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Steel Valley board snubs coach, hires baseball assistant (Trib-Daily News)

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By Stacy Lee, MCKEESPORT DAILY NEWS

Steel Valley High School baseball players and their parents lined the walls of the school's conference room Monday night to support their coach Tim Vickers and his recommendation for assistant baseball coach.

After approximately an hour of comments from the public and school directors, the majority of the school board voted not to hire Micheal Beck, Vickers' choice as assistant.

P Instead, the board hired John Skeels by a 5-3 vote at the special school board meeting.

School board president Beth Cannon, who is Skeels' aunt, and directors Donald Bajus, Donna Kiefer, Michael Terrick and Colette Youngblood voted in favor of Skeels.

District solicitor Don Fetzko said Cannon could vote because Skeels is not her parent, spouse, child, brother or sister.

School board vice president Vince Natale and directors Susan Ballas and Thomas Olson voted to hire Beck.

School director Joe Ducar was absent.

"It is what it is," Vickers said about the vote. "On one hand, I'm disappointed because I went through the process of selecting who I desired to be along with us throughout the year. On the other hand, I'm relieved to know the JV team will be able to start getting ready for the season."

Read more: Steel Valley board snubs coach, hires baseball assistant - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

 

Sandcastle nearing bike trail agreement (P-G)

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Last link in Great Allegheny Passage

By Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Allegheny County and Sandcastle Waterpark are expected to announce an agreement within days that will allow completion of the last missing piece of a biking and hiking trail linking Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

"I really expect we'll have a formal announcement in the next couple days," said James Judy, vice president of operations for Palace Entertainment, owner of the park.

"I believe that is probably going to be the case," agreed county spokesman Kevin Evanto.

The deal would cap years of negotiations aimed at finding a way to accommodate the trail on the park's narrow strip of land between a railroad line and the Monongahela River.

The roughly one-mile stretch is the last link in the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., where it connects to the C&O Towpath to Washington.

When all is complete, it will be possible to bike about 335 continuous, mostly flat miles from Pittsburgh to the nation's capital without interference from motorized traffic.

The former owners of Sandcastle for years resisted efforts to build the trail through the park, saying there wasn't enough room.

"The next time you visit Sandcastle take a close look at the tight access road and try to visualize a 10-foot-wide trail running between the road and the railroad tracks. I hope you will conclude that not having the available land wide enough for a trail does not make us stubborn," said Peter McAneny, then-president of Kennywood Entertainment, in a 2008 letter to the Post-Gazette.

[ Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10194/1072356-455.stm?cmpid=HBEHTML#ixzz0tZOYFJWt ]

 

Aging gym holds hope for Homestead (P-G)

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Parents and community leaders plan after-school program for middle schoolers

By Vivian Nereim, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jim Cannistraci, executive director of the Methodist Union of Social Agencies, poses for a portrait Sunday inside the gym, which is owned by the Steel Valley Council of Governments.

The aging gymnasium is an unlikely place to hold the hopes of a community. The walls are faded orange and the basketball hoops have long been out of service, bare backboards with painted-over graffiti. It is cold in the winter and stuffy in the summer. The floor is uneven, coated with dust.

But parents and stakeholders in Homestead believe that with enough money and hard work, the empty gymnasium off 17th Avenue could become a haven for their children, who have little to do after Steel Valley Middle School lets out except sit in the Carnegie Library or wander the streets.

"If they're not somewhere safe, then they're on the corner, or they're watching somebody fighting," said the Rev. Terry Groce, the mother of a 12-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl.

For more than six months, the Rev. Jim Cannistraci has been formulating a plan to give Steel Valley Middle School students a safe space to stay after school, supervised and well-fed.

[ Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10193/1072156-55.stm#ixzz0tTPLbNty ]

 

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