®
BOX 330,
es EE Gi
sportation for you.
In the richness of God’s love.
- Sincerely,
Council on Ministries
Dailas United Methodist Chuich
At Monday night’s meeting, Alvin
Cragle, secretary of Lehman
Township read a letter from the
Department of Environmental
Resources claiming that the Back
Mountain Medical Center is in
‘‘violation’’ of the Pennsylvania
Sewage Treatment Act because the
center is not included in the official
sewage facilities plan for Lehman
Township.
Clergy Assn.
Thanksgiving
service set
The Back Mountain Clergy
Association invites everyone to an
ecumenical Thanksgiving service to
be held on Wednesday, Nov. 22.
The service will be held at Trinity
United Presbyterian Church, Dallas
with the Rev. Paul R. Bauer, pastor of
the carverton United Methodist
Charge as the preacher. Persons from
other churches will also participate.
The time of the service is 7:30 p.m.
DAMA to bring
delinquents
to sheriff’s sale
At Thursday’s meeting, the board of
the Dallas Area Municipal Authority
authorized solicitor Merton Jones to
bring judgements against the owners
of 10 Back Mountain properties, who
have failed to pay their sewer
assessments. These properties will be
sold at the next sheriff’s sale.
According to Jones, these property
owners have been contacted countless
times by mail. They have made no
attempt to pay or make arrangements
to pay.
Judgements will be brought against
the following property owners.
Kingston Township residents are John
and June Anderson; Beverly and
Richard Achuff; Stanley Evans; and
Bertha Hontz.
Dallas Township residents are
Floence Downend; Lester and Cecelia
Campbell; Eugene Lavelle, Jr.,
David Griffith; Robert Maharty and
Elmer Reese.
Dallas Borough residents are
Conrad and Patricia Hislop, and
Joseph and Nellie
California residents, who own
property in Dallas Borough.
According to Lehman Township
Sewage Enforcement Officer LeRoy
Roberts even though the center is still
in the planning stages, a letter of
intent to build should have been sent
to the township zoning board. In order
to comply with the sewage treatment
VOL. 88 NO. 43
by Tom Mooney
“The dollar is declining.”
“Interest rates are higher than
ever.”
“The stock market is shaky.”
“But, then again, it doesn’t really
affect me.”
Or does it? According to Back
Mountain representatives of major
elements of the business community,
such facts of economic life as these
have a major effect on all of us at
present and indicate that, unless we
accept the unpleasant truth and face
up to some hard choices in the next
few years, our collective future will be
bleak indeed.
Most pessimistic is Ken Adams,
investment counselor with Thomson
McKinnon Securities Inc. of Wilkes-
Barre, who said this week that “We'll
go to Hell in a handbasket” if we
refuse to try to understand the clear
warning signals and make the
necessary decisions.
Adams predicted ‘hyperinflation’
and ‘social unrest’ as the logical
consequences of what he portrayed as
general failure to grasp and deal with
root problems.
To Adams, everything boils down to
the simple fact that government on all
levels, but particularly the federal
government, is spending too much
money and sponsoring too much
unproductivity--chiefly in the areas of
welfare and bureaucracy.
Foreign nations, continued Adams,
are cultivating better productivity
and suffering less government in-
tervention in the marketplace while
we practice a “welfarism and
nepotism’ that erodes our economic
strength.
High interest rates, according to
Adams, ‘not only constrict the
economy, but also prefigure economic
crashes, with today’s discount lending
act, a back hoe test pit must be dug to
see of the land conforms with this act.
Roberts stated that he had con-
tacted Joe Kileen, member of the
board of the Back Mountain Medical
Center, to make the board aware of
this problem.
rate of nine percent a full point higher
than the eight that preceded the 1974
recession.
Some investors, he added, are
becoming ‘‘scared” and are getting
out of the stock market, which
produces not only turbulence in the
market but fear among those who
deal in it--a fact that bodes ill for the
rest of us.
Peter Weaver, treasurer of Wilkes-
Barre Clay Products, Forty Fort,
agreed with Adams in most par-
ticulars.
He cautioned ' consumers to
remember that a lower international
dollar value may make it easier for
foreigners to buy American goods, but
that it also makes it tougher for
Americans to buy from other coun-
tries.
With the United States heavily
dependent upon foreign imports, as
others have pointed out, particularly
in oil, a dollar that doesn’t go as far
abroad threatens to force us to pay
more or buy less, and in any case to
live less well than we have lived.
Weaver pointed out that the high
interest rates that seem so distant
to restrict working capital needed by
investors if they are to open new
plants and begin new projects,
providing the jobs needed for
tomorrow.
Likewise, consumers will find it
more difficult to raise the cash to
make the purchases of homes, cars,
and other items they need to improve
their own lives.
He downplayed the stock market
somewhat, though, calling it ‘‘a good
leading indicator” of how business
will be’and having little immediate
impact in itself.
After the meeting, a spokesman for
DER clarified the claim by explaining
that technically the township was in
‘‘violation” of the state act because it
had not yet fulfilled the procedure for
modifying the sewage facilities plan.
The spokesman said that every time
Motions made at the Dallas School
Board meeting on Monday night were
overwhelmingly approved by the
members even though unanimity
eluded the directors.
There was at least one ‘no’ vote on
most of the decisions. Directors
Patricia Gregory, Basil Russin, and
Earl Fritzges cast more solo negative
votes than at any meeting since the
beginning of the fiscal year, each
taking turns at being the minority of
one.
Fritzges cast the first negative vote
when director Harry Lefko made the
motion to appoint Charles Preece as
assistant basketball coach in the
Dallas Senior High School for the 1978-
79 year.
