Down River

By John Lipez

Time for a New Helmsman:
Retired Lock Haven University wrestling coach Carl Poff had an appropriate saying he trotted out when the powers-that-be at LHU were in their occasional discordant mode, “They all need to row in the same direction.”

Fast forward 30 years or so and let’s look at the Keystone Central School District; more specifically, the powers-that-be; even more specifically, current school board president David Dietrich.

Dietrich took over as board president when the board reorganized last December, this not long after he had been selected by fellow board members to fill a vacancy on the nine-member body. Maybe those board members thought it might make for good policy to continue what appears to be a recent tradition of rotating the presidency fairly regularly, even with his only a handful of months on the board.

Under normal circumstances, under “normal” times, that procedure has been okay. But this is a tough stretch, these last few months and Dietrich has shown himself to be lacking. When the first reports of safety issues at Central Mountain High School emerged in February, Dietrich in his halting meeting comments did little to instill confidence in the public that community/student concerns would be addressed.

Then this month the board president went ahead, apparently without the consent or advice of fellow board members and the administration, to unilaterally schedule a meeting for public comment. And at that meeting, he announced that fellow board members would listen “respectfully” to attendees’ comments but could not comment themselves.

If you were at that meeting last week, you know more than a few of his fellow board members took exception to his pronouncement. A board executive session was hastily called after the nine members of the public had their say (most offering constructive comments on the school safety issue).

The board returned from a hallway conclave and board member Butch Knauff went to the auditorium floor to use the microphone set up for public speakers (Dietrich had the only mic among board members assembled on the stage) and reassured the public that their concerns were being heard and steps towards improved safety were being taken.

Knauff offered those assurances while Dietrich sat on the stage behind, in what appeared to be something of a sulking pose.

The body language from virtually all of those on the stage that night tell us that Dietrich could very well be replaced as board president. It would be in the best interests of the school district and the community if a new helmsman is found on the board. Now more than ever, we all need to be rowing in the same direction.

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Only Took 300 Years:
Did you see the recent Record-online story about the significant growth of women in prominent elected positions in Pennsylvania?

A state tabulation shows that 32% of Pennsylvania’s active judges are women and that three of the six current members of the state Supreme Court are women. One of them, Chief Justice Debra Todd, is the first female to serve as chief justice in that court’s 300-year history.

And for the first time, the state Senate President Pro Tempore and state House Speaker slots are occupied by women; as noted in the story, women are rising to the highest levels of leadership.

All of which led Down River to do a count to see how many women are running in Clinton County’s May primary.

On the Republican side, counting county level and local races, there are 76 names on the ballot; 15, or 20%, are women. The Democrats, while with far fewer candidates, show a higher percentage of females running this spring: 33 candidates, of whom 13 are women, or 39%.

You can draw your own conclusions on what the advancement of female candidates means. At first glance it looks like the rest of Pennsylvania is far ahead of Clinton County in terms of women making their presence felt on local ballots. Are we surprised? No. Are we disappointed? Yes.