PennDOT gets tough on gas companies

TOWANDA - The state Department of Transportation is hiring three more inspectors for Bradford County to address the damage on state roads caused by heavy truck traffic and has warned gas drilling companies this week that they will need to deploy all resources necessary to keep state roads passable and safe or else they will have their road permits pulled, a state Department of Transportation official said at a meeting Wednesday in Towanda.

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Woods elected mayor of Nichols

Deputy Mayor Esther Woods will be dropping the "deputy" from her title soon as she takes the reigns as Village of Nichols mayor from Doug Horton.

Woods won, with 87 votes to 31, over Horton in the village election held Tuesday, according to Village Clerk John Kopacko. Ronald Chase and Lesley Pelotte were elected to the village board of trustees, with 91 and 81 votes, respectively, Kopacko said. David Hazard also ran for the office of trustee and received 46 votes, he said. In total, 119 voters turned out to the polls, Kopacko said.

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Local jury awards plaintiffs more than $700K against area doctor in lawsuit

A Bradford County jury found against a Towanda physician recently in a civil lawsuit, awarding the plaintiffs $724,932.

According to information filed in the Bradford County Prothonotary's office, on March 8, following a trial, the jury found in favor of plaintiffs Janean White and Patrick White, both of 12 N. Main St., Towanda, against defendant Dr. Louis V. Gabaldoni, M.D., of RR 1, Box 3J, Towanda.

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New Troy Web site unveiled

TROY - The renovations in the Troy Area School District haven't been the only building project going on.

The district has been working hard on the construction of a new school district Web site, and it's now up and running at www.troyareasd.org on the Internet. The old Web site will be removed in the near future.

"We've had a lot of positive comments and our goal is have this be a community resource for the entire community," district technology director Ryan Schrader said. "We spent a lot of time and effort to make it unique to Troy, and it really reflects where we want to be as a school district."

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Munchak, Cordaro indicted on corruption charges

Vowing to reform Lackawanna County government by cutting waste and cronyism, Republicans Robert C. Cordaro and A.J. Munchak broke a 20-year Democratic grip on the county commissioner's office in 2004, proclaiming the days of old time politics were over.

On Tuesday federal prosecutors presented Cordaro and Munchak in a different light, not as reformers, but modern versions of Boss Tweed, who used the sixth-floor commissioners office in downtown Scranton to run a criminal enterprise that collectively generated at least $475,000 in kickbacks or bribes from vendors looking for county contracts.

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Board OKs softball project

TROY - The Troy Area School Board on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for an improvement planned for the softball complex at Troy Elementary Center East.

According to maintenance director David Blair, the girls' softball team wants to build a concrete pad measuring roughly 30 feet by 60 feet for two batting cages.

He said the cost is roughly $7,000 and the team plans to raise money for the project. He said the board was only voting on the project, not the money. He said the team will try to raise as much money as it can.

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Yaw legislation to set reporting requirements for gas wells sent to governor

In a bill sponsored by Senator Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming), the Senate of Pennsylvania took action on the first regulatory legislation relating to Marcellus Shale. This action paves the way for signature by the governor in the near future.

Yaw said Senate Bill 297 amends the Oil and Gas Act to require operators of Marcellus Shale wells to provide well production information to the Department of Environmental Protection. That information will be made public in six months and be posted on DEP's Web site. Yaw said "the current law required DEP to keep production information confidential for a period of five years, so the change to six months is very significant.

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