Greensburg Salem School Board names meeting room for longtime solicitor
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Greensburg Salem School District had some surprises in store Monday evening for longtime solicitor John Scales.
Shortly before the school board meeting, the district threw a 90th birthday party for Scales. Afterward, the board further honored him by naming its meeting location the John N. Scales Legislative Meeting Room.
“It’s wonderful,” Scales said of the district’s surprise celebration. “I knew absolutely nothing about it. God bless them.”
Scales has provided legal advice for the district for more than 50 years and has no thought of retiring.
“I’ll never retire,” he said. “The district is my favorite client. It’s interesting work, I love it.”
Scales followed his father, A.C. Scales, into the legal profession, with equal commitment. “My father was 88 when he died,” John Scales noted. “He never retired.”
At its annual reorganization meeting Monday, the board renewed its agreement for solicitor services with Scales’ firm — Meyer Darragh Buckler Bebenek & Eck. As in previous years, the district will pay a monthly retainer of $1,100 for routine matters, including participation at board meetings, and an hourly rate of $110 for additional services for matters including litigation, labor, real estate and student discipline.
The new Scales Legislative Meeting Room designation applies to Middle School Room 003 but will transfer to any future location of board meetings.
“For over 50 years, you’ve served our district, our community and our children,” Superintendent Ken Bissell told Scales. “I’ve learned an awful lot from you.”
That included a history of the Westmoreland County Courthouse that Scales imparted as he and Bissell were waiting for a court appearance there. “That was one of the coolest conversations,” Bissell said.
School board member Frank Gazze said Scales’ upbeat nature has served him well in smoothing out district disputes, including an argument between school directors after a board meeting more than a decade ago.
“A couple of board members were in a very heated discussion that kept getting worse, and they were about nose to nose,” Gazze recalled. “John came out and said, ‘How about those Pirates?’
“He defused it. Everything cooled down and everybody started talking about baseball.”
Scales said his favorite part of his role as solicitor is “meeting with the board members and getting an exchange of ideas back and forth. The board members usually have lots of good thoughts about education and bettering the school district. It’s great to engage in those conversations.”
The most difficult part, he said, has been researching complex legal issues. “You have to spend a lot of time reading through detailed legal documents,” he said. “There are a thousand different issues that could come up if you’re representing a school district. Any legal problem that might arise eventually does arise.”
In addition to school law, Scales has handled eminent domain and personal injury cases in private practice. He served as Westmoreland County’s district attorney from 1969 to 1972 after a stint as an assistant district attorney, beginning in 1966.
A graduate of Yale University, in 1954, and Harvard Law School, in 1958, he served a term in the state Senate, from 1972 to 1974. He was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1967-68.
Among those attending Scales’ celebration was Eileen Amato, who was the Greensburg Salem superintendent from 2011 to her retirement in 2018. She previously was the district’s director of elementary education.
Amato noted she owes much to Scales. “When he was a state senator and I was a senior in high school, he awarded me a four-year senatorial scholarship that I used for college at Pitt,” she said. “When I came back here as superintendent, we had a chance to reconnect.”
Scales was pleasantly surprised when he was joined at the middle school by his daughters: Laura Wallace, Gretchen Rizzo and Lisa Scales, who is president and CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
“She volunteers me every so often to spend a Saturday helping to pass out food at various locations in Western Pennsylvania,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed that.”