6 THE DALLAS POST/Monday, December 22, 1986
ie Darras®Post
OPINION
Police sommes
acted quickly, fairly
Members of Dallas Borough Council should be com-
mended for the way they handled the recent incident
involving Dallas Borough police officer Chris Purcell.
The police committee members - Timmy Carroll,
Byron Grieves, Bill Berti and Mayor Paul LaBar -
acted as fairly and as quickly as they possibly could in
investigating the situation.
Purcell, a part-time police officer for Dallas Borough,
had been accused of illegally entering a private
residence, according to the owner of the home. A
complaint filed by Dallas resident Arthur Miller stated
that Purcell had illegally entered the home where a
party was being conducted by approximately 20 Dallas
High School students.
Following the filing of Miller’s complaint, Purcell was
suspended without pay for as long as the investigation
continued. Suspension - and suspension without pay -
was the only fair thing the Council could have done as
long as the investigation was underway.
An attempt shortly after the November 1 incident to
secure the assistance of either the Pennsylvania State
Police or the Luzerne County District Attorney’s office
proved that the committee was attempting to carry out
the most objective investigation possible.
Only because the State Police does not involve itself
with anything other than criminal matters and the DA’s
office was much too busy did the borough opt to
conduct the investigation itself.
Seeking to answer only the question of whether or not
Purcell entered the home illegally, the committee
interviewed Purcell, Miller and at least two students
who attended the party.
Purcell, who needed to have a probable cause to enter
the home in the first place, reported that he was
responding to complaints of loud noise from residents of
the neighborhood where the party was being held. After
conducting second interviews with some of those
involved in the incident, the committee learned that
Purcell had gained entry into the home by following
two students through a cellar door.
When the committee learned that Purcell had first
attempted to enter the house through the front door and
later through a side door, only to have both doors
- slammed shut in his face, the members started leaning
toward Purcell’s innocence.
The committee then concluded Purcell had done
nothing illegal when entering the house and that he
should be reinstated to the police force.
Making its decision to recommend that Purcell be
reinstated on December 14 and presenting that recom-
mendation to Council on December 16, the committee
took only six weeks to clear up what could have turned
into a long, drawn-out affair.
Since a man is innocent until proven guilty and there
was no evidence produced during the investigation that
proved Chris Purcell had done anything wrong, there
seems to be no reason why he should not be back in a
policeman’s uniform. In this case, there is no evidence
that he did anything he shouldn’t have.
Do you have a friend?
How many people have at least one or two good
Hons: Someone you can complain to, and they will
isten.
They will listen even though they know you will never
stop complaining and do something about the problem,
and you know it, too, but they will listen, and they will
understand.
How many good friends have you made lately? Say,
since high school graduation? Or marriage? Has your
life been filled with activities with your spouse, your
children, your job? Do you take the time anymore to
even make an effort to enlarge your circle of friends
and enrich your life?
Yes, time is scarce. This child’s in the Scouts and one
the baseball team and has to be chauffered here and
there and, of course, the house is always a mess.
Funny thing is, you may not even notice the absence
of friends. Every once in a while, it may hit you. A
childhood friend may call long distance. A class reunion
or chance meeting may remind you of days when things
were different-days before you slid into adulthood and
shouldered the burdens.
Two recent stories in the newspapers told of foreign-
ers who came to the United States and had difficulty
making after-work connections. “They say, ‘Call me
sometimes,” ”’ said one young foreign woman. ‘“‘And
when I do, they say, ‘What do you want?’ ”’
Our scattered families, our mobile society - under
these circumstances, our need for connectedness, for a
friend or two or three who will really listen, talk, and
understand, is greater than ever.
And many of us have forgotten just how important
good friends really are.
— Jane Renn
From us to you...
The staff and management of The Dallas Post, wishes
all the good people of the Back Mountain a very safe
and happy Christmas holiday.
May health, happiness and good fortune shine on you
and yours during this festive season.
Merry Christmas!
Christmas bells
Gloria Miller,
Church Bell Choir,
tones and tarnish the bells.
