Q&A with Hempfield Board of Supervisors candidates

After two years on the Hempfield Board of Supervisors filling the remainder of Sherry Magretti Hamilton's term, Carbon Volunteer Fire Chief George Reese is seeking election to a full six-year term. Republican Rob Ritson, the township's former manager and chief of staff to State Sen. Kim Ward, and David Colecchia, an attorney and the sole Democratic candidate, are also seeking the two seats up for grabs in November's election.

The Trib asked three questions of each candidate; here are their responses, lightly edited for space:

QUESTION: Between the Greensburg Hempfield library tax referendum and discussion in Harrisburg about making communities without municipal police pay for state police coverage, people in Hempfield are being asked to pay more for the services they get. If you had to choose between reducing services or increasing taxes, what would you do?

COLECCHIA: I think that to pay for police. ... I want to create a regional police force. I don't know that it requires a tax increase or service reduction; we haven't done the studies necessary to determine ... exactly how many police, and the cost, and how we would distribute it.

Police and fire and things like that, they cost. By creating a regional police force, it will reduce costs on our taxpayers and keep the cost of starting what we need, which is additional police in the township, at its lowest. It'll save us money and give us the service that we need.

Whether we need a tax increase, or we don't need a tax increase, I don't know yet. And until we sit down, we get some numbers, we do the studies, I don't want to commit either way.

Instead of having one or maybe two cars patrolling Hempfield, we need a regional police force that patrols Hempfield, Greensburg, Unity Township, Jeannette, New Stanton, Youngwood and those communities, to help keep us safe and to help control the opiate crisis that we're facing.

REESE: I don't think we can reduce services. I think we'll have to deal with whatever we have to deal with when the time comes; I think public safety is paramount. We have to do right by our people. Things are starting to change in our communities. I'll refer to the incident we just had in our Maplewood community, where there was vandalism, a number of properties damaged. These are things that we'll have to start to look at, and when that time comes I welcome the opportunity to have that conversation with our state officials on how we're going to address our policing issues.

You have to determine wants and needs. There are just services that we have to do that people expect that are just part of our daily life. ... We have to fulfill that. Other things that come along, we have to determine if we can do it and how we can fund it.

RITSON: I don't support reducing services unless all areas have been looked at, particularly related to reducing library services because of funding or police services because of the state's mandate. Residents under the state police (proposal), they're not being asked to pay more for an existing service. They're being told they'll pay more for their existing service. I strongly support asking residents or reaching out to them and getting their opinion on which one works for them.

To arbitrarily decide to cut services ... without having a large conversation with residents is irresponsible as a leader. Working with community residents to find ways to maintain an existing level of service and maintain the existing economic climate for them is the most important thing I would see as a township supervisor.

QUESTION: How do you balance the development and growth in the tax base that the township needs to survive with preserving the character of the communities that residents value? Is there anywhere you'd steer or focus development?

COLECCHIA: Hempfield is growing because we have vibrant commercial communities ... and by expanding those, especially getting retail, increased retail establishments, we're growing our tax base. I think what we need to do is make sure that we support those establishments that we have.

We have good retail establishments, our zoning is fine, and we're going to have expanding housing communities, things like that in the future.

I think we have adequate areas designated for development now. I don't see a real change there.

The fact that we have the 66 corridor through the community is very helpful and helps with our retail establishments. I don't have any particular plans with regard to changing anything with regard to development.

REESE: There's no doubt that we're behind; our township is not growing at the rate I think it could be. There's definitely possibilities out there.

I would like to see more housing, more communities grow. People are not building in Hempfield. People are building in our surrounding townships, and it's time to determine what it's going to take to get people to come to Hempfield — especially our bigger developers — and look at starting some new plans.

We have a lot of potential for more growth; we just need to sit down with more developers and see what it's going to take.

RITSON: If you look at the multi-municipal plan that was done a number of years ago ... it mapped out what residents wanted to see, both in keeping the character of the area and also recognizing that there are growth areas of Hempfield ... to prioritize as far as residential growth and business growth.

The character in Hempfield has always been as a bedroom community — a suburban, residential community. In order to move forward in the next 10 years, we need to maintain that and increase the residential homes that are built here, but also find ways — and there are properties within the size range to do it — find ways to bring and maintain family-sustaining jobs.

In order to survive over the next decade, we're going to have to find ways to let people work here as opposed to driving to Pittsburgh, because that's how we're losing young people. There's locations in Hempfield we can work on to bring in manufacturing, tech jobs; jobs that can sustain a family with the salaries and benefits that come with them, or we're going to lose a generation of young people.

QUESTION: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing Hempfield, and how would you meet it if elected?

COLECCHIA: The opioid epidemic, period. The greatest challenge that we have in modern government. Step one to controlling it is to put boots on the ground. Put more police in our communities to keep us safe and stop this stuff from coming in. Every day, I read in your newspaper about multiple heroin busts. I hear of people dying; we need to stop it now. The dealers, we need to identify them and bring them to justice, period. By doing that we will keep our communities safe, we will make our community a better place for business — because of the other problems that opioids create — and we will foster growth in our community.

REESE: The greatest challenge facing the township right now is holding the line on spending. We're in a township and a board of supervisors who have not raised taxes in 27 years. That is truly our challenge right now, and that goes back to what I said earlier, about determining true needs versus wants, and we try to live within our means. That's challenging.

RITSON: The greatest challenge facing Hempfield right now is being too comfortable in where they're at. What I want to do is recognize that we're losing young people, and Hempfield can do more. It can do more for its communities in helping people who volunteer in those communities on a daily basis. It can do more for advocating and working with county and state officials to build more than just a commercial corridor on Route 30.

Just sitting by and hoping that it comes isn't going to serve the people of Hempfield very well at all. You have to go out there, you have to find it, and you have to fight for it.

Matthew Santoni is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6660, msantoni@tribweb.com or on Twitter @msantoni.