WHEATLAND Court to rule on secession

WhEAT appealed a March 2003 common pleas ruling that dismissed the case.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- Should Wheatland residents seeking to have the borough secede from the Farrell Area School District be required to prove that 51 percent of Wheatland's taxable inhabitants support the plan?
That's one of the questions Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court was asked to resolve in a hearing in Pittsburgh Monday.
Wheatland's Educational Alternative Task Force has been pushing the secession issue for a couple of years but had its case dismissed by Mercer County Common Pleas Court in March 2003.
Among other things, Judge Francis J. Fornelli ruled that the proposal didn't have the required support of Wheatland residents and that the members of WhEAT would have to pay the costs incurred in the legal action.
WhEAT secured the signatures of 268 residents supporting the secession but only 71 of them came forward to appear in court or at deposition hearings scheduled by the court to affirm their position.
WhEAT appealed Judge Fornelli's ruling to the state court.
Atty. James Nevant, representing the Farrell Area School District, said the three Commonwealth Court justices hearing the case honed in immediately on the burden of proof issue during a hearing that lasted less than 20 minutes.
When ruling is expected
No ruling is expected for three or four months, he said.
"I think it went very well," Nevant said.
That same opinion was offered by Atty. Joann Jofery, representing WhEAT.
She argued that signers of the petition shouldn't have been required to appear in court or at deposition hearings. It should have been up to the school district to challenge those signatures if district officials felt they were invalid, she said.
Nevant said those same people would have been called into court anyway, had the district challenged the signatures.
The burden of proof should be on the petitioners, not the school district, he said.
Jofery said the case would be returned to Mercer County should the appeals court rule in WhEAT's favor.
WhEAT has proposed leaving the Farrell Area School District and joining the West Middlesex Area School District.