PAGE 10 THE DALLAS POST Sunday, June 17, 2012 BUDGET Continued from Page 1 concerns.” Galicki said he and Duffy held a meeting and called the police soon after. “We don’t know anything about the investigation at this point,” said Galicki. “We’ve been told by the district attorney’s of- fice that they would make con- tact with us.” The investigation was not oth- erwise mentioned by the board or the audience in the crowded meeting room. The board approved salaries for the superintendent, business manager and confidential secre- taries through the 2012-13 school year and for secretaries, house- keepers, custodians and mainte- nance staff through June 30, 2016. Administrators received a 2.1 percent raise. A construction change order for the new high school was also approved. The board authorized the change order totaling $2,074 for the addition of back draft dampers in the art room hoods. In other news, the board... e Authorized the lease of a wheelchair lift mini-bus at a cost of $1,068.41 per month for 60 months. ¢ Approved an agreement with Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services Inc. for prevention education services two days a week for the 2012-13 school year at the per diem rate of $100. e Authorized Solicitor Ben Jones II to attend the Pennsylva- nia School Board Association School Solicitors Symposium in State College July 12-13 at a cost of $650. e Approved John Hodle as part-time groundskeeper effec- tive June 25. * Accepted the resignation of Jennifer Kelley, speech therapist, effective the end of the 2011-12 school year. ¢ Approved the payment of a stipend of $500 per month, total- ing $6,000, to Tom Duffy, middle school principal, to handle duties formerly completed by the assist- ant middle school principal for the 2012-13 school year. Board member Karen Kyle voted against this measure. e Hired Wendy Greenwood as a lifeguard for the district at arate of $10 per hour. e Approved a resolution to comply with the Award of the Ar- bitrator issued April 27 based up- on a grievance filed by the Penn- sylvania State Education Associ- ation by the payment of total back pay for the school years 2010-11 and 2011-12 in the amount of $40,008.31 to Nancy Roberts, athletic director, in satisfaction of all claims asserted by PSEA. Solicitor Ben Jones III said this issue arose from the teachers’ union, as Roberts was hired as athletic director while serving as a part-time wellness instructor in the district. He said the union grieved that the athletic director position should be held by a full- time employee of the district based on past experience. He said the arbitrator ruled in favor of the union. e Appointed Nancy Roberts as a fulltime physical education teacher in the wellness depart- ment at the fourth step Master’s level on the salary scale at $41,667 beginning on July 1, 2012 and ending on June 30, 2013. * Accepted the resignation of Melissa Cencetti, contracted physical therapist, effective June 15. e Approved the new district policy on management of ath- letes with concussions and re- turn to play. Galicki said all coaches, paid and volunteer, will need to undergo training about concussion symptoms and how to respond to such incidents. e Accepted the resignation of Paul Darling, assistant girls bas- ketball coach. e Appointed Abe Lewis as head girls soccer coach for the fall season with a stipend of $3,033. Galicki said this is the co- coach stipend amount and a memorandum of understanding will be drawn to determine the head coach salary for girls’ soc- cer. e Appointed the following winter sports coaches: Kelly Johnson as head high school girls basketball coach with a stipend of $6,235; Doug Miller as head high school boys basketball coach with a stipend of $6,265; Matt Barry as assistant high school boys’ basketball coach with a sti- pend of $3,295; Mike Richards head high school wrestling coach with a stipend $6,235; Bob Jesse as assistant high school wrestling coach with a stipend of $3,295; Romayne Mosier as head high school swimming coach with a stipend of $4,090; Jen Swiderski as assistant high school swim- ming coach with a stipend of $2,373; Matt Nonenburg as high school diving coach with a sti- pend of $2,217; Jerry Ogurkis as assistant-in-charge for middle school wrestling with a stipend of $3,295; John Hutchins of assist- ant middle school wrestling coach with a stipend of $2,725; Johnna Schickram as eighth- grade girls basketball coach with a stipend of $2,725; Karen Bove as seventh-grade girls basketball coach with a stipend of $664; Jesse Francis as assistant-in- charge of middle school boys” basketball with a stipend of $3,295; Tony Chiarucci as eighth- grade boys basketball coach with a stipend of $2,725; and James Gattuso as seventh-grade boys basketball coach with a stipend of $664. ¢ Appointed Mark Farrell and Vita DeLuca as volunteer sev- enth-grade basketball coaches. CHURCH BRIEFS TUMC announces Vacation Bible School Vacation Bible School