The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 145

TV TheP ittsbmrffli Press urrp crr SUMPAY 1 11 .1 llllll i.tii1 i utT I IllMlllll II .1 Ur--, For the Alle-Kiski Valley SeCtiOIl Sunday, September 27. 1987 i "They were a lot of fun. George Romero was there most of the time, and he gave us all hugs and kisses when he left," Mrs. Bassett said. and the largest seedhead the yellow center of the flower and the photographs will be displayed in the children's room of the library.

GOOD MORNING THINGS ARE GETTING back to normal at Jim and Claire Bassett's 200-acre horse farm in Murrysville after a film crew spent more than a week literally monkeying around in their barn. The Bassetts' barn will star in the upcoming film "Monkey Shines" by Pittsburgh filmmaker George Ronero, who is known for ghoulish films like "Night of the Living Dead." "Monkey Shines" is about monkeys trained to help quadriplegics. Mrs. Bassett says that in the movie, one of the monkeys "gets loose and does some wild things, but it has a happy ending." Last month, the 80-member film crew temporarily transformed the Bassetts' farm into a monkey training center, complete with more than a dozen monkeys. Entrants must use the Plum bicentennial logo in their design and explain their sketch in an essay.

The winner will be made into a flag that will be presented to Plum Council at its January meeting. After that, it will fly in front of the borough building. replicas of three military uniforms from the 1760s for display in the site's small museum, said Mrs. McCloskey, federation president and a member of the Women's Club of New Kensington. So far, the federation has raised $1,500, mostly by selling pencils reading "Help Preserve Bushy Run Battlefield" to its member clubs, which in turn sell them to the public at cost or give them as gifts.

For each $25 worth of pencils bought, local clubs will receive a colored feather, Mrs. McCloskey said. Local clubs also will earn a feather if 10 percent of their members visit the battlefield. The results will be seen next spring, when club presidents don headresses made from the feathers for a powwow. HANDY WITH A PEN and ink? Like to doodle with magic markers or colored pencils? You may be interested in designing Plum's bicentennial flag.

The Plum Bicentennial Committee is holding a contest open to current or former residents to celebrate the borough's 200th anniversary next year. The designs are to be simple sketches on paper in any medium, said borough Manager Alberta Horner, so you don't have to know how to thread a needle. been too hungry this year. Michele Nestor, head librarian, said the library gave out 55 packets of sunflower seeds to local children in May, but only 20 sunflowers were still around this month for judging. The rest were devoured by hungry groundhogs seeking a "delicacy," she said.

If the sunflowers survived the summer, children may submit their plant's measurements and a photo of themselves with the plants by the end of next month. Prizes will be awarded in November for the tallest sunflower NEW KENSINGTON resident Lois McCloskey is hoping to see 30 women in colorful Indian headdresses next April at a meeting of the Westmoreland County Federation of Women's Clubs. The more feathers, the more money the clubs will have raised to benefit Bushy Run Battlefield in a year-long fundraiser that ends in December. The federation, which encompasses some 30 women's clubs in Westmoreland County, hopes to raise $3,000 to buy artifacts and for THESAXONBURG Area Library staff hopes to attract a lot of entries to its Sun-f lower-Funf lower Contest, provided that area groundhogs haven't State is asked to investigate school official Bitar's voting Anthology recaptures growing up in Tarentum 1 By Christine Vorce The Pittsburgh Press $1 i 1. 1 r1 By Tim Vercellotti The Pittsburgh Press WINDSOR'S PIANO and Music Store, Renouf's Landing, the Star Confectionery and other Tarentum landmarks may be gone, but as far as Richard Curry Esler is concerned, they aren't forgotten.

