Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Basketball Court - Open Dialog?

MORRISVILLE SCHOOLSMorrisville parents will be able to speak on basketball court this month

Posted: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 2:42 pm | Updated: 9:36 pm, Wed Aug 31, 2011.

By GEMA MARIA DUARTE Staff writer | 0 comments

Morrisville parents and teenagers will have the opportunity to discuss the abrupt removal of a basketball court at Grandview Elementary School in recent weeks. But they'll have to wait two weeks.

Rather that being taken up by the school board, the controversy will be aired at the superintendent's advisory meeting at 7 p.m. on Sept. 14 in the high school's large conference room.

"We will have a discussion and I do invite anybody who wants to discuss the basketball court at Grandview to attend our first superintendent advisory. I believe the discussion will be better held there because we can have an open dialogue with the public," said Superintendent Bill Ferrara at last week's school board meeting.

As part of a parking lot repaving project outside the school, officials removed two basketball hoops. District spokeswoman Pat Wandling said Tuesday the repaving and the removal of the hoops were done for public safety reasons. She noted there are basketball hoops for the public's use at Williamson Park, on the other side of town.

The distance from Grandview Elementary to Williamson Park on Delmorr Avenue is 1.24 miles, requiring a 30-minute walk for teens who frequented the Grandview court.

A few parents and teenagers told the school board they understood the need to temporarily remove the hoops for the paving, but were upset over the decision not to reinstall them and for not giving the public a chance to comment beforehand.

School board members cited concern that playing basketball on the property could damage parked vehicles as the reason for not putting the hoops back up.

The issue was supposed to be discussed at the school board meeting, but Ferrara said the matter would be better discussed at the superintendent advisory meeting, adding that policies need to be reviewed and that there's been undesirable loitering on other district properties. As a result, "no trespassing" signs went up.

"One of the reasons why you see the signs in front of the Intermediate/High School is because we were having large groups of non-students during the summer in our parking lot every Friday and Saturday night," Ferrara said. "Every Monday there would be large amounts of trash, which our maintenance people had to clean up. Jack Jones (police chief of Morrisville Police Department) suggested that once we put those signs up, where they would be visible, the police would be much more willing to enforce them."

He encouraged parents to review school board policy No. 707, "Use of School Facilities."

The seven-page policy specifies uses not permitted at the school facilities. Banned are partisan political activity, private social functions, any purpose prohibited by law, any activities that involve animals, and any activity deemed potentially dangerous to school district property by the superintendent or whoever is in charge. The use of basketball courts isn't mentioned.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Another One Rides the Bus

Tech Bus and shuttle services information

ATTENTION ALL TECH STUDENTS

Busing will be provided for all Morrisville students attending the Bucks County Technical High School as follows:

Pick up at M. R. Reiter (Hillcrest Avenue by parking lot). Bus will leave at 6:30 a.m. (BE PROMPT).

Students will be picked up at Tech at the end of the day and dropped off at M. R. Reiter.

ATTENTION ALL KINDERGARTEN THROUGH FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS

There will be a daily shuttle service as follows:

AM SCHEDULE

Manor Park 7:40 a.m.

M. R. Reiter 7:50 a.m.

Grandview 8:00 a.m.

Intermediate School 8:05 a.m.

M. R. Reiter 8:15 a.m.

Grandview 8:20 a.m.

Intermediate School 8:25 a.m.

PM SCHEDULE

Kindergarten pick up at Grandview 2:15 p.m.

M. R. Reiter 2:25 p.m.

Manor Park 2:35 p.m.

Intermediate School 3:00 p.m.

Grandview 3:05 p.m.

M. R. Reiter 3:15 p.m.

Intermediate School 3:25 p.m.

Grandview 3:30 p.m.

Manor Park 3:45 p.m.

Monday, August 29, 2011

BCCT Thumbs Up for Tech

Thumbs up!

To the joint board of Bucks County Technical High School in Fairless Hills and the teachers union for reaching a new three-year labor contract, which includes a pay freeze the first two years and a 2.4 percent increase in the third year. The 118-member teaching staff also will pay higher health care premium contributions (15 percent) and increased co-pays for prescriptions in the third year of the contract. Said board member Gene Dolnick, “The board was looking for solutions to remain net neutral in this difficult economic climate and we believe both parties worked at making this happen.” We applaud both sides for reaching a deal without all the acrimony that has defined other contract negotiations.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Good Local News Story

From Yardley News:

The Presbyterian Women in Morrisville donate twenty book bags with supplies to the Ivins Center

Published: Saturday, August 27, 2011

From left to right: Darletta Berry-Johnson, Madison Martin and Dee Ann Martin

View and purchase photos

MORRISVILLE - The Ivins Outreach Center in Morrisville recently received a donation from the Morrisville Presbyterian Women of 20 book bags.

The book bags were stuffed to the zippers with school supplies and included notebooks, folders, rulers, calculators, pens, pencils, crayons and much more. The students who receive these packed book bags will be well prepared to start the new school year.

Madison Martin, a six-grade student in Pennwood Middle School, helped with the entire process of receiving, filling and delivering the book bags. She is a cadet with Girl Scout Troop 21133 and is working toward her Silver Badge.

The Ivins Outreach Center mission is to work with community partners to serve individuals and families of the greater Morrisville area.

Originally published Wednesday, August 24.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Morrisville Murder Case Still Cold

Morrisville murder case still cold

Got a tip?

