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January 16, 2011

Johnstown-Monroe schools

Board OKs seeking kindergarten waiver By MICHAEL J. MAURER ThisWeek Community Newspapers The Johnstown Monroe Board of Education held its organizational meeting Jan. 10 and authorized Superintendent Damien Bawn to seek a second waiver of the all-day kindergarten requirement imposed under Gov. Ted Strickland’s education reform law. The district obtained its first waiver last year for the 2010-11 school year

and will now apply for a two-year waiver through the spring of 2013. Bawn said the district academic performance level is rated “excellent” under the state classification system, and high performing districts are able to demonstrate hardship to delay imposing the all-day program. “Overall start-up costs were estimated at $600,000 and ongoing costs were around $300,000 to $350,000 per year going after that,” Bawn said. “That’s

something we cannot afford right now, let alone going into an austerity period if the economy did not pop right back, and it still has not come back.” Treasurer Tammy Woods said not knowing state policy wreaks havoc on school planning. “We don’t know going forward whether all-day kindergarten will be a requirement and we don’t know if any waivers will be accepted,” Woods said. For the J-M district, one of the main

obstacles to implementing all-day kindergarten is that there is not enough space. Modulars would need to be constructed to accommodate the program. “All-day kindergarten was mandated as part of the evidence based model (of education reform) in the last (state) biennial budget,” Bawn said. “For those districts that had extreme hardship trying to implement all-day kindergarten and who had high enough ratings, there was a waiver process.

“We applied for and received a waiver last year, and part of our hardship was our estimated costs because we are so far over the capacity of our buildings. “If we could afford to put on the extra teachers and materials we would love to do that, but we are achieving great success with the program we have now and we just flat out do not have the space for it,” Bawn said. “It would require at See KINDERGARTEN, page A2

Northridge schools

Committee: WINTER CHORE Adequate cuts are hard to find By MICHAEL J. MAURER ThisWeek Community Newspapers The parent and community finance committee for the Northridge Board of Education met Jan.12 to discuss the district budget, focusing on the few items apart from salary and benefit costs that offer an opportunity to save money. The task is a hard one, said Jayma Bammerlin, who led last fall’s income tax levy campaign and will also work to support the levy expected for the May ballot. When the district’s longstanding 1 percent income tax renewal failed twice last year, the tax expired Dec. 31. The result is the loss of $1.7-million in revenue annually. “We are losing $1.7-million every year because the levy failed, and we have to come up with more money for the district,” Bammerlin said. “We have to do it somehow. Either you bring money in or you have to cut. “We’ve already cut almost everything,” she said. “I think we’re going to hear from the school board that everything will be cut next year.” Among the options discussed at the finance committee meeting were changes to transportation routes and means of raising revenue, such as business donations or selling districtthemed clothing. “Numbers are not finalized on transportation,” Bammerlin said. “If we can be more efficient, we could receive a (funding) bonus from the state. The state provides a transportation bonus for three things: if you provide busing for all grades K through 12, which we do, if you bus within two miles of the buildings, which we do, and we get both of those bonuses. The third bonus is for efficiency, the number of students per bus, and we do not get that bonus.” The committee also explored revenue options. “We talked about donations, about setting up a new fund for people to put money into, and maybe selling Northridge logo apparel and logo items,” Bammerlin said. One of the main difficulties in the process is that there are no large cost areas apart from salaries and benefits. Changes to transportation are estimated to save up to $70,000 annually, Bammerlin said, well short of the $1.7-million in lost revenue. Extracurricular activities is See CUTS, page A2

By Chris Parker/ThisWeek

Priscilla Agnello clears snow from the parking lot of Vinny’s Pizzeria on Jan. 12 in Johnstown.

Water and sewer services

Revitalization program creates infrastructure fix By MICHAEL J. MAURER ThisWeek Community Newspapers When a downtown waterline is replaced this spring as part of the reconstruction of the U.S. Route 62/state Route 37 intersection, the village of Johnstown will replace one of its final remaining original water distribution lines, a longtime goal of service director Jack Liggett. “We started about eight years ago to aggressively remove old lines and upgrade lines,” Liggett said. “We wanted to get out of this repair mode that we had gotten into. “The first lines were put in in the late 1930s and here we are in 2011,” he said. “Repair of old lines was dominating my crew, instead of keeping up maintenance of things like main line valve turning, fire hydrant repair and maintenance.” When the state of Ohio and the village began planning to rebuild the downtown intersection, Liggett wanted to make sure he could take care of the waterline, too. “Every spring, I’m in there cutting up pave-

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Breaks are seasonal. When the first cold weather hits, you can count on four or five breaks. This year we have not had that, we’ve been very fortunate, but I attribute that to our line replacement during the last eight years.

JACK LIGGETT service director

ment,” Liggett said. “If you drive down that you see patch after patch after patch. When Jim started talking about that downtown revitalization, I just wanted to bring to the table the idea that that waterline was on our hit list for years, but everyone was always afraid of it because you have to

handle the traffic.” During the reconstruction, the village will move its downtown water lines to Post Office Alley, so that it will not be required ever again to dig up downtown for routine waterline repairs. Liggett said residents do not like to see new pavement cut up. “We’re going to put this new pavement, new sidewalks, new trees, and two weeks after we do that I’ll be in there cutting pavement,” Liggett said. “The residents would think, what are they doing?” Johnstown maintains about 24 miles of water supply lines that require regular maintenance such as simply operating valves, which will freeze up and quit working if they are not “exercised” at least annually. “They’ll freeze up so they won’t turn,” Liggett said. “Then when you have a leak and you do try to turn them they’ll snap off and you have two problems, a leak and broken valve. “The other thing is, if you don’t close a valve See REVITALIZATION, page A2

Downtown Johnstown officials looking to highlight special events By MICHAEL J. MAURER ThisWeek Community Newspapers Downtown Johnstown held its annual organizational meeting this week, reviewing its bylaws, opening up the downtown ice rink and planning to find a new director for the farmers market. Pat Kramer, who has run the market since its inception two years ago, has opened her business Gifts by Us, which

she said will prevent her from devoting the time necessary to the farmers market. “We’re looking for a new person to run it,” Kramer said. “My personal business would prevent me from doing that, so we’re exploring members of Downtown Johnstown to take that over.” Downtown Johnstown president Chris Speck said the group is discussing opening up the farmers market to new ven-

dors by relaxing the existing limit to homemade products. “We’re going to open that up past homemade, homegrown this year,” Speck said. “I think we assumed other towns did it this way and that’s not the case. Other towns were open to everything. We were kind of exceptional in that regard. And we can still be subjective, if there is something we don’t find appropriate for the farmer’s market.”

Kramer said many more sellers would participate if the limit were relaxed. “We have people here in town who have viable businesses but we could not let them in because it wasn’t homemade,” Kramer said. “I think we could double our vendors.” The group also discussed adding other major seasonal events to Downtown Johnstown’s regular activities. The Cupola Classic Car Show has worked very