Vol.120 No. 18 THE BACK MOUNTAIN'S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1889 May 3 - 9, 2009 The DALLAS POST Serving the communities of the Dallas and Lake-Lehman School Districts | www.mydallaspost.com " Dallas School have five retired teachers By REBECCA BRIA rbria@timesleader.com If the three challengers running for Dallas School Board are elected, the ma- jority of the board will be comprised of five retired teachers. And, depending on which candidate you talk to, that’s a either a really good thing or a terribly bad thing. Seven candidates are running for four open seats on the school board and all have cross-filed on both the Democratic and Republican parties. The open seats for school director are currently. occu- pied by board president Karen Kyle, vice- president Dick Orlowski, Dr. Richard Coslett and Maureen Banks Matiska. All are running for re-election in the upcom- ing election. The contenders for those seats are Charlie Preece, Larry Schuler and Tho- Board could mas Stitzer. The three are retired teach- ers and, if are all elected to the board, five out of the nine board members will be for- mer educators. Current board members Gary Mathers and Catherine Wega are al- so former teachers. That’s a concern for some of the incum- bents, especially because the teachers’ contracts expire at the end of the 2009-10 school year. Matiska, who has served on the board for 16 years, says former teachers on the board are not allowed to serve on the teachers’ contracts negotiations commit- tee. She says the committee is extremely time-consuming and that it would not be fair for the majority of the board to auto- matically be exempt. “I think that were very fortunate in that, right now, we have a very diversified board,” said Matiska, a 57-year-old King- ston Township resident who works as a Preece Schuler nurse practitioner at Retreat State Pris- on. “Everybody brings something to the table because we all have different expe- rience.” Attorney John Audi of Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams LLC says that retired teachers on a school board are not auto- matically exempt from sitting on a nego- tiations committee. Instead, it depends on whether or not the former teacher is still a member of the teachers’ union. Audi says, according to Act 195, the public sector bargaining law, past educa- tors who are no longer in the union may be on a school board negotiation commit- tee as long as their participation does not directly affect any immediate family members who work in the school dis- trict. “The ethics commission never ad- dressed this law and there’s never been a case interpreting that law,” Audi added. Orlowski Matiska Coslett But to Schuler, being a teacher in the district has given him inside experience. He spent 35 years as an educator, with 32 of those years teaching wellness at Dallas High School. “I just wanted to be an advocate for kids,” Schuler said of his decision to run for school director. “I think over a num- ber of years, I've noticed there’s been many decisions made when at times I felt kids weren’t considered.” The 63-year-old Dallas Township resi- dent is most concerned about the best in- terest of students, financial responsibili- ty and wasteful spending. He thinks the biggest current issues in the district are overseeing finances involved with con- struction of the new high school and ag- ing buildings, including eventual demoli- tion of the old Dallas Township High School and remodeling of Dallas Ele- mentary School. Kyle Stitzer Orlowski, who has spent four years on the school board, is a former U.S. Army Reserves captain and retired after 30 years in sales and management. He is most concerned that this election could potentially bring the total number of edu- cators on the board to five, which would be the majority. “Personally, I think the issue for this particular election is they want a school board composed of five former teachers,” Orlowski said. “What objectivity and connectivity issues will face the board?” Orlowski, 68, has spent two years as chairman of the personnel committee, two years as chairman of the finance committee and the past year as vice-pres- ident of the board. He has also been a member of the West Side Career and See BOARD, Page 10 CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK PHOTOS/ FOR THE DALLAS POST Students from Lake-Lehman Senior High School work to clean up Hillside Road from Route 309 to Huntsville Dam. Clean up of the area has been an annual project for the senior class and student council and is part of the national Adopt-A-Highway Program. Cleaning their Earth By REBECCA BRIA rbria@timesleader.com ake-Lehman students never know what theyll find along Hill- side Road. They’ve come across tires, ra- dios, diapers, packing peanuts and even a broken calculator. That’s in addi- tion to the hundreds of beer bottles, soda cans, cigarette