Posted: Friday, August 26, 2011 6:15 am | Updated: 10:00 am, Fri Aug 26, 2011.

By BEN FINLEY Staff writer | 0 comments

The week before he was murdered, James Miller told police he was worried about getting robbed.
He would’ve made a worthwhile target. His Morrisville bungalow was filled with rifles and muskets and other guns as well as a handsome coin collection.
And he liked to tell people about it.
“Some might call it bragging,” Miller’s brothers, Robert and Joseph, wrote in a Courier Times opinion piece a week after Miller’s death in 1981. “In Jim’s case, he was just sharing a little of his personal, hard-earned joy of life.
“Apparently, ears were listening, attached to empty and evil-minded heads devoid of any and all humanity, who thought only in terms of larceny, pillage, greed, torture and wanton murder,” the brothers continued.
But here’s the thing: Most, if not all, of Miller’s valuables were still in his Clymber Avenue house after the murder, police said.
Miller’s body — which was bound, gagged and stabbed — was found 30 years ago this morning. His murder remains unsolved.
Bucks County detectives and borough police interviewed “a lot of people,” Morrisville Lt. Tom Herron said this week. “But they didn’t come up with anything concrete.”
‘A quiet life’
Miller, 36, was a husky man who looked like he could take care of himself, neighbors said in the days after he was killed. His last job was heading a work crew in a New Jersey prison.
After he was laid off from that job, Miller supported himself through carpentry and was planning to start a business selling firewood. He also bought and sold auto parts. At the time of his death, four engine blocks dotted his property at 324 Clymber Ave.
“Like most of us, Jim had faults,” his brothers wrote in the newspaper in 1981. “His marriage ended in divorce, creating much unhappiness and loneliness for him, his wife, and sorrowfully, for his 6-year-old daughter.”
Miller almost always wore glasses and a baseball cap. He kept to himself, neighbors said. He lived alone, although he had boarders at one time; the last one left in the month before he was killed, a neighbor said in 1981.
“He was a nice, friendly person, but he didn’t go out of his way,” neighbor Marion Piscopo recalled this week. “I think I saw him once with his little girl over there. Nobody bothered him. He lived a quiet life.”
Other neighbors, who were quoted in 1981 but wouldn’t give their names, claimed it was murder — not robbery — that Miller was afraid of. However, no motive was ever stated. At that time, police insisted to the newspaper that Miller was concerned with getting robbed, not killed.
A week before the murder, an elderly man who also lived on Clymber Avenue was hit over the head and robbed, the newspaper reported in 1981.
‘Excruciating pain’
Piscopo can still remember the hours before the murder. She was planting pachysandra ground cover around her house. At about 5 p.m., she saw a well-dressed young man ring Miller’s doorbell.
“I don’t know who he was,” she recalled. “He went to the door and Miller let him in.”
All was quiet for the rest of the night, she said. Then, about midnight, Piscopo and other neighbors heard an explosion. Miller’s house was on fire.
“My son ran across in his bare feet,” she said. “The man next door ran over.”
Herron, then a corporal with the department, and other officers arrived. Pressure from the flames appeared to have blown out a window in Miller’s house, Herron said. They found Miller’s body inside.
Herron said fire crews did what they were supposed to do — rush in to put out the fire, but those actions compromised the crime scene.
“James Miller, our baby brother, was found cruelly bound hand and foot, blindfolded, gagged and tortured unmercifully,” the Miller brothers wrote in 1981. “There was excruciating pain, unlimited suffering and no mercy by the killers, except finally death itself.”
The newspaper initially said that Miller was shot, but the cause of death was later found to be stabbing, Herron said.
The lieutenant said police later found that gunpowder had been poured on the floor, which perhaps may have been the killer’s attempt to try to start the fire, which gunpowder wouldn’t do.
“Could someone have taken something (from the house)?” Herron asked. “Certainly. But why didn’t they take all of it? A good number of coins and guns were returned to the family.”
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Miller’s brothers for this article. But in 1981, they seemed convinced robbery was the motive for the killing.
“He was simply an ordinary, hard-working honest American citizen who had a hobby, which because of the wickedness of our society, killed him,” the Millers wrote.
Gene Ross, a Morrisville police officer at the time, said Miller was afraid of becoming a burglary victim.
“But no one was ever able to specify what he was worried about happening to him or why,” said Ross, who retired as a corporal.
“I don’t have a real theory,” Ross added. “We could never establish if anything had ever been stolen from the house. This one (case) really bothered us.”
Piscopo, the neighbor, said the pachysandra she planted in the hours before Miller was killed 30 years ago is still growing outside her house.
“I think we all forgot about it,” Piscopo added. “It was scary then, and I put an alarm system in my house. But nobody ever talks about it.”

Thumbs Down! Ruh Roh.

Thumbs down!

Posted: Friday, August 26, 2011 12:15 am

-- To the Morrisville school board and district administration for paving over a popular basketball court outside Grandview Elementary School and then posting no-trespassing signs. There was no notice to the public that the court was being eliminated, and many parents and teens rightfully are upset. The court had the only regulation height basketball hoops in the entire town. "Since the taxpayers were not included in the $100,000-plus design and expense approval for the Grandview paving project, the basketball courts were taken out of the plan and away from the kids without consideration as to the impact it would have," said Wanda Kartal, a district parent. We urge the board to put the hoops back up and consider this Thumbs down a slam dunk!