State briefs
Man sentenced ERIE, Pa. (AP) – A man who allowed his bedridden housemate to die in their filthy, rodent- and insect-infested home while he took a trip to Las Vegas will spend 11 to 23 months in prison.
Raymond Carinci, 49, of Erie, apologized during Wednesday’s sentencing in Erie County Court and said he didn’t mean to hurt his companion, Daryl Williams, 48.
Judge John Bozza ordered Carinci to receive mental health treatment to help him understand how and why he neglected Williams.
Carinci told police he left opened food and drinks for Williams before the trip, and returned to find Williams “dehydrated and disoriented” on July 30. Carinci pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in December.
The home was littered with waist-high garbage and feces, police said.
Appeal planned
ERIE, Pa. (AP) – The attorney for a biological father of surrogate triplets has filed a notice that he’ll appeal a decision to award primary custody of the boys to the surrogate mother.
The notice filed with the state Superior Court preserves James O. Flynn’s right to appeal a ruling last month by Erie County Judge Shad Connelly.
Connelly last month awarded custody of the children to Danielle Bimber of Corry, who was paid to carry the embryos created with Flynn’s sperm and a donor egg. Flynn is an Ohio university professor.
Bimber kept the children after she gave birth to them in Erie in November 2003, saying she didn’t feel Flynn and his fiancee had bonded with the children. Connelly eventually agreed.
Park proposal set
MEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) – The trustees for Conneaut Lake Park filed a court-ordered plan to turn around the historic amusement park’s fortunes.
The plan filed in Crawford County Court on Wednesday calls for leasing some of the park’s most popular features, including its Beach Club and Down Under bar, to an outside company to raise money. The trustees also plan to lease the park’s midway and campground to outside firms.
The trustees also plan to pay off $209,000 in debt this year, in what they say is the first step of getting out from under more than $2 million in debt. If all goes well, the debt could be low enough to be refinanced in a couple of years.
Judge Anthony Vardaro must approve the plan, but it wasn’t clear when he’d rule on it. The park had various owners who tried unsuccessfully to revive its fortunes, before the state took control of it in the late 1990s in an attempt to make sure creditors were paid.
Differences settled
PITTSBURGH (AP) – The media and the public weren’t allowed to watch – but members of two boards charged with overseeing Pittsburgh’s failing finances say they ironed out their differences.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette unsuccessfully sued to open Wednesday’s meeting between the city’s Act 47 financial recovery board and an oversight board appointed by the state Legislature.
The meeting was called by Dennis Yablonsky, secretary for the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development, which administers Act 47, the state law governing financially distressed municipalities.
The oversight board has been arguing with Mayor Tom Murphy and the Act 47 team that Murphy favors over the city’s decision to negotiate new five-year contracts with its police and firefighters. The oversight board wants the city to pursue shorter contracts so it have more flexibility in reorganizing those departments to save money.
Officials from both boards say it was proper to meet privately because they discussed litigation related to the contracts. They two groups plan to meet regularly to keep lines of communication open.
340 jobs threatened
MIFFLINBURG, Pa. (AP) – Yorktowne Cabinets is moving part of its business out of state and as many as 340 workers stand to lose their jobs, employees said.
The planned facility in Danville, Va., will replace the current finish and assembly plant, said Rick Mabus, vice president of the plant’s union. The plant in Mifflinburg employs between 300 and 340 people.
Mabus said the reason for the closure appears to be environmental regulations, adding that the company told workers it is cheaper for Yorktowne to build a new plant than to pay for new pollution control equipment at Mifflinburg.
He said officials expect the plant in Virginia to be completed by November with employees in Mifflinburg being phased out in the first several months of 2006.
Yorktowne officials declined to comment.
Operations consolidated
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) – Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. is consolidating its operations, a plan that could leave 250 people looking for work.
The company decided to consolidate its underwriting and policy production operations into similar facilities in Portsmouth, N.H., and Gainesville, Ga., company spokesman Glenn Greenberg said.
About 250 of the 330 affected employees in Williamsport will be eligible to seek other positions within the company or accept a severance package and outplacement assistance, he said.
The closing will take place over the next 14 months, the company said in a statement.
“Much of it is really triggered by the increased efficiency we’ve experienced through automation and policy production,” Greenberg said.
Portsmouth and Gainesville were chosen over Williamsport because they have other substantial operations, he said.
Damage studied
LEBANON, Pa. (AP) – A bridge that has been unusable since the remnants of Hurricane Ivan swept through in September likely is damaged beyond repair, officials said.
Coon Creek Road bridge, which has spanned Raccoon Creek in East Hanover Township for 60 years, will probably cost $500,000 to fix, township supervisor Tom Donmoyer said. That’s more than the township’s annual budget.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is offering the township $46,000 for repairs, but engineer Mark Wilson of Wilson Consulting Group in Mechanicsburg said the township should put the money toward replacing rather than repairing the bridge.
Donmoyer said his search for money will begin with the county commissioners.
Layoffs planned
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) – The American Red Cross Northeastern Pennsylvania Blood Services is laying off about 80 workers.
The layoffs should be completed in about nine months, Red Cross spokeswoman Molly Dalton said Wednesday.
“An evaluation of our operations, organizational structure and fundamental core mission has led us to make some difficult business decisions that will affect valuable members of our team here,” she said.
Dalton said the layoffs would have no impact on blood drives.
The Blood Services Center in Hanover Township employs about 300 people and serves 21 counties in Pennsylvania and three counties in New York.
Hospital responds
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) – Moses Taylor Hospital is suspending vacation time accrual and increasing employee health insurance costs in an effort to get back on its financial feet.
“We need to make some significant changes to ensure that Moses Taylor Hospital will see a positive financial turnaround within the next five months,” Harold E. Anderson, hospital president and chief executive, wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday.
On Jan. 21, Standard & Poor’s has lowered its rating on Moses Taylor’s $40 million debt, saying that years of financial losses and continuing money troubles have left the health system with critically low levels of available cash.
Anderson said last week that the hospital would return to profitability but that money would be tight and sacrifices would be necessary.
Charges leveled
STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) – Monroe County prosecutors have leveled felony charges against one Poconos home builder and said they are investigating six other builders as part of a growing probe into real estate fraud in the region.
Keith Kunz, 52, the owner of Rosewood Homes in Tannersville, is the first person to be charged in the investigation, which includes charges of phantom payments and inflated down payments.
Detective Eric Kerchner, who conducted the Kunz investigation, said separate investigations of other builders were under way.
The expanding investigation required the hiring of another detective, Kerchner said.
“The majority of our files are builder-related,” he said.