Nor is Police Chief William Hazlett, "Doc" Nolan, teacher Clara Getze and other "village characters" from the community's past. The people and places of Tarentum earlier this century are remembered in "Once Upon a Time in Tarentum: An Allegheny Anthology," to be published in November by a Natrona Heights printing firm. The anthology, Esier's 12th, contains poems fea- tured in two earlier works, "The Days That Are No I More" and "Stuck Fast in Yesterday," and new material as well. The Natrona Heights resident's recollections of growing up in Tarentum are presented in poems, monologues from past residents and a collection of "ballads, recipes and reflections." The material comes from memories, as well as journals that Esler, 77, has kept since he was a student at Tarentum High School. As an engineering major at the University of Pittsburgh, he also enrolled in English courses and thrived on the works of William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, T.S.

Eliot, E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams and others. He began writing poetry while in college, eventual-. ly changed his major to English, and taught at Tarentum High School after graduation in 1931. His first exposure as an author occurred in 1932 or '33, when he submitted a short story that won a contest sponsored by Hunting and Fishing magazine and appeared in the publication.

Other short stories, poems and how-to articles followed, as well as graduate work in English, psychology and engineering at Pitt and Pennsylvania State University. Esler left teaching to work in the quality control department at PPG Industries' Creighton plant in 1944, and eventually managed the company's quality control field service office in Pittsburgh until his retirement in 1973. The University of Pittsburgh Press published Esier's first anthology, "Exits and Entrances," in 1961. A second collection, "Twenty Ballads Stuck About the Wall," was published in 1967 by Prairie Press in Charleston, 111. Esler published on his own later anthologies, as well as two nooks of genealogical history and a collection of short stories.

Travels across the country and around the world on behalf of PPG provided material for many of his works, but it is his boyhood that gives the spark to "Once Upon a Time in Tarentum." Please see Tarentum, V6 ANEW KENSINGTON resident has asked the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission to determine whether New Kensington-Arnold School Director Henry Bitar violated state law by repeatedly voting, as a member of the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, for transportation contracts his wife has held with the IU since 1971. Ann Ribar, a member of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for Education with Fair Taxation, said she signed and mailed a sworn complaint to the commission Friday on behalf of the coalition because "we feel this has gone on too long." "We all agree as members that this should be done and should have been done a long time ago," Mrs. Ribar said. John Contino, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said the agency reviews each complaint internally to make sure it falls within the scope of the ethics law. If such is the case and the complaint contains enough supporting evidence, the commission may either perform a preliminary investigation or launch a full investigation, Contino said.

While the commission informs the complainant of the investigation's progress every 30 days, the agency will not- publicly discuss any ongoing business, neither confirming nor denying that it has received a complaint or begun any type of investigation, Contino said. The commission has no time limit for completing an investigation, he added. But when the seven-member commission issues a final order in the case, which includes its findings and possible penalities if the law has been violated, the document becomes public, Contino said. Bitar, who has represented New Kensington-Arnold on the IU board since the organization's inception in 1971, has voted 11 times since 1971 to award yearly transportation contracts worth $133,923.60 to Rose Marie Bitar or Ar Ken, a company she owns, according to a Pittsburgh Press review of IU board minutes and the contracts. He abstained four years, and the minutes do not indicate whether a roll call vote was taken in one year.

In addition, the contracts held by Rose Marie Bitar were neither bid nor publicly disclosed before approval by the IU board a set of circumstances that may place Mrs. Bitar's contracts in violation of the ethics law. The Ethics Act bars public officials from using their office to obtain financial gain for themselves or members of their immediate family. The law also forbids public officials or members of their immediate family from holding contracts worth more than $500 with governmental agencies unless the contract has been awarded through an open and public process, including prior public notice and subsequent public dislosure. The IU's transportation contracts are not bid because state law does not require bidding.

Instead, personnel at Please see Ethics. V2 I Anay SiarnesTne PinsDurgn Press Richard Esler at station where he boarded trains to commute to Pitt Armstrong commissioners have 3-way split on airport site established adjacent to the Leechburg Airport in 1977, employ 300 people, while businesses in the West Hills Industrial Park, established in 1972, employ only 165. The potential conversion of the former Schenley Distilly into an industrial park is also a plus, Myers said. "In my opinion, we need an airport in the Kiski Valley. That's where the growth is.

