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Wilkes-Barre man sentenced to 8 to 16 years for child porn

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New accelerated program for social work degree at Misericordia

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Wilkes-Barre Area School District may already have spent millions on plans for a proposed consolidated high school, but contrary to recent criticism, it has not reached the point of holding a state-mandated public hearing on the project, Solicitor Ray Wendolowski said.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll have the hearing when we have a schematic design and a project budget,&#8221; Wendolowski said. &#8220;We&#8217;re no where near that.&#8221;</p><p>The name of the hearing stems from the 1973 law that requires it. When the hearing must be held is tied directly to the PlanCon system for calculating how much the state will reimburse a district for construction costs.</p><p>PlanCon, short for Planning and Construction Workbook, has up to 11 steps, labeled parts A through K. A public hearing is required at least 30 days before Part D is submitted.</p><p>Part D is &#8220;project accounting based on estimates,&#8221; meaning the district must have a design that can be used to estimate those costs. While the district has spent millions either in studies and designs of a new high school, the work was based on the initial plan to put up a new building where Coughlin High School currently sits. The plan called for merging grades 9 through 12 from Coughlin and Meyers high schools into the new building.</p><p>Had that plan succeeded, Wendolowski said, &#8220;There probably would have been an Act 34 hearing by now.&#8221;</p><p>But the Wilkes-Barre Zoning Hearing Board denied a needed variance to put the school on that Washington Street site, and the district has been looking elsewhere.</p><p>While the school board has begun environmental tests on another site in Plains Township, it hasn&#8217;t finalized the choice.</p><p>&#8220;The final determination is still tentative based on site suitability,&#8221; Wendolowski said. &#8220;An Act 34 hearing certainly won&#8217;t be done until after that&#8217;s determined.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Raymond Wendolowski</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/web1_Wendolowski-Ray.jpg</photo0><caption0>Raymond Wendolowski</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Solicitor: Public hearing on W-B Area high school not yet required