‘16 The Dallas Post Dallas, PA Wednesday, September 21, 1994 Mundy (continued from page 1) With state and federal funding sources for railroads nearly dried ‘up, Mundy believes the only way ‘to keep rail service going is to make it public property. © “You don't want to use public money to fund private companies operating for a profit,” she said. Four West Side businesses “employing about 1,000 people in her district and many more on the East Side depend on rail service, ‘Mundy said. Now that Luzerne County offi- ‘cials support arail authority, some of these businesses may consider expanding and adding more jobs, she said. ¢ Educating a skilled workforce. “We need a well-skilled workforce to attract prospective employers,” Mundy said. “It's as important as highways and air- ports.” She says including local resi- dents in strategic planning gives them more input and makes the educational system more account- ~able to the public. ~~. Mundy believes many people don’t understand the revisions to . the public school code, also known ‘as Outcome-Based Education, -which she supported. ~~ “It should really be called Per- - formance-Based Education,” she .said. “It changes the focus of “education from how long you sat - in class to what you must know .and be able to do in order to © graduate. It's designed for more community involvement and pa- “rental control.” Mundy doesn’t think that im- plementing the new educational guidelines will cost local districts large amounts of money. “Districts have already budg- eted for new books and staff de- velopment,” she said, “What else they spend is up to them. Local districts don't have to change a single thing if they believe that what they're already doing im- proves student performance.” During her term in office, Mundy has emphasized constitu- ent service, taking staff members on the road several times a month to different municipal buildings to help people complete property tax/rent rebate or PACE forms and learn the people's opinions on state-related issues. Mundy is also proud of her work in helping local elected offi- cials and other legislators to solve local problems, such as obtaining funding for highway improve- ments in the Back Mountain, installation of a water line from the Ceasetown Reservoir to the State Correctional Institution at Dallas and convincing Depart- ment of Corrections officials to use the new SCID water line once it was hooked up. She is also proud of sponsoring legislation to help prospective new homeowners with down payments and closing costs, to be funded by a $10 fee on each document filed with the county Recorder of Deeds. “Never before has a self-funded housing bill focusing only on down payments and closing costs been introduced,” she said. Mundy said her past two terms have been a learning experience, working 12-14 hours a day, six to seven days a week to represent 58,000 people. : “It's a monumental task,” she said. “I never reallized the vast amounts of time and energy needed to do this job properly. You must have a strong commit- ment to serving your constitu- ents. You don't do it to get rich - I make only $47,000 a year.” If elected for a third term, Mundy said she plans to continue to work for economic development and quality education, give hous- ing bills a high priority and work toward making the state govern- ment more accountable by re- forming the Legislative Initiative Grant process and helping to pass a “sunset bill.” ; “Legislative Initiative Grants are a great help to consituents, but Township. of Dallas Township. Who serves where After redistricting in 1990, the 120th district includes these Back Mountain communities: Dallas Borough, Kingston and Exeter townships, and the middle and south districts of Dallas The following are in the 117th district, now represented by George Hasay: Lake, Ross, Franklin, Lehman and Jackson town- ships, Harveys Lake Borough, and the north district (Kunkle area) theyre not a line item in the budgets,” she said. “We need to know which legislators are using them and how the money is being spent.” The so-called Sunset Bill would also make state government more accountable by reviewing state agencies and commissions, which presently are created and not monitored. “We need to know if they're doing their jobs, spending money wisely and paying for themselves,” she said. “Reviewing their work every five years would help us decide whether or not they should continue.” Mundy also vows towork harder towards education reform, to see what school programs have been implemented and what changes they might need. Relishing an issue-oriented campaign, Mundy said so far she is “a bit ‘disappointed” in her opposition. “Ihave stressed positive issues, what I intend to do, where I stand and what I have done,” she said. “The level of debate has been dis- appointing. My opponent seems to be concentrating on a cam- paign of stealth and deception. He has distorted, misrepresented, misquoted and outright lied about what I have done and how I have voted. It's cowardly, a charade.” She credits her “army of dedi- cated volunteers” for the success of her campaign to date. “They have unselfishly donated their time and are very commit- ted,” she said. ii Register to vote by October 11 The Luzerne County Elec- tion Bureau has released the following schedule for the November 8 election: e October 11: last day to reg- ister to vote. Applications must be clocked in at the Bureau of Voter Registration by 4:30 p.m. Mail-in voter registration ap- plications are available at The Dallas Post. * November 1: applications for civilian absentee ballots must be turned in to the Bureau of Voter Registration office by 5 p.m. ¢ November 4: completed ab- sentee ballots must be re- turned to the Luzerne County Election Bureau by 5 p.m. e November 8: election day. (continued from page 1) will still be required to pay $1.25 er month per telephone number 2% county emergency services, or about $15 per year per telephone number. “We estimate that the $1.25 monthly fee will generate about $194,295 per year, based on 12,953 telephone numbers,” O'Brien said. “It will cost about $2.8 million to buy equipment, set up answering points and back- ups and go on line.” The Back Mountain's share of the $2.8 million would be $43,000 per year for the next five years, O'Brien said. | The Back Mountain's yearly operating budget is $152,806, with member municipalities con- tributing between $12,150 and $32,798 per year. Member fire and ambulance companies con- tribute $1,500 per year. Under the county's plan, when an emergency call comes into its center, it will be automatically traced and the following informa- tion will appear on a computer screen in front of the dispatcher: caller's name, names of family members, address, location of the home on a grid map, local police and fire departments which serve the area and any special medical conditions : | This information will be par- tially supplied by the telephone company's