The Wilkes-Barre Area School Board faces a nearly empty gym at GAR Memorial High School during a hearing on the closure of Meyers and Coughlin High schools Tuesday.
                                 Mark Guydish | Times Leader

The Wilkes-Barre Area School Board faces a nearly empty gym at GAR Memorial High School during a hearing on the closure of Meyers and Coughlin High schools Tuesday.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

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<p>Long time high school consolidation critic Richard Holodick was the only member of the public to speak Tuesday at a public hearing by the Wilkes-Barre Area School District on the closing of two high schools</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

Long time high school consolidation critic Richard Holodick was the only member of the public to speak Tuesday at a public hearing by the Wilkes-Barre Area School District on the closing of two high schools

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

WILKES-BARRE — In a gym where Wilkes-Barre Area school board members and district employees likely outnumbered the public and the media combined, Richard Holodick may have summed up Tuesday’s hearing on the closing of two high schools in his opening remarks.

Apparently everyone else was OK with the closing of Coughlin and Meyers high schools, the longtime critic of the district’s consolidation plan said, because “I’m the only one speaking.”

The district had set aside all of the GAR Memorial High School gym for the legally-required hearing so that board members and audience alike could maintain social distance, but they could almost as easily held it in one of the classrooms. Six of nine School board members attended, along with Superintendent Brian Costello, Business Manager Tom Telesz and several district employees as well as a few members of the media and the public.

Technically, the district held two public hearings, one for the closure of Coughlin High School and the other for the closure of Meyers High School. Tentative sales of both buildings are in the works, with a developer planning a mixed use facility at Coughlin offering retail on the first floor and housing above. Early talks of the use of Meyers involve a combination of several different types of senior living facilities, Solicitor Ray Wendolowski said.

The board waited 15 minutes between the two hearings, during which Wendolowski answered a few questions in the hallway outside the gym. He said the Coughlin deal is in “due diligence,” and that the period of such work to finalize the sale may be extended at the next School Board meeting so the prospective buyer can make sure zoning issues can be resolved.

Wendolowski also said the current plans call for retaining and renovating the original Coughlin building, which the district had deemed unsafe. The district had split students between the annex and a renovated closed elementary school, auctioned much of the contents, gutted the 1909 structure and conducted asbestos abatement with the initial plan to raze it and build a new school on the same site. That plan died when the Wilkes-Barre City Zoning Hearing Board denied a needed zoning variance, prompting the move to a site in Plains Township.

The two hearings were near mirror images of each other. Both opened with a pledge of allegiance, an announcement by Board President Joe Caffrey of the legal obligations the meeting fulfilled, and brief “testimony” about the reasons for closures by Costello, accompanied by a short slide show. Nothing new was presented; the issues have been recited numerous times in the last four or five years.

The district launched a feasibility study on consolidation or renovation of the three high schools in 2014, followed by a financial analysis and an ultimate decision to merge grade 9-12 into a new high school nearing completion and set to open this fall. The district secured $121 million in bond money for the project, which Costello noted was considerably less than the estimated renovations of Coughlin and Meyers, tabbed at a combined $197 million.

Costello also projected images of each school, showing problems with water infiltration, lack of space and aged facilities.

Caffrey noted the public can also submit written comments to the district secretary at the administrative building on South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre through June 3. Wendolowski said the law required the hearing, and allows the School Board to vote to close the two schools in 90 days now that it has been held.

After his testimony the public was invited to speak. No one rose during the first hearing about Coughlin, and only Holodick spoke during the Meyers hearing. He made several criticisms that had been lodged over the past several years, including that the renovation estimates were deemed artificially high by some because they included steel reinforcements and upgrades to meet codes that weren’t mandated.

All told, the two hearings and the 15 minute intermission between then took about 36 minutes, a sharp contrast to School Board meetings after the consolidation plan was approved. For months, even years, meetings included lengthy comment and criticism from a long list of audience members trying to get the board to reverse its decision. Now that the deal is nearly done, much of that has subsided.

Holodick closed on a note of fait accompli regarding the lack of an audience at what ended up a legal formality in the march to consolidation.

“Why go to a hearing when the board already voted to close the schools?” he asked. “What is this all about?”

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish