Proclaiming that "the time's here," Monaca school board President William Temple said Tuesday he's willing to consider other partners in the face of Center Area's second thoughts about merger.

"If it's not with them, then we will look at others," he said. "They're not the only district out there."

New postings on Center's Web site announce that the school board "has offered new options to explore relative to the merger" with neighboring Monaca, and has a "Plan B" in case its slowdown means the merger can't happen July 1 as planned.

But there are problems with the statements.

For one, those new options have not been offered to Monaca and at least one Center board member does not even know what they are.

For another, if Center does go with Plan B, which would push the merger date back to Jan. 1, it just may find itself alone at the altar.

Mr. Temple said his Monaca board had discussed what to do in the face of Center's second thoughts about the marriage, and he thinks it will start courting new suitors if the date is pushed back six months.

Mr. Temple noted that Monaca is financially sound and debt-free, and is strong enough that the merger offers Center property owners a 5.2-mill tax cut. He also noted that the state education department has been highly supportive, and he believes it would step in quickly to help with another merger scenario.

"We don't have a time frame" for such a decision, Mr. Temple said. "We would rather not go that way. This merger is a good one. But we've got to get this rolling, and we're obviously not going to go to Center and get them to move."

The Center and Monaca boards both approved a consolidation plan Oct. 18, but the new Center board, with six new members elected in November, have brought the planning process to a halt.

Center Area board President Richard "Bucky" Nicastro and others have said the new members want to move cautiously and assess the information gathered over two years of study.

"Once the board is comfortable with the discussions on any new merger scenarios and clarification of earlier reports and discussions, it will be better positioned to make a final decision," this week's Web posting said.

Critics, however, have said that the board has not publicly discussed its concerns or questions, has gotten no reports or studies since mid-January, has forbidden Center Area Superintendent Dan Matsook to discuss or plan for consolidation with his Monaca counterpart and has had almost no contact with the Monaca board.

Mr. Temple did not know the Center Area board had posted the question-and-answer page until he was asked about it Tuesday.

"They certainly have the obvious right to put up anything they want," he said, but "I would have appreciated knowing what they were going to put up."

Monaca Superintendent Mike Thomas and solicitor Nick Francalancia both also were unaware of the posting until being asked about it Monday afternoon.

"I knew they were going to do it because I read it in the paper," Dr. Thomas said, referring to last week's story (Merger talks take on edge in Center) reporting that the Center Area board was compiling questions for such a list.

Dr. Thomas said he had heard a passing mention of a possible Jan. 1 merge date, and had heard that the Center Area board was "looking at a different way of aligning grades and positioning students in buildings," but that he knew little more.

Attempts to reach Mr. Nicastro, Center vice-president Bob Martini and Dr. Matsook were unsuccessful.

Center Area board member Charlene Kosmal, one of three holdovers from the previous board and a proponent of the consolidation, said there have been no official board discussions of other merger options.

Ms Kosmal said there was some question of whether the school district could absorb the Monaca district, or admit its students on a tuition-paying basis, both ways of taking in Monaca's students while remaining the Center Area School District, with the existing Center Area school board maintaining control.

Ms. Kosmal said she had also heard of an idea about merging, but keeping Center pupils in Center schools and Monaca pupils in Monaca schools through sixth grade.

She said those ideas were studied and rejected during the two-year consolidation process but she has not had a chance to talk about that with her fellow board members, because "I've never been part of any discussion on it."

Ms. Kosmal said the Web posting also was decided on and written without board discussion or vote. She said Dr. Matsook sent an e-mail to board members asking them for questions they'd like to see posted, then sent an e-mail of the posting asking if there were things people wanted to add or things people objected to.

Ms. Kosmal said she had pushed for the board to hold a public meeting to address questions, then pushed to have the posting include all the questions asked at board meetings, not just selected ones. She said she found the chosen questions "irritating," and said she was frustrated enough that she didn't bother objecting.

"It's their dog and pony show," she said of the new members.