’ he stated, and while he advoca-
ted coonomy, he would ‘not cut costs just to cut
costs.’
Patricia Gregory, the only woman candidate,
admitted with a laugh that while no one had asked
her to run, ‘‘a few asked me not torun!”’
She asked if ‘formal education and formal
(continued on PAGE FOURTEEN)
Earth Day may be
day that wasn't
“Earth Day? Oh yes, that’s coming up again -
some time this spring, isn’t it. What are we doing
for Earth Day this year? Well, last year . .
Earth Day 1971. The day that wasn’t.
At least that’s the way it looks in other parts of
the State and in the Back Mountain community at
the present time. With scarecely a week left before
Earth Day gets underway next Thursday, there
appears to be little enthusiasm and fewer plans to
mark the day’ Ss passing.
The apne students and
olica oe the prime movers of many of last year’s
truly spectacular undertakings. The indifference
seems to extend to the top of the bureaucratic
ladder: A memorandum from State Secretary of
Education David H. Kurtzman outlining possible
observances for Earth Week arrived at area
schools just this week.
(continued on PAGE FOURTEEN)
apathy ine! aies
Dallas fireman injured
photographers happen
onto fire by accident
Two itinerant photographers who
wound up in Dallas when their jaunty
Triumph sportscar broke down Monday are
responsible for the on-the-spot photographic
coverage of the fire which swept through 50-
acres of brush near Frances Slocum Park
Tuesday afternoon.
Wayne H. Luke, a graduate student at
the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester,
N.Y. and Bob Muffoletto, an inner city
teacher in Buffalo, N.Y., had intended to
spend their Easter vacation traveling
through the coal mining regions of Pennsyl-
vania. They hoped to take photographs of
the ecological ruins incurred in strip mining
and planned to use these pictures in an art
exhibit they are preparing.
“But when the A-frame on our TR-4
went,” photographer Luke explains, “we
found ourseves stuck in Dallas without
transportation.”
Fortunately for them, they chanced to
run into two of Dallas’ bon vivants—J. R.
Sperl and Murph Hislop—who promptly
offered to put them up for as long as it might
take to get their car repaired and volunteer-
ed to chauffer them to the mining towns of
Eckley and Jim Thorpe.
When the fire alarm sounded Tuesday
afternoon and their hosts scurried to answer
the call, it was only to be expected that Bob
Muffoletto and Wayne Luke would tag
along. Because photographers rarely take a
step without their cameras, the men were in
the right place at the right time and got
these shots of the blaze.
homes threatened
by blaze near park
A fireman was injured and several new and
expensive residences were threatened by a brush
fire Tuesday afternoon.when the blaze raged out of
control along Carverton Road, opposite Frances
Slocum Park.
J.R. Sperl, a volunteer fireman with the Dr.
Henry M. Laing Fire Company, reportedly suffered
steam burns after dousing himself with water to
escape flames which had surrounded the fire truck
from which he was working. He was taken in the
Kingston Township ambulance to the Nesbitt Mem-
orial Hospital where he was treated and released
early Tuesday evening.
The home of Justin Bergman, reportedly
valued at $40,000, was one of the dwellings caught in
the path of the flames. Also, according to Back
Mountain Patrolman Paul Sabol, another ‘brand
new but unoccupied’ residence was threatened. A
shed on the Bergman property was consumed by
the fire.
Some 50 acres of land were burned over—
leaving it denuded of brush and grasses. A small
stand of trees were saved.
Approximately 65 volunteers from Trucksville
and Shavertown Volunteer Fire Companies and the
Dr. Henry M. Laing Company, Dallas, responded to
the 12:10 p.m. alarm. In addition, State Forestry
Rangers were on hand.
Because additional help was needed in com-
bating the land fire, 22 Junior Firemen, members
of the Trucksville and Shavertown companies,
were recruited from Dallas Senior High School by
the Forestry Rangers. :
Six pieces of equipment were dispatched by the
three Back Mountain fire companies. Assistant
Chief Charles Woolbert of the Trucksville unit
directed the firefighters. It was estimated that
8,000 to 10,000 gallons of water were used in extin-
guishing the blazing brush.
Patrolman Sabol is investigating the fire’s
origin. “We are not sure at .the progent. time just
how it started.”
From one unofficial source, it was pried the
(continued on PAGE SIX)