Published Tuesday, June 8, 1999 Foster, a Wheatland council member, and Stanton, the town's mayor, remember when Wheatland agreed to join the Farrell Area School District decades ago. Wheatland agreed under the belief that it would have representation on the school board, something that hasn't happened for years.
"They lied to us," Stanton said Wednesday, when council briefly discussed joining the merger-consolidation study Farrell, Sharon and Hermitage have begun. Sharpsville also has been invited to join.
"We got screwed with the school board," Foster said at the work session, unofficially opposing the request to join the study. If the study would eventually lead to a merger or consolidation of Shenango Valley communities, Wheatland would again lose representation, he said.
"They're going to gobble you up and that's it," he said.
Council will vote officially Wednesday.
Stanton, bemused that Wheatland is suddenly "so important," said he believes the study wrongly leaves out the school districts. "They have all the money," he said, comparing the borough's $290,000 budget to the school district's $10 million spending plan.
He also said he believes the Shenango Valley will never be able to unify until it achieves a sole sanitary sewage system.
"Everybody kicks it up stream because it's ours," said Stanton, who will not have a vote Wednesday.
Stanton said although Wheatland joined with Farrell and West Middlesex to form the Southwest Mercer County Regional Police Department, Sharon, Hermitage and Shenango Township were not interested. Sharon killed a one-time proposal to create a valley public works department, he said.
Councilwoman Nita Buczo said the letter the Shenango Valley Intergovernmental Study Committee sent to Wheatland asking it to participate is too vague.
Councilman Donald Stinedurf said someday the Shenango Valley will be one community, instead of the maze of smaller communities that now make it up.
"We are Mayberry RFD and we kind of want it to stay that way," Stinedurf said.
