DANVILLE — Despite a Danville school director wanting to look further into a referendum on consolidation, the Montour County solicitor says it can’t be done.
Director Dawn Koons-Gill questioned the referendum proposed by SUN Area Career & Technology Center, New Berlin, for expanding and renovating classrooms. The center’s joint operating committee in June voted to delay the $14 million project, saying not enough districts would support it.
Gill also mentioned information she had read about referendums in the Wyomissing district for $37 million and the Unionville-Chaddsford district for $30 million.
The Danville school board voted 5-4 Tuesday night to put a referendum on the November ballot to ask voters if they favored an elementary school consolidation.
“People get confused. If a district is borrowing money for a building project, there is a certain limit and a complicated formula if a district wants to borrow more, then it must go to voters,” said Michael Dennehy, solicitor for the Montour County Board of Elections.
“The rule in Pennsylvania is really clear. You can’t have a question on the ballot unless there is a specific law authorizing it. An advisory referendum is not on that list,” he said.
Three separate cases in 1990, 1991 and 1994 say “you can’t do it,” he said Thursday.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State agrees with this,” he said.
Before the cases in the 1990s, there were situations “where people stuck advisory referendums on but those are old,” he said.
If people have heard of this type of referendum, they are old or they are from another state, Dennehy said.
He said there will be a referendum on the November ballot asking voters if they want to authorize borrowing $400 million for sewage treatment plants to meet Chesapeake Bay requirements. “There’s a specific law that talks about that being on the ballot,” he said.
If the school board wants people’s opinions, it could set up a Web site, a phone bank or hire a professional pollster “to examine all the issues,” he said.
The language of the question would have to be refined. Dennehy made several suggestions, including “Do voters want to end up with one or two elementary schools after consolidation?” and “Do they want to merge only the two oldest buildings?”
The ballot question also could ask about the size of expanded buildings or if people want the middle or high schools improved.
On Wednesday, a state Department of Community and Economic Development official said a proposal to put a floodwall question on the ballot in Sunbury also is illegal. The referendum would have asked residents whether the floodwall should be opened for riverfront development. Steve Weitzman, of DCED, said nonbinding ballot questions are prohibited because they aren’t addressed in the state constitution.
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