Fritzges stated that he had the ut-
most respect for Preece and con-
sidered him an outstanding individual
and teacher but he believed the board
should appoint someone with more
basketball experience.
Russin voted against the ap-
pointment of Mrs. Diane Hunt of
Dallas as a fulltime senior high school
guidance counselor. He prefaced his
vote by first stating that he was happy
to have an applicant as well qualified
as Mrs. Hunt and that he felt sure she
would do a good job. He said the
screening of applicants came down to
two individuals, Mrs. Hunt and Mrs.
Raymond S. Russin, the latter, Basil
Russin’s aunt.
Russin said both were qualified and
although Mrs. Hunt had four years as
a secondary education counselor and
Mrs. Russin had experience only as
an elementary counselor, it was his
opinion Mrs. Russin should be ap-
pointed since she was previously
employed by the Dallas School
District.
He stated that the biggest problem
he could see was that the position was
in the high school and that Mrs.
Hunt’s husband, Brook, was already
employed as the assistant principal in
f
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the high school. Mrs. Hunt will report
to Mrs. Barbara Price who reports
directly to the office of the superin-
tendent.
Russin said that if the motion to
appoint. Mrs. Hunt did not pass, he
would recommend his aunt, Mrs.
Raymond S. Russin. Mrs. Hunt's
appointment was approved by a 7-1
vote.
Gregory cast negative votes on two
motions to adopt for first reading,the
first to amend the personnel
retirement policy No. 4119 to read that
all employees be retired at the close of
the school year in which they attain
the age of 70 unless such contracts are
mutually extended;and the second to
amend the personnel physical
examination policy No. 4114 to require
employees to submit a written
statement from a physician indicating
that they are physically sound prior to
assuming their duties; also submit to
a chest x-ray every two years and
submit a report to the school nurse
and submit to a special medical
examination if the board requires it.
She also cast a negative vote on the
motion for a first reading to amend
Policy No. 4120.1 defining substitute
(Continued on p. 18)
¥
a A, Rs
Like Adams, Weaver predicted
hard times ahead, claiming that we
are probably headed for a recession
early in 1979.
The utilities that we depend on so
much, according to Fred Hartwigsen,
manager of consumer relations at
UGI in Kingston, are likewise deeply
concerned by the danger signals.
Although UGI, Hartwigsen said,
relies on domestic coal, other utilities
may be heavily dependent upon
imported energy sources, and so when
their prices go up, so do the prices
consumers have to pay. Or else the
consumers just can’t use as much
light or heat or power as before.
Tight money is of special worry to
UGI, Hartwigsen continued, because
the utility is ‘‘capital intense’ and
must borrow at high interest rates
(passing costs along to consumers) if
it is to modernize, expand, and add
new customers.
“The higher cost of money really
affects us,”’ said Hartwigsen.
Robert Richardson, commercial
lending officer and vice-president of
the First Eastern Bank, expressed the
belief that federal attempts to combat
inflation by keeping the prime in-
terest rate high brings economic
stagnation generally.
Business, he said, has less money to
work with in purchasing new capital
assets and expanding merchants
cannot tie up much money in in-
ventory merchandise, and banks have
rates because it costs them more to
get the funds in the first place.
“The cost of obtaining lendable
funds'is a real problem,” he affirmed,
adding that there seems to be a
consumer rush to try to ‘‘beat’’ rising
costs by purchasing quickly and going
heavily into debt.
Richardson also foresaw a 1979
a subdivision equal to the effluents of
more than two lots, a municipality
must complete some paperwork to
modify the official plan.
The developer, in this case the Back
Mountain Medical Center, is
generally responsoble for providing
the engineering or technical data
required for’ the modification
procedure.
In other discussion a letter from the
state attorney general informed the
supervisors that under Act 410, no
supervisor may hold any additional
township office other than road-
master or secretary treasurer,
because of the supervisors power to
vote and to control township funds.
The letter specifically pointed out that
a supervisor may not serve as civil
defense director.
Supervisor Ignatius Hozempa, who
served as civil defense director prior
to his election to office, stated that he
is serving as ‘‘acting director.”
Hozempa stated that he had resigned
as civil defense director the day he
took office and has just been filling the
position until the beard chooses
someone to take his place.
In light of the attorney general’s
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(Photo by Alex Rebar)
Nee
DALLAS, PA. TWENTY CENTS :
recession, with some sort of pickup in |
the later part of the year. ;
If the men involved in investment, |
business, utilities, and lending on a
day-to-day basis are any sort of |
guides, general predictions would |
seem to be that what the daily
economic news means to us is that:
1) It’s going to cost more to buy
things such as oil from overseas, and
our standard of living is going to |
suffer. aa
2) At least for quite some tim
money is going to be tight, meani
that fewer businesses will be starting |
(Continued on poy
oH
letter, the board will appoint a
director. Since this is a very time- |
consuming position, the board will
consider several persons, and an-.
nounce their decision at the |
December Meeting. Zit
Dr. John Groblewski and Dr. An- |
thony Groblewski, who maintain an |
office in a trailer on the Kane |
property in Lehman Township, |
requested an extension from the |
board. Their extension was denied by
the zoning board because they have
failed to put in any permanent sewage
or provide for parking.
Since there seemed to be a
discrepancy in who makes the final
decision in this case, the solicitors for
the zoning board and the board of
supervisors will meet sometime this |
month to clarify the matter. |
Groblewski Medical Center was given |
a 30 day extension until next month's |
meeting, when a final ruling will be
given. =
A public meeting to discuss the use |
of funds received from revenue-
sharing will be held Tuesday, Dec. 5 |
at 7:30 p.m. at the Lehman Center
Fire Hall. The public is invited to |
attend. eo
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