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Our Opinion: Sister Sponsa’s legacy endures through Liberians’ lives made better

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Federal prosecutors file charges against former Veterans Administration Medical Center nurse Richard Pieri

<p>Looking over the shoulders of the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board Monday night were googly-eyed minions hanging on the wall. If they could talk, the silly little creatures might have giggled and said, &#8220;There they go again.&#8221;</p><p>Another day, another plan.</p><p>Keep in mind the district still doesn&#8217;t have zoning approval to build a two-high school merger on North Washington Street. So what did the school directors do Monday? They voted on a potential three-school consolidation. First things first. Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on design plans to build a new high school in downtown Wilkes-Barre on a questionably undersized site and then cross your fingers that zoning clearances will follow.</p><p>Surprisingly, director Ned Evans&#8217;s motion to bring GAR High School into the mix with Coughlin and Meyers failed on a 3-to-6 vote. Board Vice President Denise Thomas and fellow director James Susek voted for this latest shakeup.</p><p>What was even more surprising was that other board members actually voted no, saying there were too many unanswered questions. That never stopped them before from leaping before they looked.</p><p>In February, anxious director John Quinn made a motion to &#8220;immediately&#8221; begin negotiations to lease the nearby Times Leader building for 20 years and then take ownership of it. But a funny thing happened on the way to those urgent negotiations. Party poopers from the state said, you can&#8217;t do that under state law.</p><p>Well, geez, how was the WBA board and administration expected to know that?</p><p>This little setback, though, bodes well for Panzitta Enterprises Inc., the firm that plans to buy the newspaper building on North Main Street and convert part of it into classroom space while WBA builds its new high school. The state said that while the district can&#8217;t lease and then buy the building, it can lease it until the cows come home.</p><p>Panzitta, who recently completed a multimillion-dollar renovation of the former Mackin Street Elementary School, approached the board with the lease/purchase option. The board jumped at it as it did previously to spend $2 million on modular classrooms and then on split sessions. It doesn&#8217;t take much for the board to shift gears.</p><p>Panzitta proposed charging WBA a reported $55,000 a month, or between $13.2 million and $17.4 million for 20 years, assuming there are no rent increases.</p><p>And as if all of this didn&#8217;t make for one interesting meeting, the district&#8217;s business manager Leonard Przywara announced he will resign in August along with Superintendent Bernard Prevuznak. And who can blame them for wanting to walk away from the madness with early retirement bonuses of $25,000, plus what will likely be very generous pensions? That&#8217;s a pretty nice bonus for two administrators who were likely going to retire anyway. The school board also approved $25,000 rewards for 18 teachers to retire.</p><p>Isn&#8217;t it enough that school district employees can retire in their 50s with pensions and paid health care coverage? Yes, the district can then hire lower-paid teachers, but one would think that retiring comfortably in your 50s would be enough of a reward. And director Christine Katsock said 17 of the employees will not be replaced, which makes one wonder why they were still on the payroll to begin with.</p><p>And in a stunning move, the board fired five teachers for allegedly drinking alcohol either before or during a school function.</p><p>Silly gooses. Does the board really believe that it will get away with that? Everyone knows that short of murder, a unionized teacher cannot be fired.</p><p>Those teachers will enjoy months or maybe years of time off only to be reinstated down the road with back pay and interest while district taxpayers pay steep legal fees fighting the grievances the union will undoubtedly file.</p><p>So who knows what&#8217;s in store for next month&#8217;s meeting. Maybe the board will vote to add two more floors for a middle school at the former Coughlin High School site. Or make that long overdue blind date with the zoning hearing board to see what they can actually do.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Zeroing In</p><p>Betty Roccograndi</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Betty Roccograndi, a former Times Leader reporter and award-winning journalist, is a freelance columnist. Reach her by email at broccograndi@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Betty Roccograndi: Fickle Wilkes-Barre Area school directors seem open to any rebuilding plan