NORTHAMPTON AREA SCHOOL BOARD -INCOMPETANT OR CORRUPT? Part DUH!

-Night of the Living School Board

Last night the Northampton Area School board faced the parents, residents and taxpayers for the first time over their well hidden 20 year, 6.5 acre land give-away to Metrotek and Eric Abeshaus. Well, we finally found out, though Reiner Jaeckle of Metrotek called Abeshaus and upstanding citizen, the School Board had no idea of the Federal lawsuit and never bothered to look into anyone's background involved in this project. Actually, they couldn't answer many questions about how the project was vetted and at the very least, are highly incompetent.

     When asked why other projects were not looked at?- "Dunno". When asked why the project was not put up to bid, so as to get the taxpayer a better deal than the crummy one they got?- "Dunno".  When asked why they needed such a large project taking up so much land?-"Dunno". When asked why the hid the very large size and scope of the project for so long and signed on without public knowledge or debate?-"Dunno". When asked why they didn't have their own engineer look over the plans that Metrotek had created for their schools?-"Dunno". Why is the address for Energy Alliance and Metrotek in the same building with the same phone number?-"Dunno".

     Here is what we did find out- one guy contacted the board when he found out they were looking into a possible solar project-his call was not returned.  They used Metrotek and let no one look at the plans, not even their own enginner, because they have a relationship with Metrotek. They had little concern for the kids at the school or their outdoor environment. The school board's main concern was- saving the $100k a year on energy bills, which boils down to .0012 of 1% of their budget. Honestly, many of the board members, including Geraldine Skrapits, starred blankly at the crowd, giving no input or emotion the entire hour and a half of public comment, which got very heated at times. It seemed they had not looked into the project very well and rubber stamped it because of Facilities Manager Bob Yanders joyous approval of it and his friend Reiner of Metrotek. That seemed enough for the board members. Last night, they looked like they got caught with their pants down.

     What will they do now? Will they do the right thing and as one person demanded  "dissolve this contract and start over with public input?" or will they try to ram it down our throats at the township level, making the lawyers on both sides rich? One thing that came out of the whole meeting, no one would have been there if the panels had been put on the roof for the school's own energy consumption. Most people were against the school giving the land for 20 years to a power company to sell the electric back to the grid and score millions in SRECs (sustainable renewable energy credits), along with the grants and money from selling the energy.

     One thing is certain, 5 of the 9 school board members are up for re-election in 2011 and this project will probably determine the outcome of that election. One school board member, Jane Erdo, was especially beligerant to the public, using language not appropriate to the children who were present and stated that her seat is up in 2013 and the public can take it up with her then. The response was resounding applause from the crowd who didn't appreciate her animosity. On a more disturbing note, Reiner Jaeckle's (owner of Metrotek) wife was seated among the crowd and profanities and vulgarities could be heard issuing from her whenever a parent or citizen was questioning the appropriateness of the solar project. Perhaps this whole project is more about $$green$$ than "green".