will be held from June 17-21 at the Trucksville United Methodist Church Educational Building, 40 Knob Hill Road, Trucksville. Dinner is provided and starts at 5:30 p.m. each night. The opening skit begins at 6:15 p.m. and the program ends at 8:30 p.m. each night. This year’s group will go on a safari with music, mission, games, crafts, skits, snacks and a lesson. This year’s Mission Focus benefits “Nothing But Nets,” a mission that provides mosquito nets to families to prevent the spread of malaria. Sweet Valley church sets Bible School Vacation Bible School will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, June 17 through Fri- day, June 22 at Sweet Valley through sixth grade. Daily activities include Bible lessons, crafts, snacks and games. There will be a “Fun Fair” on Friday. The church is handicapped accessible. For information and regis- tration, call 477-2320. Morgan will speak at breakfast The scheduled speaker at the Back Mountain Men’s Ecumen- ical Group on Tuesday, June 19 is Wayne Morgan of the local Youth For Christ. The BMMEG meets for breakfast at 8 a.m. every Tues- day at the Irem Country Club. Vacation Bible School planned Vacation Bible School, entit- led “Babylon — Daniel's Cour- age in Captivity,” will be held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. June 24-28 every night. e-mail melanie.transue@elkla- Top register, call 836-5898 {Y keschool.org. LIUM Church plans Bible School The Lehman-Idetown United Methodist Church, Mountain View Drive, Lehman, will host its annual Vacation Bible School from 9 a.m. to noon June 25-29. A special service to celebrate the week will be held at 10 a.m. on Sunday, July 1. For more information, con- tact Mandy Newman at 674- 9777 or Pastor Bob Ryder at 675-5192. No pre-registration is needed. Maple Grove Church plans Bible School The Maple Grove United Methodist Church, 5876 Main Road, Sweet Valley, will hold its Vacation Bible School from 6 to 8:30 p.m. June 25-29. RSET SR e The next Dallas School Church of Christ, 5439 Main at the Centermoreland United Registration may be done the Board meeting will be held at 7 Road, Sweet Valley. Methodist Church, 17 Cream- first night of VBS or by calling p.m. Monday, July 16 in the ad- The Bible School is for chil- ery Road, Centermoreland. 477-5216 to obtain a regis- ministration building. dren between the ages of 2 A light dinner will be served tration form. Chet Mozloom of The Lands The board also voted to take township and the lawsuit was at Hillside Farms spoke on be- legal action against Centax-Don settled out of court. CHICK E NS half of Chris Mathers. He said he Wilkinson Agency if the prob- * Approved two payments for Continued from Page 1 Supervisors also felt the space in the residential zoning district isn’t adequate for that kind of ac- tivity. “I grew up in Wayne County, and I grew up with chickens in my backyard when I was young, and I generally agree we lived in harmony and there were no is- sues there,” said Box. “..My thoughts are simply that we have a zoning ordinance that’s been in effect since 1975 that re- stricts what you want to do ... and I believe the R-1 zoning lot sizes are too small for anyone to be raising chickens....” Chris Mathers said the birds could be regulated via a permit application that would feature lot specifications and other re- quirements. She said the money understood both sides of the ar- gument but hoped a compro- mise could be reached to allow those who wanted chickens to raise them in an appropriate manner. Moyer said it was a difficult situation to debate, but felt the health, safety and enforcement issues could not be ignored. “As a supervisor, you try to make everybody in your town- ship happy and the hardest thing is not being able to make a certain group happy,” Moyer said. The board also adopted an or- dinance that will amend sec- tions of the township home rule charter pertaining to project bid limits, contracts, actions requir- ing an ordinance and effect dates of ordinances. The issue will be placed on the ballot for the November gen- enforcement. from the permit applications could be used for paying for the eral election; as the home rule charter requires a public vote to be changed.” lems persist with earned income tax collection. Reino said the township is short about $265,000 due to the problems in collection, which may require the township to take out a loan to supplement the general fund. In other news, the board ... e Approved a settlement agreement in regard to the case of American Asphalt Co. v. King- ston Township and authorized a check to be issued in the amount of $5,000 to American Asphalt Co. Township Manager Kathleen Sebastian said years ago a con- tractor paved Green Road but did not perform the work ac- cording to township specifica- tions. She said the township withheld payment to the con- tractor and the contractor then withheld payment to American Asphalt Co. for the project mate- rials. She said