Dallas Post/Jane Renn
Bellringers wear glo
Now that all the presents have
been bought and most of the
preparations made, it is time to
reflect on the true spirit of this
holy season.
Christians are asked to
remember ' and celebrate the
birth of the Blessed Child. This
Miraculous Gift from God was
given to the world to show His
love for mankind.
People: seem to forget in all
the hustle and bustle what
Christmas is all about. When
one gives a gift, it symbolizes
~ Toby
COLEMAN
The closer it gets to Christ-
mas, the warmer and cheerier
becomes. There is an excite-
ment in the air. You might say
that it is because of the pres-
ents, the lighted tree, the family
get-togethers, the parties and
the decorations.
That’s all part of it, but I
rather suspect the real reason
for all the excitement is the
love, and the hope that this
year, at last, will be ‘Peace on
Earth - Good will to men.”
The beautiful music of the
season expresses the prayers of
everyone for the fulfillment of
this dream. Remember and cel-
ebrate with joy in your hearts.
Share your good fortune and
your good feelings with those
who have so little.
It will be yourway of thanking
God for His Wondrous Gift to
you.
It’s something to think about...
(Toby Coleman, a Back Moun-
tain resident, is a columnist for
The Dallas Post. Her column
appears regularly.)
By HOWARD J. GROSSMAN
Special to The Dallas Post
Cities across the United States are faced
with great economic. and fiscal stress as a
result of substantial federal cutbacks and
the prospect of even more deep cuts in
coming years. This has led to alternative
ways to continue to provide necessary
services to residents.
One of the ways in which government has
chosen to change its traditional service
delivery pattern is to contract out to the
private sector to carry out services.
Another technique has been the growing
assembly of user fees charged for specific
services provided by that government to its
constituents.
For the most part, these types of innova-
tions are focused in clusters of municipali-
ties in the sunbelt states - places where
city manager forms of government pre-
dominate. For example, in Phoenix, Ari-
zona, private business processes the city’s
bills, maintains median strips on its
streets, polices its municipal building and
picks up half its trash.
In LaMirada, California, city government
has been reduced to a bare minimum by
wholesale contracting. The city has
approximately 60 employees, while 60 con-
tractors provide everything from police
and fire protection to human services and
public works.
User fees are charged in such cities as
St. Paul, Minnesota, which has so called
“Revenue Centers” that collect user fees
for special services. For example, city
police charge marathon race organizers for
crowd control and residents and business
for responding to burglar alarms.
In many places throughout the west,
county governments provide services to
municipalities under a contracting system
Joint purchasing agreements are available
in many municipal governments through-
out that part of the nation.
While some of these techniques have
been applied to the east coast, many are
not commonplace and have rarely been
organized as a systematic and comprehen-
sive approach to meeting the fiscal chal-
lenges of local government.
In Northeastern Pennsylvania, most of
these techniques are unknown and have not
been examined nor considered as ways to
control and effectively manage the deliv-
ery of services. While it is quite proper for
many services to continue to be delivered
by traditional methods, that is by munici-
pal and or county governments, some new
and innovative techniques may be useful,
such as those described in earlier para-
graphs. Just as the city management
process has taken hold in many parts of
the United States as'an effective way ‘to.
help administer the delivery of local gov-
ernmental servcies, so is the necessity to
consider the private sector as one alterna-
tive to current delivery methods. Private
sector involvement as well as user fees are
carefully studied and examined as possible
ways to broaden the way services are
delivered in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
It is a topic which organizations such as
the Pennsylvania Economy League, the
Economic Development Council of North-
eastern Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania
Department of Community Affairs and
others may wish to focus attention on in
coming years as steps by which additional
options are offered to local and county
governments to help alleviate fiscal con-
straints throughout the Pocono Northeast.
(Howard Grossman, a Back Mountain
resident, is the Executive Director of the
Economic Development Council of North-
eastern Pennsylvania. His column appears
periodically in The Dallas Post.)
are members of the PICPA.
Te DALLASCPoST
A Publication of Pennaprint, Inc.
