The voters of Abington Township sent the Abington Township Republican organization a message last week. The message was crystal clear and I can’t imagine that the next ATRO meeting will be all the pleasant.

The ATRO slate of five school board candidates got wiped our with the exception of Elizabeth Chavous. (Editor’s note: A re-tally of the votes Monday showed Peter Dreifus had enough votes to claim the fifth school board seat. Votes still needed to be verified as of deadline.) Two members of the ATRO slate finished ninth and 10th in a 10 person race.

S. Shirley Weiss, an incumbent with arguably the highest profile of any of the candidates, finished first but she did so as a Democrat. Shirley, as you may recall, had earned a preliminary endorsement from ATRO and then longtime party soldier Joe Massino decided he was going to run -- ATRO did a flip flop -- and Shirley got bounced.

In the primary Shirley got more votes than anyone -- running on both tickets. It was clear that she was the force to be reckoned with. And as the election season wore on almost as quickly as the "Shirley Weiss for School Board" sign would appear it would vanish. Someone was laboring under the impression that if voters didn’t know that she was running she would lose. Wrong.

Shirley even had it "officially" pointed out to her that someone had placed two of her signs on the same property -- a violation of the local election code. She complied and removed one of them. Yet a property at the corner of Keith and Wheatsheaf had the ATRO endorsed slate signs on both corners of their property for the run of the campaign.

As a further attention-getter for the local GOP it needs to be pointed out that they also lost the 1st Ward where Republican and current commissioner President Barbara Ferrara had declined to seek re-election. Gail Weilheimer, a Democrat, knocked off Republican John DePrimo by close to 100 votes.

I am a good listener and on Election Day I tried to get the pulse of the voters. Almost everyone said that they were supporting Mrs. Weiss and what I kept hearing was that she did so much for the school children and the only thing that was used against her was that she had, one time, declined a pay raise for teachers. A piece of advice to future political pundits seems appropriate here. Using the failure to grant pay raises to municipal and school employees in an economy where many of us don’t get them anymore is no longer an effective tool.

Some told me that watching the candidates’ debate on local Channel 66 was an eye-opener. One man kind of laughed and said that watching two of the GOP candidates give evasive answers in the debate (and I quote) "scared me to death about the future of our schools." It would seem that the ongoing reluctance to televise local commissioner and school board meetings may be rooted among incumbents scared of people actually seeing them at work.

And another interesting outcome of the local elections happened in the Hatboro-Horsham School District and nearby Springfield Township where both the incumbent school board leaders lost out in large part due to the recent and contentious teacher strikes.

Also seen as a factor in Springfield was the recent enactment of an earned income tax that Abington rammed down the taxpayers’ throats a week before Christmas last year. We recall it as the Christmas gift that keeps on taking.

The message should be clear to those in office and those local kingmakers who think that they control things. The voters and taxpayers are watching and, clearly, have had enough of the "same old, same old."

To those who voted, I say congratulations. You really made a difference.

I never really knew Adele Block very well -- spoke to her on the phone a few times , got yelled at by her once -- and I was saddened when she relinquished her presidency and seat on the Abington School Board a short time ago and was so sorry to hear that she passed away in late February.

She was a rare bird, a politician who devoted everything she had to the schools and the things she believed in. Our prayers are with her and her family, for her to have survived so long in Abington politics shows the kind of a special person that she was. We need more like her.

One like her, S. Shirley Weiss, is going to run for another term (after once saying she had had enough). I’m glad. She keeps things lively and says what she thinks. She has also said that she wanted to serve long enough to actually visit the new football stadium at Abington High School -- on Ghost Road.

Shirley is a bit of a maverick, though, and I was surprised to hear that the Abington Township Republican organization actually invited her in for an interview so that they might endorse her candidacy. (I got one of those letters, too. I considered the idea of running for the school board for, oh, about a minute.)

Would you believe it, she initially "cut the mustard" and was actually going to be endorsed and then, low and behold, it came unglued on the night of the meeting. She was officially recommended by the committee along with four other people, but then the chairman announced that another person also wanted to run. He was not initially chosen by the endorsement, but they put him on the ballot anyway and now the committee had a choice of five out of six people. One had to go. Guess who lost out? You are right! Mrs. Weiss lost out to a local businessman who, I’m told, has gone to two school board meetings in 12 years!

It makes me kind of embarrassed to be a Republican. I’m sure that the local GOP really does care for the schools in Abington, but I am not so sure what their thinking process is all about.

Of course Mrs. Weiss is still filing for the position and since she has defeated the local Republican organization in the three previous elections, don’t bet against her.