American Asphalt sued the contractor and the the East Center Street Bridge project, totaling $33,505.81. Re- ino said 80 percent of that amount will be paid for by the state Department of Transporta- tion and the township will be re- sponsible for 20 percent, or $6,701.16. e Opened bids for line paint- ing in the township. Bids were made by Alpha Space, Interstate Road Management and Mid-At- lantic Markings. The bids will be awarded at a special meeti at 7 p.m. on June 26. e Allocated funds for the fol- lowing projects in the township: install storm water manage- ment materials in Westmore- land Hills, remove a tree on Kimberly Drive and fix the mu- nicipal building parking lot for safety issues. ¢ The next Kingston Town- ship Board of Supervisors meet- ing will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 11 in the mu- nicipal building’ FIELDS Continued from Page 1 been in the Back Mountain for years. “Apparently, there was a soccer organization that was given the use of the field,” said Bowden, who became president of the Raiders organization this year. “Though we put our request in very early, I guess it wasn’t early enough.” The team practices at Center Street Park in Kingston Town- ship, a field that hosts practices for baseball, lacrosse, soccer and football throughout the spring, summer and fall months. “Center Street Park is used ve- ry heavily,” said Kingston Town- ship Supervisor James Reino Jr. “There’s always a need for more space because there are other places where they don’t have the space, and teams are struggling to get practice time.” Fields must meet stringent re- quirements to be considered offi- cial playing fields. Bowden said the Center Street Park field is about 10 feet too short to host Raiders’ games.’ Bowden said the team received permission to utilize a field at the West Side Career and Technolo- gy Center in Pringle, but the area is too hilly and rocky for safe play. “Our ideal option is to use fields here (in the Back Moun- tain),” said Bowden. He said the team will most like- ly share field space with another team in the league, such as Swoyersville. Bowden said another option was to rent field space from Mi- sericordia University or Penn State Wilkes-Barre, but the costs for the organization and players’ parents would be too much to bear. “It’s not an attractive option,” he said. Utilizing schools The team once used the fields on the Dallas School District campus, but so much has changed there within the last two years, some of the high school’s own teams can’t find a place to play. Nancy Roberts, district athlet- ic director, said teams have had to be patient during the construc- tion process, as many lost their home fields. The high school officially opened in September 2011, but several athletic fields are still not ready for use — many still need to be germinated and will not be useable until next year. “Since the construction start- ed, there has been a lot of frustra- tion among teams,” said Roberts. “The new fields haven’t been ger- minated — we’re not even using them.” This includes the baseball field and four other fields located be- hind the high school. The Dallas High School baseball team cur- rently plays at the Dallas Little League field in Kunkle. Roberts said with the addition of girls’ soccer in the fall, most of the fields at the school will be in use by school athletic teams until the evening hours, which may al- so hinder young teams’ usage. “We're hoping down the road we’ll have more community ac- cess to these fields,” she said. Tom Rokita, Lake-Lehman School District athletic director, said the high school campus has plenty of room for expansion, but with state budget cuts plaguing schools, it’s difficult to find the money to move forward with such projects. He said the campus has about 10 fields used by high school soc- cer, lacrosse, football, baseball and other sports. Currently, the district allows the Back Mountain Mini Knights, the Back Mountain Youth Soccer Association and a local baseball team to use the fields as well. Rokita said the district doesn’t charge a fee for community orga- nizations to use the fields, but that is something that may be considered by the school board in the future. The football field, which is made of multi-turf, is about nine "I'm most concerned about finding a permanent solution to this problem," he said. "We go through the same process every January, and it takes a lot of attention away from the board, and our goal is to make sure every kid has a great experience." Donald Bowden KT Raiders president years old, and Rokita said that’s about the standard shelf life ‘of such a field. “To replace this, it would cost about $500,000 so we're going to use it as long as we can,” he said. “We're on the home stretch with this field.” He said the district has limited the usage of the field to football to cut down on the wear and tear of the space. Next to the lacrosse field be- hind Lehman-Jackson