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WILKES-BARRE — Council unanimously approved the agenda items at its meeting Thursday night, but failed to unify in support of keeping three high schools in the city.

The discussion during part of the meeting focused on the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board’s decision to consolidate two of the schools rather than renovate Meyers and Coughlin high schools.

Councilman George Brown, who has been out front in support of the neighborhood schools, attempted to get the backing of his four other council members.

“I believe in the smaller schools,” Brown said after resident Robert Holden asked that council work “hand-in-hand” with the school board to keep the neighborhood schools. If the schools are closed property values will decline and residents will move from the neighborhoods.

“We’re in a tough spot the way it is. This is going to put us into a tougher spot,” Holden said.

Brown introduced a motion for council to agree that the smaller schools offer a better education as opposed to a single school being considered by the school board. Only council chairman Mike Merritt backed him.

Council vice chairman Bill Barrett and council members Tony George and Maureen Lavelle backed out.

George said he did not have enough information to make an informed decision at this point. “I can’t let my emotions dictate my financial responsibility to the taxpayers,” he said.

Lavelle said the board should have built a new school at the site of the former Valley Crest nursing home owned by Luzerne County.

“I don’t see that this is working here,” she said of the three-high school system of Meyers, Coughlin and GAR.

Barrett added some districts are opting for a single campus that’s almost college like and wasn’t comfortable supporting Brown’s motion.

The “No” votes prompted Sandra Namey Richards to chastise them. At the start of the meeting she was presented a resolution from council honoring her daughter Olivia, a Meyers’ graduate, who placed second in the Pennsylvania Municipal League scholarship essay contest.

“I implore all of you to get involved in this matter. It is that important to the residents of Wilkes-Barre and it should be that important to each and every one of you,” she said.

John Suchoski brought up the issue of violence at the Sherman Hills apartment complex. A Nanticoke man was stabbed there Wednesday afternoon.

Mayor Tom Leighton said he has been in contact with the different offices and agencies about the place, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development which provides low income housing subsidies to the owner, Treetop Development of Teaneck, New Jersey.

The city shut down a unit Wednesday night under its one-strike ordinance directed at problem properties, but HUD weilds the real power, he pointed out.

“It’s just a matter of them taking action at a higher level,” Leighton said.

HUD is aware of the situation and is working on it. “It just takes time, ” Leighton said.

By Jerry Lynott

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Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLNews