Even as the global covid pandemic kept its grip on the Alle-Kiski Valley for a second year, 2021 saw its share of other significant developments, including the arrival of a major brewery, a concerted effort to diminish blight and even the rebirth of some downtown areas.
Here are some of the top local stories of the year:
To mask or not to mask
Maybe nothing was as controversial this year as the question of whether to require students to wear masks at school. With the arrival of covid vaccines early in the year, many residents were hopeful that life would “get back to normal,” but the rise of the delta variant and the slow initial vaccine rollout kept masks at the forefront of daily life — even now.
It came as no surprise that local school districts began the year with mask mandates. It was seen as a step forward given the remote learning students and teachers struggled with for much of 2020. Masks meant students could return to classrooms, where most agree students learn best.
The advent of vaccines for school-age kids, though, left some parents wondering why their vaccinated children had to continue wearing masks. The topic became a catalyst for protests and rowdy school board meetings, especially when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all students to mask up regardless of vaccination status.
Petitions were circulated, and parents and students protested outside several districts, opposed to mandatory masking. At Kiski Area, the pickets lasted for three days, with parents complaining the measure was draconian and an infringement on their children’s rights.
The Burrell School District offered individual meetings with parents seeking medical exemptions for their children.
Almost all local districts conducted surveys of parents on whether they supported or opposed mandatory masking. In each case, the results were almost evenly split, leaving district officials in the position of angering half of their constituents no matter what path they chose.
In the end, with the state announcing it would lift the mandate in January and a state court ruling that the mandate was unconstitutional, the majority of districts reverted to a mask-optional policy, meaning parents would decide if their children wore masks or not.
What didn’t change was a federal rule requiring masks on all forms of public transportation, including school buses.
Grab an ‘Iron’
The former Pittsburgh Glass Works building in East Deer stood shuttered since 2018. Originally a PPG glass manufacturing center, it was an employment and local tax revenue hub for decades. The loss of about 200 jobs there, and accompanying loss of tax dollars, were a tough hit for the community and the larger region.
Then, Iron City Brewing noticed the industrial site, and a new source of jobs was soon on the way. That was in 2019, but it wasn’t until this year that progress at the site became visible. An underground mine fire that had been burning under a portion of the plant was extinguished.
Workers began the renovation of the plant in earnest. Giant brewing kettles arrived. A sign went up.
Almost overnight, it seemed, East Deer had become a major beer brewing hub. Plans for the riverside site include not just production of the company’s signature brews, but also a marina and even retail sales of beer.
The facility, expected to open in 2022, will be able to produce 150,000 barrels of beer a year.
Building it up by tearing it down
If there is a silver lining to the pandemic cloud, the battle against blighted properties might be it.
Alle-Kiski Valley river towns have been battling blight for decades, chipping away at removing dangerous structures with the little money they could squirrel away year to year on tight budgets.
The federal reaction to the pandemic changed that with the passage of the American Recovery Act. The massive federal spending bill contained billions of dollars for state and local governments coping with the pandemic and the economic downturn that came with it.
Among the multiple federal grants available under the bill, hundreds of millions of dollars suddenly became available for local governments to put toward blight reduction. The infusion of money meant towns could get rid of the eyesores they had been battling for years.
New Kensington, Arnold, Tarentum and Leechburg, to name a few, poured some of the money into demolitions, sometimes contracting for up to a dozen structures to be razed under a single contract. In years past, towns often were grateful to get rid of one or two blighted properties.
Officials, and neighbors of those properties, say the work doesn’t just remove a safety hazard. It also raises property values and provides opportunity for new housing or for residents to expand their yards, providing neighborhoods with more green space and a less-crowded atmosphere.
If you fix it, they will come
As recently as a few years ago, many people didn’t hold much hope that downtown New Kensington would regain its past glory as a thriving commercial center. To be sure, lots more has to happen for that to take place. But 2021 saw a rebirth, of sorts, along the city’s Fifth Avenue corridor.
Penn State New Kensington had been working on its Corridor of Innovation along Fourth Avenue for a couple of years, buying buildings and putting in business incubators and shared office space with money from a universitywide program committed to improving the towns where the state’s largest university has branch campuses.
Then Michael Malcanas saw an opportunity in the vacant Fifth Avenue buildings.
So he bought a dozen of them.
