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By JENNIFER LEARN; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 1995     Page: 2

HAZLETON — Some parents and taxpayers plan to speak out Monday night
against a plan to postpone the $44 million Project 2000 school building plan.
   
The new Hazleton Area School Board majority, which includes four new board
members, has called a special meeting for 7 p.m. Monday to postpone the
project, said newly elected school board President Mike DeCosmo.
    Valley Elementary School PTA President Becky Falvello said parents will
come out in “full force” to oppose the delay. The parents plan to have
T-shirts printed with am undetermined slogan to stress their point that the
district should press forward with the construction.
   
Several parents say they have written speeches for the meeting, which will
be at Hazleton Area High School.
   
“Everyone is incensed. This is crazy,” Falvello said. “There’s something a
bit underhanded about this whole thing.”
   
But DeCosmo said he and other school board members feel the program is
moving too quickly.
   
Documents released to the public about the building plan do not give enough
information to assure all board members the project can be done without a tax
increase, DeCosmo said.
   
“I just want my questions answered. All of us do,” DeCosmo said.
   
He estimated the members of the new board majority need about a month to
study the plan and consider new options.
   
He also said some of the new board members want to consider renovating —
instead of closing — Locust Street Elementary School and A.D. Thomas
Elementary School, both in the city.
   
“The safety of the children is one concern. I don’t know if the parents of
students in those schools realize how many blocks their child might have to
walk to get to school,” DeCosmo said.
   
Also, some of the new board members worry that eyesores will be left in
Hazleton, Freeland and West Hazleton if the district goes forward with plans
to close schools in those areas.
   
DeCosmo points out that previously closed schools H.F. Grebey and D.A.
Harman have been vandalized to the point they are unsafe and ugly.
   
But Falvello said the district cannot wait any longer to start the program,
which proposes to renovate, close or expand the district’s 14 schools and an
administration building.
   
She said Valley Elementary is 100 students over its capacity. A new housing
project with 50 to 80 homes has been started next to the school, she said.
   
Falvello also said the heat wasn’t working in E.A. Encke Elementary School
this week, and steam is rising from the urinals at West Hazleton Junior High
School.
   
DeCosmo said most of the district residents he talked to while campaigning
complained that the building program was moving quickly.
   
The majority also plans to vote to accept proposals for an operational
audit that will show if the district is overstaffed and has an adequate
internal control plan, DeCosmo said.
   
Board member Tom Marnell, who is now in the minority, said school board
members who called the meeting would not tell him its purpose, though he says
he has the right to know.
   
He said he received several calls from parents concerned that the meeting
will result in a delay of the building plan.
   
Marnell said board members who voted to borrow money, accept bids and award
bids for the project and then vote to postpone it could be in legal trouble.
   
“Not only will they put this district in real harm’s way, but they also
make themselves personally liable for any losses incurred by the district,”
Marnell said. “I suggest they contact their own attorney before they do this.”