Dallas, PA Wednesday, March 11, 1992 35 Cents John Morris acigns up to attend ® ciel! Sports page. Harveys Lake will be stocked vin legal-size trout, the PA Fish Commission says. Page 3. Lehman ayrestlers axe titles at regional meet. Sports page. Dallas Middle achool Ski Club raises $1,300 for the American Heart Association. Page 8. Back Mtn. Baseball vii hoa tryouts March 14 and 21. Sports page. Free samples of The Dallas Post are being delivered to some Back Mountain homes for the next two weeks. Coalondar............. 14 Classified........ 12-13 Editorials... cus... 4 Obituaries............ 11 Police report.......... 2 Property transfers..3 School.....i.......50 . 8 CALL 675-5211 "FOR HOME DELIVERY, NEWS OR ADVERTISING Teachers want at least 5% raise By ERIC FOSTER Post Staff The 200 people in the audience at the Dallas School Board meeting on Monday, March 9 learned that the teachers are proposing a pay increase of less than 8.75%, bul at least 5%. Board member James Richardson said that a mediator suggested that the board offer 4 1/2%, and a poll of the board members showed that there were enough voles to support that. However, Richardson said that the teachers’ negotiators surveyed their union membership and the result showed the teachers wouldn't respond to anything less than 5%. In {liers handed oul before the meeting, the union says that it is asking for less than the 8.75% that a state factfinder recommended in December. Eleanor Buda, vice president of the teachers’ union, told the audience that the “lamp of experience lights our way.” Buda said that the teachers are using that lamp lo investigate census data to see how wealthy the Dallas area is. According to the teachers’ union's flier, the 1990 U.S. census shows that Dallas has the highest percentage of "high value” homes in Luzerne County, and the lowest percentage of “low value” homes. The union's [lier also said that Dallas residents pay about 2% of their income in school taxes, compared to 5% in state income and sales taxes, 8% in social security taxes, and 16% to 20% in federal income taxes. In the Back Mountain, 68% to 72% of the property taxes go to the school districts, with county taxes ranging from 25% to 27%, and municipal taxes ranging from 1% to 8%. The union's flier stated that the Dallas School District has a $500,000 budgetary surplus that could fund their proposed increases over the next two years with little or no increase in properly taxes. Buda also said that the teachers have formed a committee (o check the validity of the petitions taken by the Dallas Taxpayers Forum and have contacted selected petition signers. The Taxpayers Forum, started in September of 1991, is calling for a two- See 5% RAISE, pg 14 Home value could drop if strike, union says In a letter sent to area Realtors, William Wagner president of the Dallas teachers’ union warns that a school strike could hurt the real estate market within the district. Some area Reallors agree that the quality of the local school dis- trict is an important selling point for many home buyers — but they say a teachers’ strike would not be that detrimental to selling homes. “People will generally under- stand that it is a temporary thing,” said Alvin Rothstein, owner of Rothstein's Realty. “The Dallas area has had a good reputation for its schools.” Ruth K. Smith, co-owner of Ruth K. Smith Realty noted that the Mountaintop area had a long and difficult teachers strike several years back, but homes were still sold. “The answer is either you want to live in Mountaintop or not," said Smith, who added that the same logic applies to the Back Moun- tain. “Generally, in most cases, we hear nothing but good reports about the Dallas School District.” Wagner's letter asked Realtors to discuss the “turmoil and dis- content with the Dallas School District” with their customers. “I didn't feel I was in a position to push people one way or the other,” said Smith. See HOME VALUES, pg 14 IS IT DONE YET? wood-burning cookstove to make his own special recipe of maple syrup. (Post photo/Grace R. Dove) how he cooks down sugar maple sap on an old Recalling early days of The Post By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff When Dallas native Wayne Harvey began working for The Dallas Post in 1936, he acciden- tally ran his motorcycle and side- car into the side of a drugstore while making his first delivery. “Mr. Risley owned the Post then; in addition to producing a weekly newspaper, we printed magazines for the Wyoming Valley Motorist and Wyoming Seminary and ran advertising circulars and custom print jobs,” Harvey recalled. Every morning, Harvey warmed up the linotype machine, lubri- “cated it with graphite