Photo by Joseph Bell
Ridgway Township resident Bill Seely voiced his concerns about taxes to the Ridgway School Board last night. The board made several new hires to fill vacancies for the upcoming school year.

New hires, tax discussion dominate regularly–scheduled school board meeting.

By Joseph Bell

Staff Writer

 The Ridgway Area School District closed out the 2009 school year last night with their June board meeting at Francis S. Grandinetti Elementary School.
Following at least a 90-minute executive session, the board approved the hiring of several new instructors, including Danielle Crayton as a spanish teacher, Dustin Oknefski as a technical education professor and Bryan Slattery as the elementary physical education teacher.
All three positions are classified as Bachelor’s Step 1 with a salary of $39,798 based on the current contract. The hirings will go into effect Aug 24.
As indicated by state law, school officials are required to provide the new instructors with mentor teachers. For the 2009-2010 school year, the contracted salary for a mentor teacher is $670. Sandi Hanes will serve as spanish mentor, Jason Phipps will serve as elementary physical education mentor and Rita Buhite will be technical education mentor.
In other business, school board members collectively decided to pass a resolution to name the elementary school’s playground the ‘Susan Borrello Memorial Playground’ in honor of the late teacher who recently died.
“It’s to honor her memory through that playground,” said board member Lisa Connelly during the meeting. “There also have been several donations.”
In regards to the extracurricular aspect of the agenda, board members unanimously voted to approve a cooperative sports agreement between Ridgway and Johnsonburg at both the junior high school and senior high school levels for girls golf, boys soccer and girls soccer.
In regards to public concerns under new business, Ridgway Township resident Bill Seely again discussed his concerns regarding earned income tax and the occupation tax.
Despite pleas from school board president Eugene Pierce, Seely insisted the issue again be addressed.
“You can take a deep breath and let me have a few more minutes,” Seely said. “I’m a citizen, I pay my taxes.”
However, Pierce quickly shrugged off Seely’s insistence.
“We’ve listened to this for the last five months. We had a public hearing and it is closed for discussion. We’re moving on,” Pierce said. “I’m not going to put this board through this month after month, you ask the same questions and share the same thoughts.
“You’ve been talking about the occupational tax since at least January and I’ve sat through at least four meetings. Let’s move on.”
Seely further discussed his thoughts regarding taxes before superintendent Tom Butler informed him that his five minutes were up.
“I shall not be paying my occupation tax,” Seely said. “I’m gonna contest it and we’ll see what goes, they can take me to court.”
The board voted to cancel its scheduled July 14 board meeting and instructed treasurer Brent Rhoads to pay legitimate invoices for July. Invoices will be presented at the board’s next meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 11 at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria at Francis S. Grandinetti Elementary School.