WEST MIDDLESEX, SHENANGO TWP. To cut costs, officials mull sharing services

The owner is serving time in jail on sex-related charges.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
SALEM -- Business at Mimi's Cafe dropped after its owner, Art Spack, was charged with sex offenses early last year.
Now, with Spack serving a 180-day sentence in the Columbiana County Jail and customer numbers still down, the shop will be sold at an auction set for March 2. The last day for the two full-time and three part-time employees is Feb. 28.
"We're hoping it sells as a business," Cindy Spack, Spack's wife, said this morning.
Spack, former Summitville mayor, bought the cafe in 2000.
Auctioneers will seek the highest bidder for Mimi's as a business. But they also will auction its equipment and furniture.
Whichever brings in the best price is how the cafe, located at 148 Penn Ave., will be sold, Cindy Spack explained.
If it's sold as a business, that would mean that the shop, which sells gourmet coffee, pastries and light meals, could reopen as a similar enterprise.
Should it be auctioned piecemeal, it would remain closed.
Business for the cafe hasn't been good for a while, and it's likely it would have been closed even if Spack hadn't been arrested and convicted, his wife said.
About the charges
Spack was sentenced in December and began serving his jail term Jan. 2.
As part of a plea agreement, Spack had pleaded no contest to reduced misdemeanor charges of soliciting sex for hire, sexual contact with a person 13 to 16, and three counts of sexual contact or reckless behavior to a person not his wife.
The solicitation charge stems from allegations that Spack offered a 15-year-old girl money for a sex act in 2001.
The offense is said to have occurred at Mimi's.
Spack was charged in January 2003. In February 2003, he resigned as Summitville mayor.
Last summer, Spack sold an insurance agency he owned on Broadway Avenue.