Cigarette starts fire

Cigarette starts fire
MINERAL RIDGE -- No one was injured in an early-morning fire at the Ridgewood Apartment complex.
Weathersfield Township Fire Chief Randy Pugh said a discarded cigarette started the blaze in a third-floor apartment around 3:30 a.m., but a neighbor smelled the smoke and helped other tenants escape. Crews arrived at the state Route 46 complex by 3:33 a.m.
The apartment was destroyed, Pugh said, and six other units sustained smoke, water and heat damage.
"At least three units have been evacuated, but the apartment complex is accommodating all of those people," Pugh said.
Damage estimates were not immediately available, he added.
Weathersfield firefighters were assisted by fire crews from McDonald and Austintown, Pugh said. A ladder truck from Austintown was used to help firefighters access the area, he noted.
Workers get new contract
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners have approved a three-year employment contract with the 151 unionized workers at the county department of Jobs and Family Services.
The new pact, ratified by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local 458 last week, calls for a 1 percent wage increase in the second year and a 2 percent increase in the third year.
The employer will also increase funding for employees' retirement plan by 2.5 percent in the first year and 2 percent in the second year. Employees will also receive a $600 signing bonus.
The new contract takes effect Aug. 1.
All increases are being absorbed by federal and state funding. No additional money from the county is being requested, said JFS director Tom Mahoney.
Hourly pay for union employees will range from $10.74 to about $15 an hour in the first year of the contract.
New 1-year contract
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners have approved a one-year employment contract for roughly 60 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3808 working at the county Child Support Enforcement Agency.
Wages will be frozen during the one-year contract, but the county will increase the amount it pays toward employee retirement plans by 8.5 percent.
The pact will expire in August 2005, about the same time contracts for two other bargaining units within the county will also expire, said Human Resources Director James Keating.
County officials proposed the short contract so negotiations on all three contracts take place at the same time.
Unionized CSEA workers earn between $12.74 and $15.28 an hour, Keating said.
Sobriety checkpoint
WARREN -- Troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol Warren post and Howland and Warren police are to conduct a sobriety checkpoint tonight on U.S. Route 422 at mile post 15.
Troopers and officers are to do a roadside check of drivers from 10 tonight to 2 a.m. Saturday.
Board approves carpet
MINERAL RIDGE -- The Weathersfield school board has approved replacing the carpet in the high school library/media room at a cost of $7,648.
The money will be taken from the district's 1.7-mill bond issue to raise $2 million, which was approved in November 2000 for an addition at Seaborn Elementary and for other needed building improvements throughout the district.
Treasurer Angela Lewis said that the fund has about $15,000 remaining in it. The carpeting is the original carpet laid in the room when the high school was built in 1976.
Campaign headquarters
NILES -- The Bush-Cheney re-election committee will open its Trumbull County campaign headquarters in the Eastwood Mall, near the Sears corridor, at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Adoption services trustee
WARREN -- Northeast Ohio Adoption Services has chosen Patrick Kenney of Howland as the newest member of its board of trustees.
Kenney, a longtime child advocate, has served on the boards for the United Way, the Red Cross, Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Trumbull Family Services. He is retired from WCI Steel, where he served as vice president of operations.