Pottsville Republican from Pottsville, Pennsylvania • 15

Mail-In System Available Voter Registration Deadline April 18 By I) FA MS ROLFK Staff Writer Maii-m voter registration, a popular but stiekv in entering its first full year of county polities won so much support from the Schuylkill County electorate last year registration for the general election that field registration was determined to be ineffective and expensive on.parison and scrapped this res-dents Is years of age or older can onlv register now through the mail or at the registration bureau th( etjurthouse Persons must renter by April Is to be eligible to vote the May 17 primary this year. Frank Sacco. head of tin county registration bureau, said. (The mail-in svstem could be a reinstatememt vehicle for the thousands of voters win, were recently struck from the county rolls for not voting in recent vears. i On the sticky side of the mail-in svstem.

more than 1( per cent of the applications received last vear wen rejected because persons failed to negotiate the 17-question form successfully. Sacco said. Also, while the new system has some safeguards, it doesn't offer a check on persons not previously registered The new pro -ess ean't be used to change party affiliation. Persons wanting to do so must go to the registration bureau in the courthouse. The mail-in system jumped into the state and county political scones July 1 last year when Governor Miltor Shapp signed a bill allowing it.

It caught on in Schuylkill County quickly getting m0n than the total registered the field and at the courthouse The final tally was 1.646 for mail-in 60S for the courthouse and 418 for field registration. This doomed field registration, which was voted out bv the commissioners in 1 ebruary along with its SK.300 bill. While the new process was a success overall. Said said, his office had to reject at least 200 mail-in appln a Hons, or about 11 per cent of those sent because errors. There are 17 simple questions such as your name, address and date of birth on the form The most common mistake last year, according Sacco, was that persons printed their names on the sticker tab included instead of signing it.

Another common mistake, he said, was resident-failing to write down their date of birth. Mail-in applications are available in state liquor stores. They soon will be distributed to post offices and banks throughout the county. Sacco added Applications received through the mail are compared against the registration bureau's master file to protect against duplicates, Sacco said Howeer. he admitted bjr-rtii r.

checking application registered with Si No identifn a'uin is Nil oi Thus a person the. 'ions for fn titious perM.r arid h. rr. ei "W'e haven't had ar.y e-stressed "I could see bigger Persons who use the marl-ir: mfho.i wallet-size identifu a rd V' applications are ac epw-d Those no' tret tine T'r. '-r ciint act 'he registration i-ureau the ci.ur:h"U.- yj.

about the procedure should also he referred There is no charge to cuun residents for forms since postage on them has alread beer. Voter Fraud Uncovered owned by the mother of Representative Matthew Cianciulli who won the 183rd legislative seat in a special election held last April. Commission investigators found that 11 of the residents never lived at the address and that the others lived there only part time or lived in New Jersey. Another building, owned by Cianciulli himself, had three persons on the voter rolls who could not be found. Investigators found 11 voters who had listed their address as a building that had been owned by Cianciulli's brother-in-law but had been vacated several months before the April primary.

Cianciulli said he believes that all the people registered as living in his family's iiiiiiif iiiiiiit iiii if lilt iiiiitiiiiiiiiintiiiiiiif if iiiiiiiiiitiiiitfffii i Drnrrr 71 1 1 IIUIIVILLL EBLLLy IXLh'LDLllAA I HARRISBURG (APi Amos n' Andy. Candy Barr, Nikita Khrushchev, Milton Shapp and Arlen Specter all have something in common. Their names were used by people registering to vote in South Philadelphia. The state Crime Commission said the names were among those put on official voting certificates as part of an apparent large-scale vote fraud in the 183rd Legislative district. In a report, the commission said 38 per cent of the votes cast in the 48th Ward, 9th Division in the primary last April were fraudulent.

Out of 582 votes, 159 were cast by-fictitious persons or persons with phony addresses. A total of 159 names were signed by the same person, the report said. serious problems discovered in this district raise the question as to whether the same kind of problems exist in other districts," the report said. "The problems are so serious that those officials. for safeguarding the integrity of the election process must take appropriate steps to eliminate such doubts," the report said.

A spokesman for the Crime Commission said registration by mail was not studied in the report. He said the "funny" names showed up on voter certificates forms filled out at the polls, not on registration cards. A problem of numerous people at one address came about through registration, but could have come either at the counter or through the mail, because the clerks probably would not have caught it either way. he said. The commission, which lacks prosecutorial powers, urged the legislature to pass new restrictions on the use of absentee ballots, require training for election inspectors, and extend the period election records must be kept.

The commission said 20 people were registered from the address of a home Commissioners Top Regional Qictor- lain OCT Sister Jean O'Connor. Honors Won By Nativity Students I Area County News I TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1977 PAGE 1 5 liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiutiiitiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiusiitiiiiiiiitiiiMiiiiiiiiiiitiiiitiiiitiiiuiiftiiir 1,650 From Halifax Bank SS.T. ronprratnlat i sophomores. Third place awards went to seniors William Kirwan. Walter Boris.

