Playground proposal on fall ballot?

Efforts to raise $30,000 for new playground equipment at Weston School have been put on hold while organizers plan a different tact.

By: Regina Tan
   At the next Borough Council meeting Aug. 13, Councilman Martin Wierzba — who started the fund-raising drive last month — plans to propose a public question for the November election asking voters if the borough should borrow money to pay for the playground repairs.
   Mr. Wierzba’s said his goal of raising $30,000 this summer in private donations to new playground equipment has been stalled due to the difficulty in coordinating successful fund-raisers. After putting his fund-raising efforts aside, Mr. Wierzba said he "came up with the idea of putting a public question instead."
   The essence of the question will be, "Should Manville, through its shared services with the school board, bond for $75,000 to be used for playground equipment and improvement at the Weston School," Mr. Wierzba said. The $75,000 would be used to repair parking areas of the Weston School and other maintenance in addition to buying new playground equipment.
   In the shared services agreement, the borough provides the schools with groundskeeping workers while the school board provides the janitorial maintenance of borough hall and the Police Department.
   Councilman Thomas Weiss said the council had a legal basis for using additional funds from the shared services agreement for the repair of the Weston School playground. Mr. Weiss said Gary Garwacke, borough adminstrator, and Douglas Reina, borough legal counsel, had discussed the issue and had found it to be legally sound.
   Dr. Francis X. Heelan, superintendent of the Manville public schools, said, "I certainly don’t think they’re going to reject the question if the council decides to do it."
   April’s referendum to allot funds in the school budget for the repair of the Weston School playground was defeated, but not by a large margin, Dr. Heelan said.
   However, at the moment the Board of Education is focused on repairing the Roosevelt School playground.
   "We certainly appreciate parents coming forth for the Weston playground," Dr. Heelan said. But since the referendum had been previously defeated, the Board of Education cannot do anything about funding the repairs for the Weston playground, he said.
   One sticking point may be that if the borough borrows money for Weston School playground repairs, the playground would have to be available for use by the public as well as the school, Mayor Angelo Corradino pointed out. This may be complicated because the playground is generally not available until after-school hours so students are not disturbed, according to the mayor.
   "The obligation (to fund the repairs for the Weston School playground) is on the school board, not the municipality," he said.
   "If the people vote yes, what will happen … (is that) everything will be done and ready by the spring," said Mr. Wierzba. "I am hoping the public will vote ‘yes.’ "