Policy won't cover mold

Policy won't cover mold
WARREN -- Trumbull County's insurance policy will not cover the removal of poisonous mold from the health department basement, officials were told this week.
Fixing the mold problem could cost as much as $70,000, with no guarantee that the problem would not reoccur, said Joseph J. Angelo, a county commissioner. Commissioners have not determined if they will fix or sell the 50-year-old Chestnut Avenue building, he said. The basement has been sealed since May.
Plans to move the 30 health department employees to the county-owned Wean Building are still under discussion, he said. Three emergency management agency employees whose offices were in the moldy basement have been relocated to the county 911 center.
Sentenced to 5 years
WARREN -- A 26-year-old city man, who has pleaded guilty to one count of felonious assault and one count of escape, has been sentenced to five years in prison. Judge W. Wyatt McKay sentenced John Paul Kellar on Tuesday after a brief hearing in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
Prosecutors said Kellar was released from prison last year after serving six months on an aggravated assault charge. Kellar failed to appear for his parole hearing Jan. 3 and that is why he was convicted on the escape charge.
Prosecutors also said that on July 12, Kellar was at a party when he got into an argument and punched a woman.
Hall of fame inductee
COLUMBUS -- Zell Hart-Deming, a former Warren newspaper executive, is among the 12 women included in the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame 2002 class. The 24th annual induction ceremony will be Oct. 7 at the Ohio Statehouse.
Hart-Deming, who was born in 1868 and died in 1936, was a president, general manager and controlling stockholder of the Tribune Chronicle in Warren. She is the only Mahoning Valley woman to be inducted this year.
Grant for police
LIBERTY -- U.S. Justice Department's Office of Community Policing Services has awarded a $125,000 grant to the township to hire a patrol officer. The grant will be used to reimburse the township for the salary and benefits of an officer for three years.
Child safety seminar
HUBBARD -- A free child safety seminar will be from 10 a.m. to noon Sept. 28 at Hubbard Taekwondo, 116 E. Liberty St.
The seminar has been designed to provide children and parents with basic information about child endangerment. The seminar will address youth protection strategies, basic self-defense, how to recognize danger, how to resist the abuser and basic rules of safety for children.
Fuel Mart robbed
NILES -- A robber got away early today with $153 from Fuel Mart, 140 W. Park Ave. A clerk told police a white man wearing a blue ski mask, blue pants and a hooded sweat shirt walked into the store about 3:30 a.m. and indicated he had a weapon in his right pocket. He took the money and fled.
Probation for area man
AUSTINTOWN -- A Salem man has been sentenced to a year of reporting probation for lying to police about why he was walking naked in Milton Township in November.
Joseph Hampson, 34, of Georgetown Road also was ordered to pay $150 in fines and court costs Thursday by Judge David D'Apolito in Mahoning County Court in Austintown. D'Apolito also gave Hampson a 180-day suspended jail sentence and ordered him to undergo alcohol counseling.
Hampson had pleaded guilty to falsification. Reports state that Hampson was naked when he flagged down a township police officer at about 2 a.m. Nov. 10 on North Newton Falls Road. When questioned by police, Hampson said he had been gang-raped and robbed by three men in a maroon vehicle. He later told police he made up the story.