J. STEPHEN BUCKLEY
Publisher
DAVID F. CONNER
General Manager
DOTTY MARTIN
Editor
Computers have revolution-
ized the way we do business and
for many home computer users,
the way we balance the family
budget. According to a poll of
Pennsylvania CPAs, 93 percent
of thier largest clients, or the
companies they work for, have
a computer. This is up from 64
percent five years ago.
The current computer capabil-
ities were reported as: personal
computer (PCs) (46 percent);
mainframe (20 percent); bus-
ienss micro (18 percent) and
mini (16 percent).
According to John H. Ken-
nedy, CPA, president, Pennsyl-
vania Institute of Certified
Public Accountants (PICPA),
‘Shifts in usage from five years
ago to now underscore the popu-
larity of personal computers
(PCs) in the workplace for such
personalized tasks as word
processing, budget-spreadsheet,
and forecasting-planning.” Fur-
ther, Kennedy states that, “The
nature of these tasks also point
to increased computer utiliza-
tion in smaller businesses.”
Some computer applications
cited today and five years ago
are:
Accounting-83 percent today,
78 percent five years ago;
Inventory control-40 percent
today, 37 percent five years
ago; Word Processing-32 per-
cent today, 11 percent five years
ago; Forecasting-planning-20
percent today, 11 percent five
years ago; Budgeting-spread-
sheet-14 percent today, 9 per-
cent five years ago.
When identifying the charac-
teristics which most influence
computer purchasers, 44 per-
cent identified the ability to
expand the system and 44 per-
cent identified software availa-
bility. Other factors identified
include: price (32 percent);
training and support (29 per-
cent); consultant’s recommen-
dations (29 percent); IBM com-
patibility (26 percent);
reputation of brand (26 per-
cent); ‘and memory capacity (22
percent).
Although the use of computers
is widespread, over 60 percent
of the computer users feel that
there is room for improvement
in the effective use of this
important business tool. CPAs
polled said that they felt only
eight percent of those who own
computers are completely dis-
satisfied. Some of the reasons
for dissatisfaction include: the
computer did not perform as
promised, lack of training and
support, and inability to pro-
gram and expand.
The CPA Poll sampled 2,000 of
the more than 13,600 CPAs who
From probability theory, it is
known that ‘if a sample is
chosen randomly from the total
population of PICPA members,
the result will reflect the char-
acteristics of that population at
a 95 percent confidence level,
plus or minus 4 percent. The
PICPA is the second oldest and
sixth largest CPA association in
the country. Members are
polled quarterly on a variety of
business and economic issues
which impact the business envi-
ronment.
By CLYDE DUPIN
Special to The Dallas Post
The new tax law may spell
trouble for churches and church
related organizations that
depend on charitable donations.
Harvard economist Lawrence
Lindsey estimates the new tax
act will cause a drop of $13
billion a year.
Because of the lower tax
rates, charitable donations will
be less attractive. The taxpayer
who doesn’t itemize will not be
allowed to deduct church dona-
tions; and those who do, cannot
deduct 100 percent. This new
tax law will especially hurt
ministries that rely on small
donations.
The Americans have tradition-
ally been generous in their char-
itable giving; and our tax laws
have encouraged this generos-
ity. The average American con-
tributes $650 each year to char-
ity. The religious groups.receive
72 percent of all money donated.
A study shows that 81 percent
of Americans believe people
have a responsibility to give
what they can to charity. Most
people admitted that they
should give more to charity.
Many large ministries like
World Vision and the Billy
Graham Evangelistic Associa-
tion have predicted a drop in
charities
their donations. Our govern-
ment has always been favorable
to charitable organizations. The
new law just seems to hit hard
at charitable giving.
The local church will probably
fare better than para church
organizations under the new
law. It is hoped that people will
think of their blessings and still
be generous in giving to help
spread the Word and minister to
the less fortunate of our world.
(Clyde Dupin is author of a
national column entitled ‘“Reli-
gious Viewpoint.”’ His column
appears periodically in The
Dallas Post.)
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