Sep 1, 2014 8 min read

A look at some of the headlines gracing the pages of the Observer-Reporter and Waynesburg Republican this week in Greene County history:

Just like being there

WAYNESBURG – For more than a year, district judges have been remotely arraigning defendants through video conferencing equipment, and apparently the process has worked so well that it will now be implemented in Greene County Court of Common Pleas.

Cameras and flat panel television sets will be installed in courtroom 2 of the county courthouse. A state grant will cover the $2,800 cost, but Judge Farley Toothman said the improvement will save the court much more in both time and money.

“We’re trying to use technology to better serve the courthouse. It gives us more flexibility and the opportunity to leave criminals in jail. It will make us much more efficient,” he said while county workers installed the necessary equipment Wednesday.

Some routine hearings, such as bench warrant arraignments, probation violations and bail hearings, can be held without having to transport the defendant from jail to the courthouse. The inmate will participate through video conferencing equipment installed at the jail, and soon, the courthouse.

State law mandates that arraignments are held within 72 hours of an arrest. Scheduling conflicts can make it difficult to meet that demand, but it should become easier once the court is able to hold the hearing remotely, Toothman said.

“I know from my many years on the prison board that the scheduling dynamics often created a lot of pressure,” said Toothman, who served on the prison board from 1996 to 2003 during his tenure as county commissioner.

Arraignments at the magistrate level are already conducted remotely and Greene County Jail Warden Harry Gillispie has become a fan.

“Any time you take an inmate out of the facility, the possibility of escape or some type of incident happening is there,” he said. “This does nothing but enhance security.”

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Budget impasse forces county layoffs

WAYNESBURG – With the state budget crisis continuing to impact local and county governments, Greene County commissioners have had to make some tough decisions.

“I don’t think they understand the impact they have on people’s day-to-day lives,” county commissioner Pam Snyder said, referring to state legislators. “That is what frustrates me.”

In a move to ensure county services operate at the highest level, Snyder said it became necessary to layoff a number of employees.

“In this first wave we had eight full-time employees who volunteered for a layoff. We also laid off four grant-funded positions and most of the part-time positions,” Snyder said.

Three of those who were laid off came from the third-floor offices in the commissioners’ unit. Snyder said she felt their offices should “feel the pinch” first.

Snyder said that the county has met with and kept the employees apprised of the fiscal situation and the plans to address it as budget discussions continue in Harrisburg.

“The plan in place can sustain us until the end of September. If nothing happens by Sept. 18 then it is serious crunch time again and we may need to implement other actions,” Snyder said without elaborating.

She said emergency services, the prison, human services and the transportation departments were areas that could not be cut.

“Obviously, the EMS and prison need to operate with a full staff. We have a moral obligation to keep human services running and we can’t cut transportation services when we have people who use it to get their chemo and dialysis treatments,” she said.

“Our employees have been forced to suffer hardships through something that is not their fault nor ours. Everyone is trying to hold costs.”

Some departments, like the recreation department, are feeling more of the brunt of the stalemate as programs are put on hold.

The only recreational item Snyder sees continuing to operate is possibly the Mon View Roller Rink. “The roller rink may open in mid-October but that is only because we make a few bucks there and it gives the kids something to do,” she said.

Last of gob pile to soon be removed

The mountainous pile of coal waste that once made the Mather coal refuse site resemble a gray lunar landscape has now been transformed into a partially grass-covered plateau.

Reclamation of the site, ongoing for the last two years, is expected to reach a milestone in the next week or two as the last remaining pile of coal waste is removed from the surface of the large level area of elevated land.

Mather Recovery Inc., the company reclaiming the 50-acre site, must move the pile, about 12,000 cubic yards of material, before the top of the site is level and at the height at which it will be at the completion of the project.

“This is a big milestone. In the next few weeks, they’ll be at grade” on the top surface of the property, said Don Chappel, executive director of Greene County Industrial Development Authority, which has overseen the reclamation project.

Even with the one remaining refuse pile, the size of the level area is impressive, Chappel said. “It’s enormous.”

Work to reclaim the refuse site, the legacy of the former Mather Collieries, began in November 2001. When the project is completed, Mather Recovery estimates it will have moved between 3 1/2 to 4 million cubic yards of materials, said Andy Brozik, supervisor on the project.

In some places, the pile has been lowered by about 150 feet, he said.

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RJ Lee Group gets head start on data repository

WAYNESBURG – RJ Lee Group Inc., a materials characterization and consulting company that will be the anchor tenant at EverGreene Technology Park, already has begun setting up shop in Greene County.

Though construction of the park is not expected until later this year, the Pittsburgh-based company recently leased temporary office space in Franklin Township to begin developing plans for the data storage center it will establish at EverGreene.

The technology park is being developed by Greene County Industrial Development Authority and Greene County Industrial Development Corp. on a 248-acre site adjacent to the county airport.

RJ Lee officials said they hope to be in EverGreene this time next year. “By July 2005, we’re banking on that facility to be ready,” said Sam E. Pennartz, vice president of information systems for RJ Lee.

Until that time, the company will occupy an office in a building on Oakview Drive, across from the fairgrounds. There, Pennartz and others will pull together a team to develop the “technology architecture” of the state-of-the-art data storage center.

RJ Lee received a $4.25 million contract in December from the U.S. Air Force, through the efforts of U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, to develop the “engine health management” data repository center at EverGreene.

The data center will collect and analyze information on the wear and tear of jet engines for the Air Force to enhance airplane security, safety and cost effectiveness.

25 years ago: Aug. 31 – Sept. 6, 1989

Firefighters treated while battling fire at illegal dump

CLARKSVILLE – Three firefighters were treated while battling a fire believed to have been intentionally set several days earlier at an illegal garbage dump in Morgan Township.

Charles Burwell, 22, assistant chief of Clarksville Volunteer Fire Department, was treated at Greene County Memorial Hospital and released, along with Clarksville firefighter David Viano, 21, and junior firefighter John McCartney, 17, also of Clarksville. All three were treated for smoke inhalation and exposure.

Sam Benyi, Clarksville fire chief, said he believed the fire had been burning for several days because some residents living near the dump said they smelled smoke at least four days before firemen were called. The dump is on Township Road 648, about three miles between Clarksville and Marianna.

Benyi considered evacuating between 20 to 25 rural homes with a three-to-four-mile radius of the fire.

16th annual Coal Show ends

CARMICHAELS – The 16th annual Coal Show parade held Saturday in Carmichaels was a success from every point of view.

With some 170 units in the line of march, it took two and one-half hours to pass, and as announcer Stephen McCann said, it was “the largest Coal Show parade we ever had.”

The weather was perfect – warm and bright without a blistering sun.

And the crowd along the entire mile-long parade route was one of the biggest ever – estimated by King Coal Association officials at 10,000 men, women and children.

Antique cars; nearly a score of drum and majorette corps, which came from as far away as Somerset; snappy high school bands; colorful and imaginative flats; pretty girls in convertibles; and fire company contingents added a festive glow to the parade.