and recycled the previous day's used lead let- ters by dumping them into a melt- ing vat in the machine. As the linotype operator typed the day's copy, the machine auto- matically made the necessary let- ters, dropping them through chutes to make the columns of print. Pictures were etched onto inch- thick lead plates and trimmed with a saw to fit the column space. Everything was laid out by hand. “Norm and Dennis Rosnick operated the linotype and set the type,” Harvey continued. “They ran a proof of each page to check for errors and could also read the type backwards.” Harvey delivered the Post and the other printing jobs to custom- ers on his motorcycle, often travel- ing down Route 309 to Luzerne and Kingston. See MAPLE SYRUP, pg 5 Law change would limit strike option By ERIC FOSTER Post Staff Though the Dallas teachers have been working six months under their old contract without striking, many people are still worried about the possibility of a job action. At Monday evening's meeting, Joe Kunec, vice president of the Dallas Taxpayers Forum, called the state's present law, Act 195, which allows teachers to strike, the road to “chaos and confronta- tion.” Though Act 195, enacted in 1970, applies to many public employes besides teachers, its use by teachers is what concerns the public most. This year, Pennsylva- nia accounted for nearly one third of all striking teachers in the na- tion, according to the Pennsylva- nia School Boards Association. Across the state 5,693 teachers in 35 districts have gone on strike during the 1991-92 school year, affecting 96,119 students. Eight of those 35 districts have had selec- tive strikes in which teachers would strike one day, and work the next, or stop work only at some build- ings within the district. For those who'd like to see [ewer school teacher strikes, some relief may be on the way. Last year the stale Senate passed See STRIKE LAW, pg 14 Lehman Football Club to hold fashion show The Lake-Lehman Football Club is sponsoring a fashion show March 23 at 7:30 p.m. in the High School Auditorium. Tickets are $2 for students and $3 for adults. Thirty-five football players and cheerleaders will be modeling sports wear from the Field House in Dallas, casual wear from the Fashion Bug, and prom dresses and tuxedos from U.S. Tuxedo and Kathy's Bridal Boutique. The money raised will be used for the football banquet, senior jackets, a trip to see a Syracuse football game and possibly other events. Shown from left are sophomores who will be modeling March 23: Larry Lucarino, a linemen, Bob Sayre, a tight end, and Bobby Lamoreaux, a linemen. (Post Photo/Eric Foster) By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staft An inherited problem which was Jackson Township will borrow $230,000 to remove tainted soil "We knew that we might possibily find larger than originally anticipated will cost Jackson Township ap- proximately $230,000 to remedy. Township supervisors, at a special work session Monday, March 9, voted to borrow $230,000 from Luzerne National Bank to pay for the cleanup of six old oil tanks and nearly 1,300 tons of gasoline-tainted soil unearthed during construction of the new municipal building. This unanticipated debt, com- bined with an existing $130,000 tax revenue anticipation loan, raises the township's 1992 indebt- edness to $360,000. The supervisors said that the emergency situation necessitated such drastic action; delaying the cleanup could have caused fur- ther contamination of the soil and possibly nearby water sources. Between 400 and 500 tons of tainted soil are still at the site, stored under protective tarps, Supervisor Joe Stager said. The contractor has drilled four wells to monitor any possible spread of the contaminants. Stager explained, "When we purchased the land, no engineer- ing drawings or studies were done three tanks in the ground, but certainly not six!” Joseph Stager Jackson Twp. supervisor on it. We knew that we might possibily find three tanks in the ground, but certainly not six! No tanks were listed on the deeds checked during the title search.” According to deeds on file at the Luzerne County Courthouse, Jackson Township purchased the land from John and Peggy Adams in February, 1989, for $115,000, paid for by RIRA, a federal grant used for acquiring land [or recrea- tion. The Adams family had acquired the land from GO Corporation of Newark, N.J., in 1979. GO Corp. had created the parcel by buying adjoining properties from J. Allred Rogers and Michael and Bertha Slimak. The Post attempted to contact GO Corp. to find out if they had installed the tanks, but the infor- See TAINTED SOIL, pg 14
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