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VOL. 135 — NO. 34

THURSDAY,JANUARY 9, 2014

[L-V photo by Josh Walzak]

THE FIRST BABY of the new year born at Clarion Hospital came a little bit later than usual this year, as 2014 welcomes Lucas James Walsh at 8:15 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 3. The newborn is the son of Teresa Holdren and David Walsh of Clarion, and was wel-comed into the world by big sister, Emily, age 5. Little Lucas and his family take home a prize package sponsored by The Leader-Vindicator as part of our annual First Baby at Clarion Hospital promotion.

[Top photo by Josh Walzak]

ARMSTRONG COUNTY Sheriff Bill Rupert (right) is congratulated by Senior Judge Joseph Nick-leach and Judges Kenneth Valasek and James Panchik after being administered the oath of of-fice Monday morning in the county courthouse. Rupert, elected in November, takes over from long-time Sheriff Larry Crawford.

A new sheriff in town...

CLARION COUNTY CORONER Terry Shaffer (left photo, at left) and County Sheriff Rex Munsee were just two of the elected officials sworn into office on Jan. 6 at the Clarion County Courthouse. All newly elected and reelected officials were invited to take part in the ceremony. For additional photos from the ceremonies in Clarion and Armstrong counties, see Page A-10.

[L-V photo by Evanne Gareis]

SEVEN DEGREES below zero was re-corded on the sign at New Bethlehem’s S&T Bank Tuesday morn-ing, and reports from around the area came in with lows in the negative double digits overnight. A heat wave of sorts, with tempera-tures reaching into the 40s, is expected to be-gin Saturday and last into early next week.

How cold?

By RON WILSHIREL-V Correspondent

SLIGO – It’s another year, but zoning is well on the way to becoming a nui-sance for Sligo Borough in 2014.

Sligo Borough Coun-cil voted Monday night, on the advice of solicitor Ralph L.S. Montana, to ap-prove the advertisement of an official ordinance to re-peal its zoning ordinance and to formally vote on the matter at its Feb. 3 meet-ing. The council voted last year to abandon its zon-ing ordinance and replace it with a nuisance ordi-nance, but did not adopt an ordinance to make it

official.A nuisance ordinance

was also approved for ad-vertising and will likely be adopted at the February meeting after the first or-dinance is approved.

Montana provided a pro-posed nuisance ordinance for the council last year and reviewed the proposal after deciding to abolish zoning. Council members, at later meetings, offered some suggested revisions that are now reflected in the ordinance being ad-vertised. A copy of the ordinance is available for viewing at the borough of-fice in the Sligo Recreation Center.

Nuisancesremain an issue in Sligo

[Continued on Page A-3]

By KEENAN TORRESL-V Correspondent

RIMERSBURG – A new year means new elections for the Rimersburg Borough Council, which voted on of-ficers for 2014 at its Jan. 6 meeting. Not much suspense was to be had, however, as across the board every-one retained their respective posi-tions with a unanimous vote from the council.

Roger Crick and Lark Palm were re-elected to the positions of presi-dent and vice president on the coun-cil, and Crick also kept his place as a Rimersburg Municipal Authority member.

According to Crick it was the “wrong time to switch gears” on bor-ough solicitor William Hager, who will continue to possess the office for the 2014 year.

The borough’s emergency manage-

ment coordinator will be Don Hosey, and Joel Solida was voted onto the Zoning Hearing Board. Northwest Savings Bank and Clarion County Community Bank were both also approved to continue to serve as de-pository institutions for 2014.

After these positions were filled, the council moved on to discuss when it will hold its meetings in the coming months. The proposal was

Rimersburg retains officers

[Continued on Page A-2]

By EVANNE GAREISL-V Staff Writer

NEW BETHLEHEM – A new year brought a few changes for New Bethlehem’s local elected officials.

During its reorganizational meeting Monday night, the New Bethlehem Borough Council elected officers and discussed goals for 2014.

Newly elected council member Tim Murray and reelected members Terry and Sandy Mateer were sworn in by Mayor Eric Johnston at the Dec. 17 meeting.

The board elected officers with the following re-sults. Sandy Mateer was reelected council presi-dent.

Two candidates, Francis Sesco and Jennifer Mur-

Leaders named for NB Council

[Continued on Page A-2]

By JOSH WALZAKL-V Editor

KITTANNING – The start of the new year brought with it the end of the multi-year, multi-mil-lion dollar emergency ra-dio project for Armstrong County.

County commissioners last week took action to close out work on the more than $7 million radio proj-ect,

Commissioners Dave Battaglia, Bob Bower and Rich Fink approved a final change order to the coun-ty’s contract with Motorola as part of the multi-county project that finished with a price tag of $7,286,565.

Ron Baustert, 911 coor-dinator for the county, said that the final amount rep-resented a savings to the county of about $400,000.

The commissioners also entered into a new con-

tract with Motorola for maintenance of the new radio system.

Baustert said that the radio system is currently six months into its origi-nal two-year warranty and that the county nego-tiated a long-term contract that offers “significant dis-counts” for signing at this time.

The contract, which begins in July 2015 and

County closes out 911 radio project

[Continued on Page A-5]

We are certain it has been darn cold outside these past few days — but when it comes to deter-mining exactly how cold it has been, we’re not quite as certain.

The lowest of the low temperatures surely came in the early morning hours on Tuesday, but depend-ing on what thermometer reading was used, and where that device was placed, has left us with a range of temperatures that run from 16 below zero to a more balmy 8 below zero.

Our conclusion? Even thermometers don’t like it when it gets this cold, and some become tempera-mental and unreliable.

* * *

On the topic of the cold spell, the New Bethlehem [Continued on Page A-5]

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