Lower Merion Grassroots Non-Profit Receives Over 1,000 Petition Signatures Just One Day After Sending A Letter To Lower Merion Township Parents
The Non-Profit's Efforts Are Aimed at Defeating the Highly Controversial Class Action Lawsuit, Wolk, et al. v. School District of Lower Merion
LOWER MERION TWP., Pa., Dec. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lower Merion Fight For First Class Public Education, a non-profit, non-partisan group (the "Group") organized to help defeat Wolk, et al. v. School District of Lower Merion, announced today that, in just one day after sending an email blast to 7,500 parents of Lower Merion public school children asking them to sign the group's Petition protesting the lawsuit, over 1,000 residents signed. That brought the total number of petitioners against the lawsuit to over 1,800. That was on December 8. As of today the number has increased to over 2,000.
The suit, styled as a class action on behalf of all Lower Merion taxpayers – including many taxpayers who categorically reject membership in any such class -- was brought to: set aside reasonable surplus funds for essential future improvements to school buildings, sports facilities and innovative educational programs; dramatically reduce critical funds from Lower Merion public schools; remove wholesale, by judicial fiat, all present duly- elected members of the Lower Merion School District ("LMSD"); and replace the Board with a court-appointed trustee to strip down LMSD's budget and create nothing more than a bare bones education. In fact, the plaintiffs' complaint makes this astonishing pronouncement: "Public school education means basic adherence to the minimum requirements established and imposed upon school districts by the State Board of Education." The Group vehemently disagrees with this bald and wholly unsupported assertion.
The Group is particularly disturbed by the plaintiffs' attempt to resurrect in their complaint the same claims made in the long ago resolved "laptop lawsuit." The Group believes it was a shameless, tawdry attempt to besmirch the good name of the LMSD. Significantly, the lead plaintiff here, Arthur Wolk, is an attorney who surely knows or should have known that (1) he and his confederate plaintiffs, who purport to represent the interests of taxpayers and not students, lack standing to bring claims for which they can show no injury to them, and (2) the laptop-based claims for which he seeks relief have been released years ago in the settlement of the laptop litigation.
The Group believes PA state auditors recognize the importance of maintaining a reasonable surplus (to, among other things, maintain Lower Merion schools' AAA municipal bond ratings, and provide facilities and faculty necessary to handle the unusually high influx of new students over roughly the same time period as the Lower Merion school taxes have gone up). The Group believes the plaintiffs' scurrilous claims against the LMSD are meritless and will ultimately be rejected by the PA courts.
"We are gratified, but not surprised, by this overwhelming demonstration of support for our position that this lawsuit must not prevail," says Group President Jane Broderson. "Just as grassroots opposition and outrage by class members in the laptop case helped prevent it from proceeding as a class action, we expect that the more than 2,000 organized opponents of this proposed class action will have the same effect."
For more information, go to www.lmfight.com.
SOURCE Lower Merion Fight For First Class Public Education
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