In a related piece of news it appears that a Montgomery County Court judge will rule for the Abington School District on its petition for bond regarding the stadium "appeal." and could consider the case from Glenside Gardens Civic Association frivolous. (Gee, there’s a surprise. I wonder if there is also an official ruling that calls something "spiteful.") That decision could mean that the GGCA will have to pay for the lawsuit. At the hearing only Carol (she a school board member, working in opposition to the school district) and Larry DiJoseph (head of the civic association) appeared! I think they all need a lesson in civics and somebody has got to end this horrendous waste of our tax dollars that happened just to placate a few unhappy people.

It will be interesting and I understand that Judge Smyth told the school district that they will know his decision before April 1.

Still related, we hear that Commissioner Eric Kretchman is looking for a county row office and if he is endorsed, he will not run again for local office. Rumors abound that it is possible that, in turn, Carol DiJoseph will run for the office. She is not running for school board again so she’ll be looking for new worlds to conquer.

Maybe, if elected, Mrs. DiJoseph will start the wheels in motion to have Glenside Gardens secede from the township. Nothing would surprise me and just think of all the tax dollars we could blow in court debating that one.

When the Abington Tax Collector was given a generous $4000 raise by the commissioners a few weeks back, I marveled at the statement attributed to board President Barbara Ferrara who said, in essence, it doesn’t matter what we all (being the commissioners, school board, etc.) pay him, he saves us money. She also mentioned , at the time, that the poor guy could use the money because after all, he has to pay his own health benefits, but then so do I.

My notes were sitting on the desk -- along with other assorted column ideas -- And I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to say anything about it. For one thing, tax collector Max Solomon has apparently done a really good job, has not been tainted by any scandals, seemed kind of invisible and Ms. Ferrara said he was "saving us money." That’s always OK with me.

But then along came the story of the woman who, thanks to a bureaucratic screw-up of some kind, ended up being "penalized" $218 in late charges on her real estate taxes by the tax office, and that seemed pretty cold and cruel to me. That could have been you or, God forbid, me!

As the woman (a former township employee by the way) described it, the folks in the tax office were something les than understanding and wouldn’t ‘t listen to her explanations (despite proof that she says the bank provided) --they called her explanations "trash and garbage." Pretty insensitive wouldn’t you say?

I recently experienced a similar nightmare when my new mortgage company successfully lost two consecutive payments --three if you count the one lost by the bank they bought the mortgage from --and then, finally, admitted that if was their mistake after all.

"Sorry, gee whiz, don’t know how that happened." they said, after rolling up incredible "late charges" against me because of their own, "I’m not responsible" corporate stupidity. It happens all the time.

So much for the kindly tax office, so much for invisible. Really pretty brutal stuff when the woman was apparently the victim of someone else’s mistake, like I was. Regardless of the circumstances there is no excuse for someone on the public payroll to be rude to a taxpayer. Zero, zilch, zippo.

After hearing that story I started to rethink the raise and I wondered who the heck is minding the store. Despite what Ms. Ferrara says, there should be limits as to income (it’s called a budget). Don’t give him a raise; shave a couple of bucks off our tax bills. Simple or what? Pay should be based on performance, sure. But also based on a little common sense. Wouldn’t you say? How much is enough?

Since the tax collector is paid by various entities, the public often gets the impression that post doesn’t pay that all that well. A few bucks here, a few there.

To the contrary, school board member Shirley Weiss --who unsuccessfully ran for that office in the past --recently zeroed in on the elected tax collector’s office (not the man, she points out) and, you know, I think she’s on to something.

By Feb. 13, I’m told, potential candidates for this office must be told exactly what it pays --and according to the most recent numbers our tax collector/treasurer had an income in the range of $158,000 in 1999 --which is not bad for a part-time job. Surely the revenue for 2000 will be greater and, with the raises he’s seeking, the job in 2001 will be even better.

It’s sure not a bad job. The township provides an office and the governing bodies that the taxman collects for provide the postage and other expenses. We (the downtrodden taxpayer) are, in essence, subsidizing a part- time business. And make no mistake, it is a business. The tax collector’s business. It’s also enough of a business that outside concerns such as Berkheimer Associates and other quasi-municipal sounding agencies--are thriving as the sometimes ruthless tax-collecting arms of many area municipalities.

Ms. Weiss also, correctly, points out that--raises aside--the revenue stream into the tax office will keep getting better and better as the new Target, Macy’s and other new business open soon in the township. When you think about it, enough is probably enough and, boy, what a great part-time job it is anyway.

Ted Taylor grew up in the Glenside area and now lives in Abington Township. He can be reached by mail at The Times Chronicle.