Vol. 134 - No. 29 DuBois officials praise...
Transcript of Vol. 134 - No. 29 DuBois officials praise...
Vol. 134 - No. 29
Mostly sunny. Highs in the lower 20s .
Full report, A2
14 pagesClassified ......................... B4Comics ............................. A5Lifestyles ......................... A3Lottery ............................. A7Opinion ........................... A6Public Notices ............... B4Sports ............................... B1
75 Cents
• John Daugherty, 73• Judith A. Dreese, 73 • Miriam Haag, 85• Thomas S. Marshall , 98• Enoch Simcox, 92
A 10-year-old girl has been cited for reckless driving after her mother’s SUV crashed into a Divi-sion of Motor Vehicles of-fice in the Denver suburb of Parker. A4
Boy in safeCentral Pennsylva-
nia firefighters rescued a 9-year-old boy who was locked in a safe at a store. A7
Bronze medalUnited States’ Julia
Mancuso competed in the slalom portion of the women’s supercombined at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Mancuso won the bronze medal. B1
10-year-old driver
Online n This week’s ques-
tion - on the newspaper’s homepage at www.thecou-rierexpress.com - asks
How much of the Win-ter Olympics do you plan to watch?
Tomorrow’s Forecast
Index
ObituariesA7
MORE INSIDE
Page B1
DuBOIS — The Treasure Lake Property Owners Association is looking for a new general manager and a new chief financial officer.
In an eblast/email sent to prop-erty owners Monday, the TLPOA said, “On February 7, 2014 the Treasure Lake Property Own-ers’ Board of Directors accepted the resignations of Robert Romo,
Treasure Lake General Manager, and Dan Johnston, Treasure Lake CFO. Robert and Dan have decided to pursue other interests and the TLPOA Board of Directors wish them good luck and thank them for their service to Treasure Lake.”
The announcement continued, “The TLPOA Board of Directors has begun a search for their re-placements. During the interim, Gary Spiegel has graciously agreed to assist Treasure Lake during our transition.”
Spiegel, a Treasure Lake prop-erty owner, previously served as
TLPOA looking for new manager
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014
First-graders at DuBois Central Catholic Elementary recently celebrated their 100th day of school by partici-pating in “100” activities through the day, according to teacher Brenda Aravich. From left, Lauren Jenkins, Johnny Varischetti and Tess Stewart display their artistic creations by filling in the “Big 100” using candy, marshmallows and cereal. (Photo courtesy DuBois Central Catholic)
By Nick Hoffman
DuBOIS — The DuBois City Council and administration Monday praised the firefighting response to an apartment complex fire Saturday and all those who supported it.
Council members Eddie Walsh and James Aughenbaugh, Mayor Gary Gilbert, Manager John “Herm” Suplizio, police Chief Ron LaRoton-da and Controller Lisa LaBrasca said all those involved did “a great job” on a “long day” in which 10 fam-
ilies were left homeless by a fire that gutted the Seven Kitchens complex on East Park Avenue.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families” devastated by the fire, Suplizio said.
Fire Chief Lou Emerick was at a post-fire evaluation meeting Mon-day night and was unable to attend the council meeting but, for his part and on Emerick’s behalf, Suplizio thanked all those who responded.
“Everybody pitched in,” Suplizio said, noting that council members, the mayor, city officials were part
of the response, “not watching, but helping.” That, he said, “is not the norm” in many places and is “some-thing to be proud of.”
Firefighters from DuBois, Sandy Township, Sykesville and Reynolds-ville responded along with the city police shortly after noon Saturday.
The city’s Public Works Depart-ment worked long after the last flames were extinguished salting and clearing East Park Avenue of ice that built up as temperatures hov-ered in the teens.
Numerous businesses pitched in
with food and beverages and any as-sistance they could offer.
The state police fire marshal said the fire originated in unit 134, which is in the middle of the com-plex. The occupant had a candle lit on an end table and unknowingly placed a blanket on the candle when she went to the kitchen. The blanket ignited.
A new roof was built over the pre-vious roof before the owner, Scott Blose of DuBois, bought the build-ing. Between those roofs, the fire
DuBois officials praise firefighters
By JoAnn Seltzer
ST. MARYS — The St. Marys Area School Board approved spend-ing $10,500 to do an executive search for a new superintendent during Monday’s school board meet-ing.
The board approved the retire-ment of Superintendent of Schools Ann Kearney, South St. Marys Street Elementary School Principal Bob Grumley and Business Manag-er Cindy FinGado, effective June 30.
