Panel seeks settlement

Panel seeks settlement
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- The three-member panel charged with coming up with a settlement proposal for a new Hermitage School District teacher contract needs another day to complete its hearing on the matter.
The panel met Wednesday afternoon and evening with teacher and school board representatives and extended the hearing to this afternoon, scheduling meetings at 1 p.m. with the teachers and 3 p.m. with the school board.
The panel will then draft a settlement plan, although it won't be binding on either party. Teachers struck for seven days in March but were ordered back to work by the state so the district could complete 180 days of school by June 15. The board is offering $1,600 annual wage increases in a three-year pact. Teachers are seeking $2,200 raises.
Manslaughter trial date
LISBON -- An Oct. 1 trial date has been set for a Hanoverton couple charged with involuntary manslaughter in the alcohol-related traffic death of Lisa Groner, 16, of Leetonia.
Wanita Bolton, 29, and Travis Bolton, 30, appeared Wednesday with their attorneys James Hartford and Lawrence Stacey II for a pretrial hearing before Judge C. Ashley Pike of Columbiana County Common Pleas Court.
Last month the Boltons pleaded innocent to third-degree felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and five misdemeanor charges related to Groner being a minor.
Groner died March 1 in a one-car crash on Teegarden Road in Salem Township.
Prosecutors have said the Boltons provided the premises where Groner consumed alcohol that day, and Wanita Bolton's brother, Joseph McCallister, 21 of Teegarden Road, Lisbon, gave Groner beer or other alcoholic beverages.
McCallister's pretrial date is July 18 before Judge David Tobin.
Rig dumps rubbish
NEW CASTLE, Pa. --About 40,000 pounds of rubbish was scattered in a Mahoning Township yard after a tractor-trailer broke in half after hitting a bump in the asphalt.
Pennsylvania State Police said the rubbish was being cleaned up this morning at a house on U.S. Route 224. They said Rodney P. Alexander, 70, of Bridgeport, Conn., was traveling west when his tractor-trailer hit a bump, and broke in half at 2:30 a.m.
Police said the vehicle hit a utility post and crashed into a vinyl fence before toppling over. The Mahoning Township Volunteer Fire Department was called to help clean up. Police said Alexander was not hurt.
Credit-card fraud case
PITTSBURGH -- A federal grand jury here has indicted a McDonald, Ohio, woman on charges of credit-card fraud and possessing and uttering a forged check. The two-count indictment named Jamie Lynn Gentile, 42, of Ohio Avenue as the sole defendant.
The indictment says Gentile was employed as the office manager of a dental practice maintained by Dr. George Mendel of New Castle. The indictment says Gentile fraudulently obtained a corporate credit card and charged in excess of $13,000 in goods and services for her personal use.
It also charges Gentile with forging a check on the business account. She made the check payable to herself in the amount of $400.
She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted, said Mary Beth Buchanon, a United States attorney. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation.
Jail assault reported
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A Lawrence County Jail inmate is charged with assault by prisoner after a fight with his cellmate.
City police said 26-year-old inmate was on top of his 25-year-old cellmate when guards checked on them at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday. The cellmate was screaming for help, they said. The 25-year-old man had to be treated at Jameson Memorial Hospital for puncture wounds on his neck and his upper right arm, police said.
Police did not have an address for the man charged or know why he was being held in the jail.
Power to be restored
GREENVILLE, Pa.-- A tree fell on a power line in the borough around 7:20 a.m. today, knocking out electrical service to about 800 Pennsylvania Power Co. customers.
Company spokesman Randy Coleman said the cause of the tree falling was unknown but that power was to be restored sometime today. About 1,500 Penn Power customers in Mercer County and 1,500 more in the New Castle area lost electrical service in a storm that rolled across the area shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday.