MERCER CO. SCHOOLS Farrell district seeks ruling from high court over borough

Just who must prove the validity of secession petition signatures is the issue.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- The Farrell Area School District wants the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn a Commonwealth Court ruling in its struggle to keep Wheatland as part of the school district.
Atty. James Nevant, representing the district, said he has filed a petition asking the state's highest court to hear an appeal in the case of WhEAT vs. the school district.
The appeal isn't automatic. The high court must agree to hear the case.
Commonwealth Court issued a ruling in March that dealt a blow to the district's case, overturning a March 2003 ruling by Common Pleas Judge Francis J. Fornelli.
Fornelli had ruled that the group seeking to have Wheatland secede from the Farrell schools, Wheatland's Educational Alternative Task Force, commonly referred to as WhEAT, had failed to prove that at least 51 percent of the borough's taxable inhabitants supported withdrawing from the district.
WhEAT is proposing the borough become part of the West Middlesex Area School District instead.
Problem with petitions
It circulated petitions seeking signatures of support for its plan and submitted those, bearing 244 names, to common pleas court.
However, when Fornelli sought to confirm those signatures by requiring signers to appear in court or at deposition hearings, only 71 complied.
WhEAT had estimated it needed 232 signatures. The school district said the magic number should be 339.
WhEAT appealed Fornelli's decision to Commonwealth Court and that court ruled that the burden of proving the petition signatures invalid should fall upon the school district, not WhEAT. That returned the case to Fornelli's courtroom.
Nevant believes Commonwealth Court's ruling is in error.
That shift of burden of proof from WhEAT to the school district doesn't exist in the state's school code, Nevant said.
Even if that ruling holds up, the school district will subpoena everyone who signed the petitions, insisting that they appear in court to confirm their support for the secession, he said.