Stalking Awareness Ads Grab Attention

By Chris Jones

MILFORD — Pike County Commissioners last week proclaimed January 2023 as “Stalking Awareness Month,” and the Victims Intervention Program, which provides shelter, counseling and education for abuse victims in Pike and Wayne Counties, attended the meeting to present their expertise about the problem.
Part of the message was that stalkers are not necessarily hooded people creeping around in alleys; rather your stalker could be someone you know, perhaps an intimate partner or ex-partner who knows you and has access to information about you that could be used to harass or harm.
“They could be sitting in the same church pew or keep showing up on the treadmill next to you at the gym,” said one VIP team member at the meeting.
As one method of getting the word out about stalkers, VIP’s marketing team came up with some attention-grabbing billboards, a couple of which drew some criticism on social media. One in question showed a photo of two young, smiling white males in business-casual attire with the big headline next to them: “Stalker? Could Be.” The billboard displayed the phone number for VIP’s hotline and their web address, in small print.
Pike County resident Chuck Petersheim posted on Facebook: “I found this billboard by the Jeep dealership deeply offensive. What if it was two Catholic priests and it said ‘Predator? Could Be’ or a scoutmaster and said ‘Pedophile? Could Be?’ ”
Later, Petersheim spoke to the Dispatch about the choice of people on the advertisement and said, “White males are the only group they could do that to – any other group and they would have your heads. This comes off poorly on a billboard. Don’t automatically assume the worst about people.”
He suggested a better approach would have been to use a spectrum of representative types in the ad................................For more information subscribe to our paper.

School Board OK’s Sewage Hook-Up To Westfall System

By Wayne Witkowski

WESTFALL — Delaware Valley School District’s Board of Directors, during last week’s regular monthly meeting, unanimously approved an agreement with Westfall Township’s Municipal Authority for a connection to the authority’s central sewage system.
The agreement, ending years of discussion by the board on the upgrade amid recommendations by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and the Delaware River Basin Commission, will follow the design, construction specifications and requirements of the Authority and Westfall Township into the existing line.
“The Delaware River Basin Commission is a very powerful group. It’s a federal entity,” said Chris Lordi, the district’s director of Human Resources who represents the district on the Authority Board, after the meeting.
“We’ve spent the last three years working on this. I’m glad to see this coming to fruition,” said Lordi. “It seems to be a conversation for many years.”
Lordi said the plan calls for “major modifications” for disposal of 14,000 gallons daily and must follow the DEP’s request for an engineering plan along with payment of continuing engineering fees to the engineering firm of McGoey, Hauser & Edsall. The agreement carries a $112,000 one-time user fee along with legal fees and professional engineering fees.
Lordi said there is a $200,000 grant approved for the district that will go toward the project, scheduled for the end of the year.
The last upgrade for the system, established in the 1950s, was in 1990.
The arrangement concerns only the high school and middle school in Westfall. Sewage disposal has been done internally through the district’s treatment plant................................For more information subscribe to our paper.