database and partially by local police and fire chiefs, O'Brien said. ~The only hitch is that the data- base will come unverified from the telephone company, O'Brien said. It will cost an additional $45,440 to have the information verified. The exclusive Patented B-Dry i . Waterproofing Method j permanently and ~ completely eliminates all water leakage problems — SYSTEM bral Free 1-800-544-2379 HOME HEATING OIL Per Gallon CASH PRICE ’ Min. 125 Gallons Price Subject to Change Without Notice BiLo Oil Co. SCRANTON WILKES-BARRE PITTSTON 24 Hour Hot Line | 1-800-696-2456 | si afin d Hospital contributes $21,946. not a member. per hour. What local Comm Center costs According to the Back Mountain Communications Center's 1994 operating budget, contributions from five municipalities, the Nesbitt Memorial Hospital and nine volunteer fire and ambu- lance companies make up the center's $152,806 annual budget. Kingston and Dallas townships are expected to contribute $32,798 this year, while Jackson and Lehman townships contrib- ute $12,150. Dallas Borough's share is $27,464, while the Nesbitt Volunteer fire and ambulance companies from Trucksville, Shavertown, Kingston Township, Dallas, Kunkle, Lehman, Jackson Township, Idetown and Lake Silkworth each contribute $1,500. Franklin Township, which is dispatched partially through Wyoming County, doesn’t contribute. Harveys Lake Borough is A total of $79,135 is spent on three full-time and part-time dis- patchers and overtime. Dispatchers earn between $7.66 and $8 by Grace R. Dove O'Brien said that if the Back Mountain becomes a secondary answering point, the county will: * Provide all dispatching equip- ment, including FAX machines or printers in each police and fire station. Eventually the county would install printers in all police cruisers, eliminating the need for police radios and scanners. e Pay lor all grid maps and data bases with verified information. e Provide a computerized inci- dent reporting system for each shift and shared computerized records. e Train and certify all dispatch- ers. e Reimburse secondary answer- ing points for each emergency call answered, based on the time needed to handle the call and how much the dispatcher earns. O'Brien estimated the total reim- bursement at about $14,000 per year. e Provide emergency medical directions and procedures to emergency personnel. ~~ ¢ Provide personnel for callers who don't speak English and equipment for hearing-impaired families to make calls. - e Eventually upgrade the equip- ment to include fiber optic tele- phone lines and special radio fre- quencies. Back Mountain officials still have questions on how certain unique situations will be handled: communities using different tele- phone exchanges and different emergency services, mutual aid areas overlapping county bounda- ries and communities which rely on the Pennsylvania State Police for law enforcement. Although the state police will not have the same equipment as the county's system, they will have special telephone lines installed to take emergency calls for these municipalities. : Every police chiefin the county will be required to establish crite- ria for what constitutes an emer- gency call, O'Brien said. O'Brien said that there is no guarantee that sometime in the future, Luzerne County won't come back to the member mu- nicipalities for additional funding beyond the $15 peryear telephone line charge. Gavlick (continued from page 1) way to work with the PSEA (Penn- sylvania State Education Asso- ciation) so the children don't suf- fer. In order to have the best educa- tion possible, Gavlick wants to get the teachers organizations and parents working together. * Accountability of elected offi- cials. Gavlick favors initiative and referendum on governmental questions and recall of elected officials “for legitimate reasons.” “Actually, you should use the term ‘revote’ instead of recall,” he said. “I'would like to see the voters have the power to change their minds about elected officials, as long as it's not during the officials’ first or last terms. If the voters don’t like what their elected offi- cials are doing, they should be able to place the officials’ names on the ballot in the next election and vote either for or against them again, regardless of how much of their terms have been served.” If elected, Gavlick's goals are to: e Obtain enough support for initiative and referendum legisla- tion to have it made into law. e Change the way that school district budgets and teacher con- tracts are negotiated. “Let the voters decide on teach- ers’ packages,” he said. “For ex- ample, let's negotiate contracts every three years and have them put toavote by the people who are paying for them. The vote would be on the total package, not a line- by-line decision.” e Amend Act 88 to make teach- . ers’ strikes are illegal. “It's happened in other states — New York, New Jersey and Dela- ware— and they're doing very fine,” he said. Gavlick believes teachers’ strikes hit families with young children the hardest, disrupting day care and work schedules. “The inconvenience should be made to the school board and the teachers, not the families,” he said. e Eliminate the “last best offer” in teachers’ contract negotiations. Gavlick says the “last best of- fer” which arbitrators now con- sider from both sides keeps local | people out of the picture. “The arbitrators are selected by the state Labor Relations Board and, in order to be impartial to both sides, are never from the area where the contract is being | negotiated,” he said. “The arbitra- tor'sonly choice is either the school board's or the teachers’ last best offer. Residents don’t have any say in it.” Passed two years ago, Act 88 : severely limits the teachers’ right to strike and sets a mandato timeline and set of steps for cofi- : tract negotiations. Spectacular (continued from page 1) candlesticks and a tavern table will also be available for bidding. The items will be available for public inspection at 10 a.m., with bidding starting at 11 a.m. and continuing untileverythingis sold, Ashbridge said. Registered auctioneers Marva . and George O'Gorman have vol- | unteered their services for the event. Bill Gable is the event co- . chairman. Flea market vendors and food vendors also are expected. Graduates from basic training Air Force Airman Richard T. Banks has graduated from basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, TX. During the six weeks of training, he studied the Air Force mission, organization and customs and received special training in human - relationships. In addition, airmen who complete basic training earn credits toward an associate degree through the Community College of the Air Force. Banks is the son of William R. Banks of Dallas and Dorothy Banks . of Shavertown. He is a 1993 graduate of Dallas Senior High School. CORRECTION Last week's Country Ski & Sport ad contained a typographical error. 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