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By JOHN BATTISTA and MARY THERESE BIEBEL; Times Leader Staff
Writers
Thursday, December 05, 1996 Page: 3A
NANTICOKE — Some taxpayers became impatient Tuesday evening as they waited
3 1/2 hours for the Luzerne County Community College’s Board of Trustees to
open its meeting.
From 7 to 10:30 p.m. the board met in executive session, which state law
allows to be private because personnel issues are discussed.
“I question whether all the issues they are discussing are personnel
issues,” said Jan W. Kelly of Harveys Lake, executive chairwoman of
Northeastern Pennsylvania Women in Higher Education, a professional
organization.
“It’s the same routine. You come and you wait and you wait and all the
discussions are behind closed doors.”
Dallas resident Clarence Michael wanted to discuss the college’s $25
million budget and $35 million expansion plans, as well as nepotism, political
favoritism and alleged sexual harassment.
“If they don’t allow you to question, that’s entirely wrong,” said Michael,
a Dallas School Board member for eight years. “You can’t have your own
political fiefdom there.”
Once he got into the public meeting, Michael said, he wasn’t allowed to
address the board because he hadn’t submitted written questions in advance.
“Not one person said, `Let Clarence speak’ ” he said.
Michael complained to the Luzerne County commissioners on Wednesday, and
was assured a suggestion would be made to the LCCC board to make its meetings
more accessible to the public.
The longer executive meeting did deviate from personnel matters, Moran said
Wednesday.
“You go off on tangents — ordinary information pertaining to community
colleges in general and where education is going today,” he said.
“All that would do, is instead of a meeting being two hours, it would be
four hours,” said Moran of letting the public in on that.