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Copyright © 2014, The Times-Tribune

weather, B10

Will it snoW?Predicted storm could impact holiday travel, A4

By sarah hoFiUs hallstaFF writer

COVINGTON TWP. — Inone North Pocono HighSchool classroom, studentsin Advanced Placement biol-ogy learned about cellularrespiration. Down the hall,other students prepared foran AP macroeconomics teston supply and demand. In APchemistry, students dis-cussed molecular orbitals.

In the lobby, school offi-cials plan to hang a banner

celebrating national recog-nition.

The North Pocono School

District has been named tothe AP District Honor Rollfor the fourth straight year —

a feat only accomplished byseven other school districtsnationwide. Districts namedto the honor roll haveincreased access to AP cours-es while maintaining orincreasing the percentage ofstudents who earn scores of3 or higher on AP exams.

North Pocono now offers17 AP courses — high-levelclasses, in which studentscan earn college credits andgain valuable skills for post-secondary education. Of the965 students at the highschool, 389 seats are taken inAP courses, though many

North Pocono at head of the class

miCHael J. mullen / staFF PHotograPHer

North Pocono High School advanced placement chem-istry teacher Maria Semidei Barrett talks with studentMatthew Lees about lab work in the class.

District named toAP honor roll for itsacademic success.

Please see Classes, Page A9

Owner retains home almost lost in tax sale

Dunmoreapproveslandfillagreement

By BreNdaN giBBoNsstaFF writer

DUNMORE — After a contentiousmeeting Monday, borough councilapproved a $15.63 million agreementwith Keystone Sanitary Landfill thatcould turn into a $191.7 million agree-ment over nearly 50 years if the stateapproves its expansion.

It was the third draft of such anagreement put before the public. Mostresidents who attended opposed it andshouted their disappointment withcouncil members after the vote.

The agreement locks the boroughinto a contract that nearly triples itshost municipality fees to $1.20 per tonof garbage on Dec. 1, $1.30 on Dec. 1,2015, $1.40 in 2016 and $1.50 in 2017.The fee would ratchet up to $1.51 in2018 and a penny a year on top of thatevery year afterward. The agreementcontains no expiration date, whichmany borough residents saw as a fatalflaw.

The agreement also includes$100,000 per year for the DunmoreSchool District for 10 years, afterwhich the parties agreed to take anoth-er look at the payment to the district“for any additional contribution.”

Other terms include free boroughand school district garbage disposal atKeystone, forgiveness of all the bor-ough’s potential for debt for past dis-posal, available air space reserved forDunmore and a definition of the land-fill as a “pre-existing landfill” toensure Keystone a more favorableinterpretation of the borough’s zoningordinance. Read the full agreement onthetimes-tribune.com.

The vote was nearly unanimous.Only council member Timothy Burkevoted no, telling the crowd he couldn’tin good conscience vote for an agree-ment he believed could in any way

By jim loCKwoodstaFF writer

Instead of packing up and mov-ing out of her home, Michele Heinwill be staying and unpackingChristmas decorations.

The Dunmore resident almost lostownership of her Monroe Avenuehome in a Sept. 29 tax sale for whichshe claimed in a lawsuit she neverreceived proper notice. But, she

retained ownership Monday in ahearing in Lackawanna CountyCourt.

Ms. Hein is one of several peoplein recent weeks to file lawsuitsclaiming their homes were sold intax sales to an area business, Sava-na Properties LLC, for fractions of

what the homes are worth, butwithout the homeowners receivingproper notices from county and/orcity agencies alerting them thattheir homes were up for tax sales.

A member of Savana Properties,Mark Gawron, said his firm is notresponsible for issuing public notices

tohomeownersbeforetaxsales.Coun-ty and city agencies involved in fourseparate, but similar, tax sale cases atissue, said they provided proper notic-esof taxsalestothehomeowners.

In Ms. Hein’s case, Savana pur-chased her home for $479 in a Sept.29 “upset sale” by the Lackawanna

County Tax Claim Bureau. A Sava-na representative showed up at herdoor Oct. 2 when she was at workand told Ms. Hein’s daughter thatthe family now would have to payrent to Savana or move out of thehome that Ms. Hein had bought in2010, she said.

She filed a lawsuit on Oct. 29

Dunmore woman said she didn’t get proper notice

Please see sale, Page A9

No indictmentn Ferguson officer won’t face chargesn dead teenager’s family disappointedn rioting intensified as night wore on miChael BrowN

tHe new York times

CLAYTON, Mo. — A St.Louis County grand juryhas brought no criminalcharges against Darren Wil-son, a white police officerwho fatally shot MichaelBrown, an unarmed Afri-can-American teenager,more than three months agoin nearby Ferguson.

The deci-sion by thegrand jury ofnine whites

and three blacks wasannounced Monday night bythe St. Louis County prosecu-tor, Robert P. McCulloch, at anews conference packed withreporters from around theworld. The killing, on a resi-dential street in Ferguson,set off weeks of civil unrest— and a national debate —fueled by protesters’ outrageover what they called a pat-tern of police brutalityagainst young black men. Mr.McCulloch said Officer Wil-son faced charges rangingfrom first-degree murder toinvoluntary manslaughter.

Word of the decision setoff a new wave of angeramong hundreds who gath-ered outside the FergusonPolice Department. Policeofficers in riot gear stood in aline as demonstrators chant-ed and threw signs and otherobjects toward them as thenews spread.

“The system failed usagain,” one woman said. In

Four lauded as heroesscranton Fire Chief Patrick

desarno says the good sa-maritans at sunday night’sdrowning at nay aug gorgesaved 9 year old’s life. a3

david goldman / assoCiated Press

Police in riot gear move down the street past a burning police car on Monday in Ferguson, Mo.,following the announcement that a grand jury has decided not to indict Ferguson police officerDarren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.Please see jUry, Page A8

n what’snext incase? a8

n local lawmakers’ stance on thepropsed keystone sanitary landfillexpansion. a6

Please see dUNmore, Page A6

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014