He fixed them up, hoping to get new businesses to lease space there. He anticipated getting two or three leases signed this year. Instead, he got 12. The results over the past year: at least seven new businesses fully open along Fifth Avenue, including VooDoo brewery, Trademark Threads and Sweet Tillies, with more on the way.
The success led to more city events, such as Fridays on Fifth, when a festival-like atmosphere takes over along the once largely abandoned stretch of commercial real estate.
EMS missing money
The year wasn’t without its bad news, some of it a holdover from 2020.
Freeport’s ambulance service was a victim of theft, and one of its own was accused.
The missing money, almost $98,000, was discovered last year, but news of the theft was little more than internet rumor until November, when borough officials confirmed the theft but said the money had been paid back — and no criminal charges were filed.
The privately run ambulance service, which gets no tax dollars for its operations, opted to forgo seeking charges if the money was paid back in its entirety. But rumors of a cover-up and more missing money persisted. That led to the confirmation of the news as ambulance officials felt compelled to clear up misinformation.
Although no charges have been filed, state police confirmed that an investigation is ongoing. They say they have documents and a forensic examination underway but said the investigation could take time. Meanwhile, Freeport EMS Executive Director Chris O’Leath said the case centers around Councilman Justin DeAngelis, who, he says, was the only person with access to the money when the thefts occurred.
According to officials, DeAngelis resigned from the ambulance company and the borough’s fire department when the thefts were discovered and resigned his post on borough council earlier this month.
State police said an agreement between DeAngelis for complete repayment in exchange for the ambulance company not seeking criminal charges will have no effect on their investigation.
Faith is fireproof
When fire tore through St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Arnold on Dec. 4, it caused an estimated $4 million in damage, but it couldn’t destroy some of the church’s most cherished artifacts.
It also didn’t affect the faith of the church’s pastor or its congregants, who sang hymns and held services the next morning in the church’s social hall instead of the century-old worship hall.
Inside that worship space, the metal roof is bent by the heat and firefighters’ efforts to stop the blaze. Scorch marks are everywhere.
But paintings, statues, the tabernacle and more were saved, somehow not consumed by the flames despite fire damage all around them.
The congregation of fewer than 40 families has vowed to rebuild, announcing that a recovery plan could be ready by January.
For now, the services, pierogi sales — even bingo — will go on. The congregation finds strength in their faith and each other.
Observed the Rev. Yaroslav Koval, church pastor, “The church is not the building.”
End of an era
The Alle-Kiski Valley will say goodbye to one of its own in January when New Kensington native John Peck ends his tenure as Westmoreland County district attorney.
Peck, 74, has held the job for 27 years, assuming the post in 1994 when then-District Attorney John Driscoll became a county judge. Peck was unseated in November’s general election by another Alle-Kiski Valley resident, Republican Nicole Ziccarelli of Lower Burrell.
Peck prosecuted some of the region’s highest-profile cases, including the slaying of New Kensington police Officer Brian Shaw, the case of six Greensburg roommates convicted of torturing and killing a mentally disabled woman and the 1984 retrial of infamous “Kill for Thrill” murderers John Lesko and Michael Travaglia.
The passing of ‘one of the good guys’
Residents from Lower Burrell to the halls of the Westmoreland County Courthouse were shaken to learn of the death of David A. Regoli on Dec. 9. An attorney, former county judge and Lower Burrell councilman, Regoli’s unexpected death was met with shock and grief.
Fellow attorneys, judges and politicians described Regoli as an astute lawyer with a sharp wit, sense of humor and drive to help others. Accolades flowed as well from former clients, who said Regoli often helped when no one else would.
Regoli, a Democrat, was appointed to the Westmoreland County bench in 2014 by then-Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, a testament to his popularity, even with the opposing political party.
Social justice issue hits home
An incident in April at a Vandergrift eatery brought the nation’s struggle with social justice issues close to home.
Vandergrift police Officer William Moore was suspended without pay for a month after he was accused of racial profiling when he removed a Black patron from G&G Restaurant. According to reports, Moore was dispatched for a report of someone smoking marijuana outside the restaurant.
Moore was recorded on cellphone video confronting a Black man inside the restaurant and asking him to leave. The man accused Moore of racial profiling because he was the only Black man in the restaurant, although the information Moore was given when responding was that the person smoking marijuana was Black.
No charges were filed against the man, and Moore was reinstated after his suspension.