butts, wrappers and empty cigarette packages. Seventeen Lake-Lehman Junior/Senior High School students from the student council and yearbook club set out on April 22 to pick up trash on Hillside Road in Jack- son Township in celebration of Earth Day. According to student council adviser Cathy Wolfe, the clubs have been responsib- le for litter cleanup on Hillside Road for about 10 years through the Pennsylvania Adopt-A-Highway litter control program. Wolfe says the clubs collect litter twice a year, usually in May and October, and this was the first time they did their spring clea- nup on Earth Day. “It is just incredible the amount of trash people throw away,” Wolfe said. “It’s uncon- scionable.” Wolfe says litter control signs and orange flags and vests were provided to the stu- dents by Luzerne County and county work- ers picked up the bags of trash after the clea- nup. The students, along with Wolfe and year- book club adviser Susan Ferentino, spilt up into two groups to tackle the project. The yearbook club began where Hillside Road meets Old Route 115 and Huntsville Road and the student council started at the inter- section of Hillside Road and Route 309. The groups met up halfway to finish. “They’re all such good kids that are here today,” Ferentino said. “We do a lot of com- munity service.” Erica Johnson, an 1lth-grade student, said the the group found several McDo- nald’s and Sheetz cups and wrappers, which she believes is because those restaurants are located nearest to the area where the students were working. “There was a lot from Sheetz,” said Leigh Mulhern, a 12th-grader and vice-president of student council. Mulhern says a woman pulled over in her car to advise the group that if they found so- da bottles with a brown lining inside that i Leigh Hill- | man, left, | and Sara Casterline don plastic gloves be- fore starting the roadside : clean-up. y they may contain methamphetamine and could explode. The group didn’t believe they found any such containers. Not everybody was pleased to see the lit- ter crew. Eleventh-grader Brandon Coletti, who offered to be a traffic flagger because he has an injured knee, said some people were not careful as they passed. “Some people are just in a hurry,” Coletti said. “Others wave as they pass and slow down. We got a couple of honks before. It’s the bigger cars that I'm worried about like an 18-wheeler. They take longer to stop.” Despite a few incautious drivers, the stu- dents prevailed. Ferentino’s group estimat- ed they collected two bags of trash i in just the first quarter mile. “We want to make it cleaner,” said 11th- grader Leigh Hillman. “It’s really gross and we want to give back.” 7 bE Small business workers struggle with the economy By DAWN DRUMIN For The Dallas Post William Craze, owner of DC Plumbing & Electric in Harvey’s Lake, recently had to drop his health insurance so he could cover other bills. “m not making enough to keep it up. Right now, there’s very little work,” he said. These days, customers are leery of paying money to have minor plumbing problems fixed and, instead, wait until they have a plumbing emergen- a] cy before they call Craze. Stories like this are becoming in- creasingly common as the nationwide economic recession has slashed the in- 8 comes of many lo- cal small-business | workers and their ability to afford 1 both necessities and luxuries. Wayne Sutton, an 21 auto mechanic at cHarLOTTE BARTIZEK/ Back Mountain Au- FOR THE DALLAS POST to in Shavertown, Wayne Sutton, a me- says fewer custom- chanic at Back Mountain ers getting their Auto Specialists in Sha- cars serviced vertown, has been work- means less money ingon less carsduring 3nd he has trouble the economic recession. paying for utilities. Restaurant serv- ers are also feeling the pinch. Carissa Dona- hue is waiting fewer tables at the Villa Roma at Harvey’s Lake. Less tips means Donahue has no discretionary income and she is bare- ly able to pay her bills. Of course, some businesses and workers experience fewer repercussions from the re- cession than others. Dr. James DeFinnis, a dentist at Back Mountain Dental in Trucksville, has recently noticed a change in the type of care sought, but not in the number of his clients. “There’s more pain-driven and more emer- gency care,” he said. “Many need more in- tensive work.” DeFinnis is an exception. He works in healthcare, a field largely resistant to the ef- fects of recession because medical needs do not become less pressing when the economy gets worse. However, most small-business workers in the area must worry about fewer customers, less income and possible layoffs. The unemployment rate in Northeastern Pennsylvania is rising rapidly. Statistics spe- cific to the Back Mountain do not exist but, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, See WORKERS, Page 10 200 09815 LE ARAL LE JE DE 7 9ullig = O
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