Mario DeStefano and Donna Urbanavage, and to juniors Michelle Horan and Angela Zvorsky. Senior Mary Orzech earned honorable mention. The competition, which was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science, requires participants to present the results of their investigative research in science or math before a panel of judges. High School students Erin Boran and Mary Depsky on earning top honors at the regional science competition held at Northampton County Area Community College. First place winners Boran, a junior, and Depsky, a freshman, will compete on the state level at Seven Springs in April.

Nativity students who earned second honors were: Ann Dougherty, senior; Anne Depsky, Rochelle Grapsy and Anne Halcavage, juniors; and Karen Grapsy and Karen Michaels' At Meeting Of Three Counties' Monroe A SCAM Partner To Be Debated buildings Out at une time tr.ei and ere ntltled T0 Vote He said the report was another ploy "to try and revive the Republican, party hit is dead South Phildelphia." His opponent. Republican, Frank DiCicco, first uncovered the abuses hen he sen: 12.525 campaign letters to registered voters in the district and the post office returned 386 as undeliverable Former Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter, present chairman of the Republican National Committee's Ballot Security Program, asked Attorney General Robert Kane for the investigation last October. Cianciulli said all of the abuses were uncovered in a division controlled by-Republicans. iitiiiifiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiif iiiiriiiiiiiiiiiiitttiiiitiiitiiiiRiiiiiiii Dr t- 1 i I It was the second time in less than a year that the bank has been robbed. The white male entered the bank at 10:25 a.m.

Monday and told a teller he wanted to see the bank manager. The teller took him to the office of the manager. Dale Snyder of Halifax. The man pulled a bag out and drew an automatic pistol, ordering Snyder to fil! the bag with money. Snyder accompanied the gunman to three of the tellers' drawers, emptying them into the bag.

There were no shots fired and there were no customers inside the bank at the time of the incident. The gunman ordered the manager to carry the bag for him as the drawers were being emptied. The gunman warned employes not to follow him as he left the bank A camera in the bank filmed much of the robbery. Last June, the Halifax bank was held up and Lykens State Police say there's a possibility the same gunman pulled both jobs. The man involved in the Monday robbery was described as a "good dresser." State police said the man is about six feet tall, approximately- 31 years old.

He fled the scene in a two-tone brown Oldsmobile with a registration plate RVP 935. The car went south on Route 225 toward Peter's Mountain. The bank is located about a mile south of Halifax Borough, at Routes 225 and 147 When the Halifax robbery occurred last June, an estimated $12,000 was taken than pay approximately $3 a day for a substitute teacher Surmacz said that in h. the Pennsylvania Department of Justice and the Deparment of Education issued an opinion stating that this practice was legal Board members agreed to study the report and report to the auditor general within 60 days A proposed budget was presented to the school board by Recreation Director Neal Boyer for his department for the 1977-7 school year. The total package calls for $13,100 to be allocated to the recreation department.

Board members agreed to table the proposal for further studv. J. Boyd Hale, chairman of the student affairs committee, told board members that the high school swimming pool y.as reopened Monday, and will be open for use on Monday. Wednesday and Friday evenings for the remainder of the St hool Daily operations he be the close of the school By NANCY TRIMBLE Staff Writer The commissioners of Monroe. Carbon and Schuylkill Counties have agreed to meet to discuss the possibility of Monroe County joining the Schuylkill-Carbon Agency for Manpower (SCAM).

Monroe County Chairman Commissioner Jesse Pierson wrote to the SCAM Executive However, if the $195,000 were split equally three ways, each county would get about $64,000, a substantial reduction in the amount Schuylkill and Carbon now receive. ban Milewski said there is no law requiring the consortium to divide the bonus equally. He said an agreement might be worked out with Monroe County so that Schuylkill and Carbon Counties would not be penalized financially for including Monroe County in the consortium. This- is one of the topics to be discussed at the meeting of the commissioners, he said. Topic Makeup Of Board Schuylkill County Commissioner William Willard said another topic that should be discussed is the makeup of the executive board if Monroe County joined SCAM.

1,500 Summer Jobs Available To Youths HALIFAX A lone gunman, driving a car with a New Jersey license plate, made off wdth $11,650 from the Upper Dauphin National Bank, Halifax Branch, Monday-morning, state police said. He said Monroe County should have representation on the board, but perhaps not as much as Schuylkill County because Schuylkill has a much larger population. Schuylkill County has about 160,000 residents: Carbon County, and Monroe County, 55,000. Schuylkill County now has four votes on the board and Carbon, three. Executive Board Chairman Albert Koch said the nine commissioners should sit on the board if Monroe County joins.

Monroe County does not now have a manpower program of its own; the county belongs to a state organization that includes all the counties that do not belong to a separate consortium. This is called the "Balance of Counties" program. approximately $69 less per child next year. One director said that reassessment plans have been submitted to 'he county-commissioners, but have been rejected because they are too expensive. Board members agreed to have a letter sent to the state legislature calling for mandatory periodic reassessment.

Dr. Surmacz also said that the occupational privilege tax may be dropped as a revenue source for the school district. Surmacz said that the tax, which provides approximatley $27,000 to the district, may be accessible only to corporate municipal bodies in the future. In other business, Dr. Surmacz read a report to the directors received from the Pennsylvania Auditor Generalis Office stating that the district's policy on paying for unused sick time does not keep within the state's school code.

Surmacz explained that the school district pays $10 a day to teachers for unused sick time as an incentive not to use it, rather aven District Subsidy Drop Due To Rising Market Value Board expressing his county's interest in joining the manpower consortium. At a meeting Monday, the members of the SCAM Executive Board said they ould not make a decision on allowing Monroe County to join the manpower consortium until they had met with the Monroe County officials. No date has been set for meeting. the to lessen confusion about who is eligible for the jobs. Applications will be made available later this month in high school offices and at the SCAM office, Pottsville.

Truck Bids Opened In other business, the board opened bids on two pickup trucks. The bids were referred to the agency solicitor and Milewski for review. The board authorized them to award the contract to the lowest bidder in compliance with the specifications. The apparent lowest bidder is Schneck's Garage. Pine Grove, with a bid of $13,183.42 for the two trucks.

Also bidding were: Bob Miller Chevrolet. Pottsville. $14,331.68: K. Chevrolet-Cadillac-, Lehighton, 513,672. A $13,810 bid from Vito Rinaldi Chevrolet, Shenandoah, was ruled out of order because no bid bond was enclosed with the bid.

Agnes McCartney, SCAM Carbon deputy-director, said the agency will receive $168,000 from the federal government for a senior aide employment program. Under this program, those 55 and older may apply for positions with non-profit agencies. A total of 42 jobs. 21 in each county, will be available as soon as the funding comes through in June, she said. The commissioners of Schuylkill and Carbon Counties sit on the executive board that met at the Carbon County Courthouse, Jim Thorpe.

Frank Milewski, SCAM director, said the executive board will have to make a decision within the next month because the agency must soon start its planning for the next fiscal year. According to Milewski, "Monroe County-would definitely benefit" from joining the consortiuum because it would get increased federal money for jobs programs. However, it has not been determined if Schuylkill and Carbon Counties would benefit. 'Rough' Funding Projections At its last meeting, the executive board instructed Milewski to contact the Department of Labor (DOL) for information on the pros and cons of Monroe County joining SCAM. Milewski reported back to the board on the "rough projections" on the additional funding that would come to the consortium if Monroe County joined.

Under the federal Employment and Training Program (Title I of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act), the consortium would get approximately $310,000 in one year for Monroe County, Milewski said. Lnder the Public Service Employment Program (Title II), the allocation for Monroe County would be about $90,000, and for the Emergency Jobs Program (Title VI), 5375,000, Milewski said. Topic: Division Of Bonus If Monroe County entered SCAM, the consortium's bonus from the Department of Labor would be increased from about $165,000 to $195,000 per year. If this bonus were distributed equally among the three counties, it could result in Schuylkill and Carbon's share being reduced by several thousands of dollars from the amount of the bonus the two counties now share, Milewski said. As the bonus is shared now, Schuylkill and Carbon Counties each get about $82,000 (half of the By NANCY TRIMBLE Approximately 1.500 disadvantaged youths in Schuylkill and Carbon Counties will find employment this summer under a jobs program of the U.S.

Department of Labor. The Schuylkill-Carbon Agency for Manpower (SCAM i will receive a "significant increase" in its allocation trom the Department of Labor for this summer's program. SCAM Director Frank Milewski told the SCAM Executive Board at its meeting Monday. SCAM will receive $656,017 for this year's program. The agency was given $494,000 for the program last year, he said.

The 1,500 youths will be employed at $2.30 per hour for 30 hours a week for eight weeks, he said. The program will run from the third week in June until Labor Day. Milewski said last summer SCAM had some problems with falsifications of ap plications. He warned that anyone putting false information on an application would be fired. He said that only disadvantaged youths who meet the criteria of the Department of Labor are eligible for the jobs.

1 he executive board decided to ht a ve these guidelines printed on the applications By HAL MARCOVITZ Staff Writer SCHUYLKILL HAVEN Schuylkill Haven Area School District's Superintendent Dr. Eugene S. Surmacz informed school directors Monday night that the district's state subsidy for the 1977-1978 school year will drop approximately $45,000 from its present level, due to the rising market value in the community. Dr. Surmacz explained that the market value has been steadily rising, but its assessed value a percentage of the market value has not kept pace, due to failure on the part of the county commissioners to have the market value periodically reassessed.

"The market value is established by the state based on reports that are sent in by the county," said Surmacz. Dr. Surmacz explained that the district's aid ratio by the state will drop from the present .6454 to approximately .5599. In actual aid, he said, the state subsidy will be.