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WILKES-BARRE — With a single ruling, the Wilkes-Barre Zoning Hearing Board tossed a regulatory hand grenade into the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board’s high school consolidation project.

And now, questions abound.

• Is the denial of a variance needed to build a larger school a victory for those hoping to preserve a three-school system – which currently consists of Coughlin, Meyers and GAR – or did it make their goal less attainable?

• Is the proposed second sports stadium in the district scrapped?

• Does the suggestion of a performing-arts magnet school fall off the table?

• How much of the millions of dollars spent on project plans and specifications goes down the drain?

Those interviewed on the morning after Wednesday night’s ruling conceded the future of the school plan is much murkier, and they agreed the school board has scant time to clear its crystal ball.

If the district wants to appeal the zoning board’s ruling – the board denied in a 2-1 vote a request to build a new school where Coughlin High stands on North Washington Street – it must do so within 30 days.

‘Actions speak louder’

For his part, Superintendent Brian Costello said he “would not recommend” that the school board appeal the ruling. Since assuming his post in September, Costello – who attended Temple University in the heart of Philadelphia – has been a champion of the downtown high school idea, arguing the city “would be our campus,” with synergy among students, businesses and downtown college campuses.

“We certainly wanted to be there,” he said. “The district was willing to commit to $80 million in construction.”

But Costello took the ruling as an emphatic rejection of the plan.

“Having a school building denied where a school has been for 100 years, actions speak louder than words, and I felt that action spoke very clearly,” he said.

And whether or not the school board appeals, it must figure out what to do with Coughlin High School students until the issue is resolved.

Where to put students

Split since January between the newer Coughlin annex and the newly renovated Mackin Elementary School building on Hillard Street, the roughly 1,000 students can’t return to using the century-old part of Coughlin; it has been stripped of all things educational and ripped apart to remove asbestos. Nor can the annex students remain indefinitely in what amounts to makeshift space.

Those students were supposed to go into the Times Leader building on North Main Street, adjacent to the Coughlin property. Panzitta Enterprises had offered to buy the building, renovate it to classrooms, and rent it to the district, but needed zoning clearance.

The zoning board, in a 2-1 vote, gave that plan a green light, but Costello said the deal now makes little sense without a high school next door.

“It would have been nice to utilize that property, but if our main school is not going to be there, everything has to be re-evaluated,” he said.

While the existing Coughlin building did not fit zoning rules, it pre-dated those rules and long has been grandfathered. The new school was designed to be so much larger that it required a zoning exception.

A long battle

Attorney Ray Wendolowski, solicitor for the school district, repeatedly had predicted that getting the go-ahead would be a formality, but it turned into a battle stretching over several hearing board meetings, culminating in Wednesday’s five-hour session.

Objections were raised primarily by attorney Kimberly Borland, who has questioned the board’s consolidation idea from the start; the organization dubbed Save Our Schools, which has operated out of Borland’s office while pushing to preserve the three-high-school system; and attorney Walter Grabowski, who owns a business directly across from Coughlin.

Attorney Mark McNealis initially represented only Grabowski, but he picked up a second businessman, attorney Scott Brady, across the street, and he helped Borland and SOS make their cases at the hearing. McNealis summed up the basic objection: It would be a large school with no parking set up in a business district.

Even the current, smaller school causes traffic congestion and parking problems outside of Grabowski’s office, McNealis said. The new school, with nearly double the students, would make it much worse.

“They literally have roads blocked in front of their (the attorneys’) office,” McNealis said.” There is a lot of activity inconsistent with and not normally associated with a business district that has an adverse impact on them.”

Any appeal of the decision could drag out for years, McNealis said, because either side could appeal all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Reviewing options

The school district has the option to build at several other sites previously rejected, primarily because of land acquisition and preparation costs, but it’s not a simple question of shifting locations.

Costello and Wendolowski said that, while the basic size and accommodations of the school would be unchanged, the footprint and layout probably would be altered for a different space. With about 65 percent of the design plans already done, that could add to cost.

About 450 students have been housed in the Coughlin annex since January, but it is a temporary setup, with some classes in a hallway and others in hastily partitioned band or chorus rooms.

“If we decide to keep the students in the annex, we’d see what we can do to improve those conditions,” Costello said.

Wendolowski noted that purchasing land, which almost certainly would have to be done if the school plan is relocated, would mean less money available for other proposed projects, and Costello agreed.

The cost argument

A plan to build a second stadium – at a cost of up to $7 million – near the Solomon/Plains Memorial education complex on Abbott Street could be dropped. A proposal to preserve the ornate auditorium of Meyers High School and build a smaller, multi-district performing-arts school also probably would be out of reach financially.

Borland said the cost argument rings hollow with the board talking about a new stadium and possibly a new administration building (likely in the Times Leader building after the new high school was finished).

“They already demonstrated cost isn’t the issue if they can put that money into a new stadium or into a new administration building,” Borland said. He also dismissed the magnet-school idea, saying: “I don’t know if it was ever a realistic proposal.”

Borland also repeated his belief that the students in the Coughlin Annex could attend school at Meyers for several years.

But the board has another option: scale down the new school – proposed at 350,000 square feet, covering the entire lot to Union Street – and resubmit paperwork to the Zoning Hearing Board. That likely would mean a school too small to house Meyers students, killing the consolidation plan and requiring a decision on repairing or replacing Meyers.

Both options were deemed too costly by the district at the start of the project in June of 2015.

No clear answers

Costello said he talked with several board members on Thursday, and while it’s too early to say, the initial consensus is to continue with the consolidation plan.

“We can’t afford to maintain three high schools,” he said.

Wendolowski said the board will have to consider all options and related costs before deciding whether to appeal, a process he predicted won’t conclude until after the holidays.

“There are a lot of moving parts,” he said. “Right now there are clearly no answers – just questions.”

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Costello
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Wendolowski
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Borland
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By Mark Guydish

[email protected]

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish.