HARRISBURG – Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R-Beaver/Butler/Lawrence) today announced the Commonwealth Financing Authority awarded a $2 million Business in Our Sites grant and a $3 million Business in Our Sites loan for the development of the Stonecrest Business Park located in New Beaver Borough, Lawrence County.

The Lawrence County Economic Development Corporation (LCEDC), in cooperation with Stonecrest Business Park (SBP), plans to develop a former golf course into the Stonecrest Business Park. The site consisting of 213 acres, 110 acres of which is developable, is accessible to Interstate 79 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike and is 30 minutes north of the Shell Cracker Plant.

“The development of the Stonecrest Business Park in the southern part of the county will build upon other developments already happening in Beaver County and around the Pittsburgh International Airport,” said Bernstine. “This will create more businesses and a significant amount of new jobs, which adds up to strengthening the economy. Approximately 3.3 million Pennsylvanians, including thousands from our area, find themselves looking for work due to the coronavirus pandemic. This project will help the unemployed tremendously. It is anticipated this will result in the creation of more than 1,000 jobs.”

SBP plans to develop up to 1.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial space. In addition, Business in Our Sites loan funds will be used for site excavation, grading construction of roads, streets and engineering. The grant funds will be used to bring utilities to the site. The total cost of the project is almost $7.5 million.

“By building a local hub for businesses to grow, we can expand our tax base and lessen the burden on homeowners,” said Bernstine. “This is a model we can duplicate for all of our communities across the 10^th District.”

The Commonwealth Financing Authority Business in Our Sites funding empowers communities to attract growing and expanding businesses by helping them build an inventory of ready sites. This program is for speculative projects only. Funds cannot be used for projects that are primarily residential or recreational. Sites must be previously used property or undeveloped property that is planned and zoned for development.

 

(New Brighton, Pa.) New Brighton Borough announced yesterday via e-mail that the bridge on Cemetery Road in Pulaski Township, between Grove Avenue and Blockhouse Run Road, will be closed indefinitely on Friday, July 31, 2020 to all traffic. The Bridge which was originally built in 1940 as reported on bridge reports dot com, is known by many people as the Blockhouse Run Bridge and for years has been a short cut to get to Valley Ave and Grove Ave. to avoid the traffic by the New Brighton Middle School. The e-mail said the closure is due to hazardous conditions noted in the most recent Bridge Safety Assessment Report prepared by a PennDOT consulting engineering firm.  Pulaski Township officials will place signs to alert motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists of the bridge closure.

Andrea Sears, Keystone News Exchange

WARREN, Pa. — Wilderness areas are under threat across the United States, but now advocates of preserving open space are hoping to raise awareness of a Pennsylvania native who made protecting wilderness a national priority.

Born in Franklin in 1906, Howard Zahniser worked tirelessly to protect American wilderness. He served as an officer of The Wilderness Society for 19 years and was the principal author of the Wilderness Act, landmark legislation signed into law in 1964.

Kirk Johnson, executive director of Friends of Allegheny Wilderness, said Zahniser’s work led to a vast expansion of nationally protected areas nationwide.

“The total amount of protected wilderness has grown from 9 million acres to more than 111 million acres and 803 wilderness areas, all across the country,” he said.

Johnson said he wants to see Zahniser included in the proposed National Garden of American Heroes, slated to open in 2026.

Johnson said every president since 1964 has signed wilderness legislation into law, including two wilderness areas in Pennsylvania, designated by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“They are the Allegheny Islands Wilderness, seven islands in the Allegheny River, and the Hickory Creek Wilderness, which is 8,600 acres just outside Tidioute, Pa.,” he said.

Some of the Allegheny National Forest also is part of a national network of designated roadless areas that don’t yet have the full protection of the Wilderness Act.

Johnson said his organization is following in Zahniser’s footsteps with an ongoing campaign to preserve that area.

“The Friends of Allegheny Wilderness have proposed that more than 50,000 additional acres of the Allegheny National Forest be permanently protected from all forms of development, under Howard Zahniser’s Wilderness Act,” he said.

As the U.S. population continues to grow, Johnson said, the demand for and protection of untrammeled American wilderness will take on even greater significance.

Biden unveils climate change plan with energy revamp
By ALEXANDRA JAFFE, ELLEN KNICKMEYER and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden released a plan Tuesday aimed at combating climate change and spurring economic growth in part by overhauling America’s energy industry. The plan includes a proposal to achieve entirely carbon pollution-free power by 2035. It’s the latest example of Biden’s efforts to appeal to progressives as he builds out a legislative agenda as the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee. In the plan, Biden pledges to spend $2 trillion over four years on the plan. It’s a significant acceleration of the $1.7 trillion over 10 years he proposed spending in his climate plan during the primary.

Confederate statue removed from prominent spot at Ole Miss
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Confederate monument that’s been a divisive symbol at the University of Mississippi has been removed from a prominent spot on the Oxford campus. Workers removed the monument on Tuesday. It will be taken to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded area of campus. Students and faculty who pushed the university for years to move the statue have also criticized the draft plan for the new site. They say the university is attempting to placate people who favor the Confederate symbols with its plan to provide a lighted pathway to the figure, and possibly add headstones to the previously unmarked graves of other soldiers.

First George Floyd-inspired bills become law in Pennsylvania
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The first bills passed by Pennsylvania’s Legislature in response to widespread protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd are now law with Gov. Tom Wolf’s signature. In a news conference Tuesday in Harrisburg, Wolf, a Democrat, characterized the two bills he signed as small, but important steps toward making society fair. The two bills passed the House and Senate unanimously last month. They are designed to prevent problematic officers from continuing to find employment in police departments, provide officers with more cultural sensitivity training and provide officers with more mental health screening.

Tom Bergeron, Erin Andrews exit ‘Dancing With the Stars’
By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The dance has ended for “Dancing With the Stars” hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews. ABC said in a statement that the show is looking to “embark on a new creative direction” and host Bergeron “departs the show with our sincerest thanks and gratitude for his trademark wit and charm.” Bergeron has hosted “Dancing With the Stars” since its premiere in 2005. He took to Twitter to announce his departure, saying “it’s been an incredible 15-year run.” The network also said farewell to Andrews, who originally competed as a contestant back in 2010 and returned as co-host in 2014. No replacements were named.

Burger King addresses elephant in the room, and it’s a cow
By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer
Burger King is staging an intervention with its cows. The chain has rebalanced the diet of some of the cows by adding lemon grass in a bid to limit bovines contributions to climate change. By tweaking their diet, Burger King said Tuesday that it believes it can reduce a cows’ daily methane emissions by about 33%. Cows emit methane as a by-product of their digestion. Methane emissions from livestock comprised more than a quarter of the emissions from the agriculture sector. With an over-the-top social media campaign that teeters between vulgarity and science, Burger King is banking on the heightened awareness of climate change and its responsibility to limit its own role.

US carries out the 1st federal execution in nearly 2 decades
By MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The U.S. has carried out the first federal execution in nearly two decades, putting to death a man who was convicted of killing an Arkansas family in the 1990s in a plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. Forty-seven-year-old Daniel Lewis Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, died Tuesday after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lee said before his execution that he was innocent. His the first death row inmate to be executed since 2003. Lee’s execution came over the objection of the victims’ family and following a series of legal challenges related to the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Story by News Correspondent Sandy Giordano 

(Aliquippa, Pa.) Aliquippa High School Athletic  Director Brandon Le Donne announced yesterday that Sam Weir, Aliquippa High School girls varsity basketball coach has resigned.   Le Donne said she  sent a letter to the district  and the resignation became effective June 30.  Ms. Weir  accepted a  coaching position at Point Park University.

Interested candidates should submit  an application, resume, and updated clearances to  Brandon LeDonne , Athletic Director, 800 21st Street, Aliquippa, PA  a5001 by the close of business on Wednesday, July 22, 2020