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Conestoga Valley board waives Smoketown auditorium rental fee for CVEA candidate forum
Summary
Trustees voted to waive the Smoketown Elementary auditorium rental fee for a CVEA-organized candidate forum scheduled the next evening; the motion passed on a roll-call vote with five ayes and one abstention after staff clarified the facilities request date met the 30-day policy.
The Conestoga Valley School District board on Oct. 20 approved a request to waive the Smoketown Elementary School auditorium rental fee for a candidate forum organized by the Conestoga Valley Education Association (CVEA).
"I move that we waive the rental fee for the use of Smoketown Elementary Auditorium for the CVEA event," a board member moved during the action discussion. After a requested roll call, the secretary recorded ayes from Dr. Martin, Mrs. Fisher, Mr. Talley, Mr. Genzel and Mr. Eby; one board member abstained because of involvement in the event. The chair announced the motion passed.
Background and clarifications: district staff said earlier information about the facilities request date had been misstated in last week's materials and apologized, explaining the original facilities usage request had been submitted on Sept. 17 and therefore met the district's 30-day advance-notice requirement. A superintendent representative said they had "clarified this with President Groff today" and apologized for the earlier mistake.
CVEA outreach: CVEA president Mr. Richards, who addressed the board, said the association is not endorsing candidates and had reached out to Lancaster County party committees to contact candidates; he noted that two candidate contact attempts bounced back and that the group would make further outreach in future forums. "We're not really sponsoring it per se because we're not making any endorsements," Richards said.
Board discussion focused on ensuring the forum remained non‑district‑sponsored and bipartisan. One trustee said she would abstain due to involvement and was instructed to complete an abstention form.
Outcome and next step: the waiver was approved by the board; the CVEA forum is scheduled for the next evening per the facilities request. The board then moved on to information reports and later adjourned to executive session for personnel reasons.
