The Williamsport Area School Board meeting focused on sports news Tuesday night. It opted to cancel a previous hiring of a baseball coach and approved a revision to its high school football stadium renovation project that it hopes will allow the project to be "financially reachable."
Board member David Stone Jr. explained during the meeting that instead of a proposed project to install field turf and an eight-lane track to the stadium, it will cut the track down to six lanes.
"It'll change a little bit," Business Manager Jeffrey Richards said after the meeting.
The district's current track has six lanes.
"At one point, we were looking to expand it to an eight-lane track," Richards said.
The change allows the track to stay in the football field complex, he said. The area around the stadium was not large enough to contain a competitive-sized football/soccer field and an eight-lane track, so the track would have been moved to a separate location.
Richards said the district may need a grassy area for shot put and javelin events but, for the most part, the change keeps everything together.
Six lanes are "efficient," Richards said, but it will not be able to host post-season track events.
Stone is hopeful the move will get the project done faster.
"We have hopes that it will happen in the next two years," Stone said.
The project is being funded by a capital campaign, at no cost to the district.
In other business, after approving David Cipriani as the high school's head baseball coach for the 2012-13 year in October, the school board voted 7-1 to rescind the decision.
The board did not give an explanation for the new vote, but school director Dale Vollman said he was "dismayed" that normal procedure wasn't followed. He did not elaborate, and Richards refused to comment on the matter.
During public comment, Kevin Horne, a 2010 graduate who played three years for Cipriani, also wasn't happy with the way it was handled.
"I expected better from my school board," Horne said.
