Delaware Valley okays purchase
331 acres opposite Dingman Delaware campus WESTFALL - The Delaware Valley School District will buy 331 acres for $2.2 million, school board officials decided last Thursday. The property could be used for a new middle school with a natatorium a gymnasium designed for swimming and spectators or as a home for the district’s bus fleet, Board members suggested. But all that is yet to be decided. What’s not going to happen is a high school. “For maybe 10 or 15 years, people have been talking about a high school,” said board president Sue Casey. “We’re not interested in that now, but we need the land. Officials agreed they would make no immediate decision about any construction. The land to be purchased is the Marquin property, which is located opposite the Dingman-Delaware Campus on State Route 739. Maps were unavailable at press time, but the land was described as stretching from State Route 739 north to Log Tavern Road. The sale is conditional on the findings of an engineer’s survey that will look at its suitability for construction, as well as “every contingency a lawyer can put in,” Casey said. Rumors about school land purchases began last fall and have persisted through the winter and spring. Another parcel the board is considering is the Santos Farm, immediately outside the Borough of Milford on U.S. Route 6/209. The board had authorized negotiations for the land but has not mentioned it since. Board vice-president John Wroblewski, who also chairs the board’s long-range planning committee, did not quell the rumors. “We needed to look at two areas,” he said after the purchase vote. “This is one of the two.” Member Robert Goldsack quickly added that “not all board members are in agreement that a second property is needed.” Superintendent Candis Finan recalled that the district had purchased property in Shohola 10 to 12 years before any construction took place. n Got milk? In other business last week, the board agreed to increase cafeteria lunch prices and, for the first time in recent memory, the price of a container of milk. Without the meal price increase, finance committee chair Jack Fisher said the cafeteria operation was facing a $70,000 budget deficit in the coming year. The deficit was based on higher salaries and increases in health care and utilities. Fisher said prices were increased last year to allow the independent cafeteria budget to break even. With the new prices, elementary lunches will be raised to $1.75, high school lunches to $2 and adult lunches to $3. Casey suggested the milk increase to $.50 to eliminate dimes and nickels in change. Fisher was hesitant, and Pamela Lutfy objected. Finan noted that school milk prices are subsidized. But Casey nonetheless inserted the $.20 increase when the approval vote was taken.