Elemen- tary lies about 20 additional acres of property where Rokita said the district could expand upon field space if it becomes necessary. He said there are issues with wetlands and leveling the areas, but the board isn’t considering the need for expansion anytime soon. Expanding teams, fields Now that the Rock Recreation Center in Trucksville has pur- chased the Wyoming Valley Swim and Tennis Club in Shaver- town, there are more opportuni- ties to expand the center’s youth sports offerings. The organization recently built a 13,000 square foot turf multi- purpose field on two of the tennis courts at the swim club with the hopes of starting its own youth . soccer program, said Doug Mill- er, center director. The $30,000 field was made possible due to state grants, Mill- er said. The center in Trucksville was recently approved as a clean fill site and, over time, Miller hopes to establish another field behind the center. “We started last summer and last month we had about 100 loads (of fill) coming in,” said Miller. There’s no deadline to build the field — it’s mostly dependent on availability of finances. He said the newly-constructed field in Shavertown will be available for public use, and teams can make requests by calling the cen- ter. “It’s not big enough for orga- nized sports games — it might be useful for U-8 soccer games,” he said. “But it can be used for a practice field.” Dave Sutton, executive direc- tor of the Back Mountain Recre- ation Complex in Lehman Town- ship, would like to expand upon the oft-used fields at the complex on Outlet Road. He said between mini-football, soccer and lacrosse, there isn’t much wiggle room for other sports teams to use the six fields, just two of which are full-sized. “I get more requests all the time,” said Sutton, who helped to found the complex in the 1990s. Nicki Rismondo, president of the Dallas Youth Soccer Associ- ation, said the teams comprised of about 800 youths heavily use the Back Mountain Recreation fields and the fields near St. Paul’s, but space is getting tight and money is getting tighter. “It’s getting very, very diffi- cult,” said Rismondo, who has been a soccer association board member for the last five years. “Fields are our biggest expense.” Rismondo said the association is able to wrangle in costs due to several sponsors of the organiza- tion, but the biggest challenge is competing with other teams for the field space. “It gets a little stressful, espe- cially when someone else gets the rights to use the fields,” she guid, ments needed for play. tbe The Lake-Lehman lacrosse field. Looking for funding Miller said the center is “eager- ly” looking for grants and outside donations to enable the center to make more field space. He said it’s been difficult to ac- quire state funding for projects in recent years. Sutton would also like to see the Back Mountain Recreation Complex expand — current fields only occupy about 20 acres of the 130-acre property. Sutton would also like to see unorganized space available for children and families to use, such as playgrounds. “The trouble is finding financ- es,” he said. “We’re a non-profit - all of our money comes from do- nations. We charge (teams) a lit- tle bit for them to use the fields, but we don’t get enough rent to cover expenses.” Sutton said the organization has started an endowment fund through the Luzerne Foundation to help it get closer to that expan- sion. Reino said it might be difficult to create more athletic field space without the funds to support the endeavor. The Center Street Park field is aided by fees charged to teams, so it is not a costly space for the township to maintain, but other fields may cost much more because of the stringent require- a great experience.” “(More field space has) been + talked about, but there’s only a & handful of tracks long enough,” * said Reino. “It would be a multi- million dollar project, and at pre- sent, short of someone donating “% land, or finding a grant,I don’t be- & lieve there's any way going to be i able to add any new recreation fields.” Searching for answers Though many sports teams re- port a stabilization or slight de- cline in participation, many team leaders believe youths are play- ing more sports than ever before. “Sports have totally evolved,” said Rismondo. “Kids don’t play just one particular sport during a season — kids are playing all year round.” Bowden believes municipal leaders and sports organizations BILL TARUTIS/ FOR THE DALLAS POST i] should work together in solving this issue. He said municipalities and sports leaders should collab- 13 orate on the issue because both have a vested interest in benefit- ing the community. ‘'m most concerned about > finding a permanent solution to this problem,” he said. “We go \ through the same process every January, and it takes alot of atten- tion away from the board, and our goal is to make sure every kid has )
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