Board members Pat Rezmerski, John Mulcahy and Stacy McKee were not present.
During Thursday’s workshop meeting, Kearney presented a letter of resignation to the board saying
although the board had offered to extend her contract she had decided it was time to begin a new chapter in her life.
Monday, the board approved us-ing the use of the Pennsylvania School Board Association Executive Search at a cost of $10,500 to find a new superintendent.
The board voted 4-2 in favor of the executive search with board members Bert Sorg and Bryan Chi-appelli voting against it and board members Bob Luchini, Charlie Lip-tak, Matt Quesenberry and Cly-thera Hornung voting in favor of it.
After the meeting Luchini said, “We felt this was a very important
position within the district and we want to find the best person for it.”
The executive search will include planning the search, recruiting pro-spective superintendents, doing the screening process and also partici-pating in the interview process.
Luchini said he doesn’t believe the district has done this before, but many other districts have. He said it doesn’t mean the board will defi-nitely hire someone from outside the area, but they want to make sure they find the best person. This will allow the position to be advertised at least statewide.
Sorg said he would rather the board look locally for a person first before spending the $10,500. He said it may come back the best per-son is someone local. Chiappelli said
he feels the same way and that was why he voted against it.
The board doesn’t intend to do a search of this extent for an elemen-tary school principal at this time, Luchini said after the meeting.
The board approved the Inter-scholastic Athletics policy. The policy says athletes must meet aca-demic requirements to be eligible to play a sport. Eligibility is based on the number of failures instead of the number of passing credits. Stu-dents failing two or more classes in a quarter will be ineligible to par-ticipate in a sport for 20 schools days in the next quarter. If it is the last quarter of the year it would be ap-plied to the first quarter of the fol-lowing school year.
School District to spend $10,500 in superintendent search
By Kimberly Finnigan
CURWENSVILLE — The Curwensville Borough Council continues to discuss issues with a construction project on Schofield Street.
At last month’s council meeting, Councilman Mark Curulla had discussed prob-lems with the project.
At Monday’s meeting, the
council started to discuss the project, but ended the talks without finishing the discussion.
Secretary Autumn Norris said the council had made an appointment with New Enterprise to visit the site and discuss the problems, but that meeting never took place due to the bad weather.
Councilwoman Mary El-len Read said the council
should have the borough’s engineer produce a list of the council’s issues with the project and send a letter list-ing the concerns to the con-tractor.
Read said she had spo-ken with the contractor, who said he had never been ap-proached with any concerns.
Read said she had re-viewed a check list from Hess and Fisher Engineers,
but before she could go into detail about the list, council President Don Hoover said the council was getting out of order (on the meeting’s agenda).
The council did not hold further discussion on the Schofield Street project.
According to previously published Courier-Express articles, the Schofield Street project was to address prob-
lems which started when the road began to collapse as well as repairs to storm drains, manholes and to re-surface and repave the road.
At last month’s meeting, Curulla said he believes the project was “inadequate” to address the problems. Cu-rulla cited problems with crumbling pavement and with catch basins.
Curwensville Council takes a detour on street issue
See Detour, Page A7
See DuBois, Page A7
See School, Page A7
By Nick Hoffman
State House Speaker Sam Smith stunned the political es-tablishment in Harris-burg today by announc-ing that he will not seek another term this year.
Sources familiar with the decision confirmed the news to the Courier-Express this morning.
The Punxsutawney Republican, serving his 28th year in the Legislature and third as the House’s presiding officer, will re-tire at the conclusion of his term at the end of this year.
Smith was first elected from the 66th District in 1986, succeeding his father, L. Eugene “Snuffy” Smith.
Sam Smith is most recently credited for shepherding Gov. Tom Corbett’s $2.3 billion transportation bill through the House on its way to approval in the Sen-ate.
Last week, Cris Dush of Brookville announced that he would challenge Smith in this year’s Republican primary election in May. Smith narrowly defeat-ed Dush two years ago on his way to his 14th term in the House.
A formal statement by Smith was ex-pected later today.
Rep. Smithdecides notto seekre-election
SMITH
Treasure Lake
St. Marys
See TLPOA, Page A7
A1 Front Page
An affiliate of Penn Highlands Healthcare.TM
www.drmc.org
Physical, Occupational & Speech Therapy Please call 375-3372
DuBois, Brockway, Curwensville, Reynoldsville and Force.
The skills you need and a name you can trust.