Please see Airport. V4 Aviation Administration by Wednesday's deadline. Cress was flabbergasted Friday when informed that each commissioner voted for one of three airport sites, effectively voiding each other's votes. "I knew there was some difference of opinion, but I didn't expect this," he said. "We have done everything we thought was needed to get to this stage." Commission Chairman Carl Culp cast his vote for a site in the Slate Myers' niece is married to the airport owner, and his brother formerly owned the private air field.

The commissioner's vote, however, does not constitute a conflict of interest as defined by the state Ethics Act because nieces are not considered members of the immediate family. Myers said Thursday that the southern end of the county is experiencing the industrial growth needed to support an airport. Businesses in the Kiski Valley Industrial Park, Lick section of South Buffalo, while Commissioner Harry Fox favored a site in the West Hills area of East Franklin. Both sites were finalists selected by Cress and an airport advisory committee. Despite a family tie to the site, Commissioner Grover Myers cast his vote for the Kiski Valley Airport, also known as the Leechburg Airport.

That site was not one of Cress's six semi-finalists, but has drawn intense support from groups in the Leechburg area. -By Sandy Trozzo The Pittsburgh Press BY FAILING to reach a consensus on the location of an airport and industrial park on Thursday, the Armstrong County commissioners may have delayed the process further than they expected. t' The federal Airport Improvement Program, which provides funding for the planning and development of airports, will expire Wednesday, said Donald Cress, the county's aviation consultant. "After the 30th, technically we're out of business" until Congress passes legislation to reactivate the program for another five years, Cress said. He added that the legislation may not be passed until November at the earliest.

But Cress added that even if the commissioners had settled the issue Thursday, they might not have gotten their application to the Federal Westmoreland targets quick action on new prison at Hempfield space would limit the population at the center to 31 inmates. Noting that overcrowding pro-heightened tensions and violence in jails, Moyer commended Warden Kurt Scalzott and his staff for "keeping this place together and keeping it running." "It's a credit to Scalzott and the staff that this facility runs as trouble-free as it does," Moyer said. To help solve the overcrowding in the interim, the commissioners vot-Please Prison. V2 the safety of inmates and employees. The conditions also leave the county vulnerable to lawsuits, the consultant said.

The detention center now houses about 107 inmates, with another 15 to 20 placed at a cost of about $40 per day in jails in neighboring counties, deputy warden Ed Nicola said last week. The facility originally was designed to house 56 inmates. In presenting his report to the commissioners last week, consultant Fred Moyer told officials that meeting accepted standards for prison In addition to Vidmer and Commissioners Ted Simon and Terry Marolt, the prison board is made up of District Attorney John Driscoll, Controller Tom Tangretti, President Judge Gilfert Mihalich and Sheriff John Peck. Peck did not attend the meeting. County officials have been working to develop plans for a new prison since June 1986, when a consultant from the National Institute of Corrections warned that overcrowding and poor building condition at the county detention center jeopardize "The recommendation for a 318-bed facility sounds quite appropriate," Commissioner Richard Vidmer said, urging the board to move ahead quickly with the project because of continuing overcrowding at the Westmoreland County Detention Center in Greensburg.

"We're sitting on a razor's edge with respect to the liability questions and other problems," Vidmer said. "The faster we move, the better off we'll be." The commissioners didn't indicate when they would take i. the proposal. county prison board on which all three commissioners sit followed the recommendation of a consulting firm hired last spring to determine just what type, style and size of prison Westmoreland County needs. The firm, Moyer Associates of Glencoe, 111., presented four options ranging in size from 270 beds to 390 beds and in cost from $18.5 million to $23.5 million in a 139-page report formally presented to the prison board Thursday.

County officials could still opt for a different size the planning progresses. By Christine Vorce The Pittsburgh Press ACKNOWLEDGING A NEED to move quickly, the Westmoreland County commissioners will consider a recommendation to build a 318-bed county prison next to the state's Regional Correctional Facility in Hempfield, on land now owned by the state, at an estimated cost of $20.8 million. 'i a unanimous vote last week, the.