Players hoping to use the Jenkintown High School basketball courts are going to have to start playing by the borough's rules.
The school board and Borough Council have devised a plan to solve the problem of overcrowding at the high school basketball courts - the hiring of a monitor to police the courts, making sure that Jenkintown residents are getting their fair share of playing time.
The board also agreed to limit the number of nonresidents allowed on the courts.
In the last two months, many residents have complained to police and school and borough officials that nonresidents were monopolizing the courts, cutting into residents' playing time.
In a special one-hour school board meeting Monday night, the board voted, 5-0, to split the cost of hiring a monitor with the Borough Council.
The cost of the plan is not to exceed $3,800.
The council voted last Thursday to allocate the money for the program.
According to the board's plan, the monitor will be paid $6.50 an hour.
School Superintendent David Barrett 3d, will be in charge of hiring and supervising the monitor. Barrett will establish the number of hours the monitor will work.
Barrett was out of town and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
School board President Robert C. Totaro and members Alfred O. Breinig Jr., Arthur H. Brener, Robert I. Morrison and Jack L. Stimac approved of hiring the monitor. Board member Ellen M. Smith abstained.
Smith said she abstained because she believed that the board should have waited to see whether the problem would decrease before spending taxpayers' money.
"I am reluctant to spend more tax dollars," Smith said in an interview Tuesday. "I believe in recreation, but I don't want to spend money unnecessarily."
Smith said she believed that the overcrowding problem was being solved by the people using the court.
"It was a problem," she said. "But the problem seems to have been worked out among those who are playing. That is far more healthy than implementing rules and regulations."
In another 5-0 vote, the board established a policy that gave Jenkintown residents unlimited use of the courts, but limited the number of guests to two per resident.
Breinig, Brener, Morrison, Stimac and Smith approved the policy.
Mayor Theodore Jensen Jr. said he was pleased with the plan.
"Everyone was concerned about the problem, and this solution was the only logical one," Jensen said. "It is the type of problem that has to be monitored. It can't be done on a part-time, once-in-a-while basis as would happen if the Police Department was to be in charge of it.
"If the monitor, employed by the school board, has any problem, he can call the police and they will support him 100 percent."
Judith Reider, the school district's business manager, said the district would begin advertising for the monitor immediately.
She said the advertising, interviews and background checks should take a few weeks.
"The target date is Aug. 1," Reider said. "But, it depends on how long the background check takes."
Reider said that, if asked, Jenkintown residents could use driver's licenses, voter registration cards or other identification to prove their residency.
