A Lehighton taxpayers group offered an interpretation of the Lehighton School District's website, giving facts, figures and statistics focusing on why repairing the four elementary schools would be a better fit for the community than building an elementary center.

David Bradley, organizer of Lehighton Taxpayers, said in the past four years there have been 111 fewer students enrolled in Lehighton schools.Bradley said that the only way to get answers is to keep asking questions."We need people to show up at the school board meeting on Monday night," Bradley said. "Send your neighbors to the Lehighton Taxpayers website at bradleytank.com."Bradley added, "The community has the right to decide how to use our income, we earned it."Once taxed, by our referendum, the board can decide how to use it. This is nothing but a greed-induced power trip. If this was about the students, we wouldn't have such disrepair in our buildings and a $13 million-plus fund balance."He said people should take a look at the power the district wants to take from taxpayers."The tax reduction alone is money in the pockets of every parent in the community," he said. "You could be buying computers, making college, trade school payments. Or you could make 300,000 trips in 20 years or 6,000,000 trips to Rita's on a nice day, make thousands of trips to the Beacon for lunch or washing your car at Fedor's car wash or going to the movies or buying at the Dollar Store or buying a new car every year."If you do not see the monumental money grab that is happening to this community, you need to do some fifth-grade math and be enlightened," he said.Bradley said that none of the board members said they have seen 140-page bond documents or seen his team's analysis of the feasibility study. He added that none of the nine board members have asked for a referendum or taken the time to create their own plan.Bradley said that people want to be on the school board for a variety of reasons, but most want to do so to be proud of their contributions to the community."I got into this because one woman said that she would have to move because of the high taxes," Bradley said. "Nothing makes a child safer than his grandparents, and if the seniors have to give up their homes and move, that will make it less safe for our children."