Editorial: Findings, hiring and fighting
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Laurel: To finally getting answers. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission ruled on the cause of an explosion at a home in Plum.
No, it was not the August incident in Rustic Ridge that claimed the lives of six people and destroyed three homes and damaged others. The PUC safety division announced it had found no evidence of the April 2022 explosion — this one injured five and destroyed one home — being related to public utility equipment.
According to the report, the Hialeah Drive explosion in Holiday Park did not come from natural gas components outside the home. That does not rule out natural gas involvement inside the home, including the possibility of a leaking gas appliance.
It’s good to get some clarification, even if it isn’t so much identifying a cause as eliminating one. The question now is whether more answers will follow. And if this timeline holds true, should we expect a similar report regarding the Rustic Ridge incident in January 2025?
Lance: To curious decisions. On Tuesday, the Belle Vernon School District voted to hire former Plum Superintendent Timothy Glasspool.
School districts trade around the limited pool of school administrator candidates all the time, so this would not be an issue — except that Glasspool’s Plum employment ended with his resignation because of a teacher-student sex scandal. A grand jury report in that case condemned the Glasspool-helmed administration for years of allowing inappropriate conduct.
The Belle Vernon board voted 8-1 to hire Glasspool, saying he was “forthright with this information and the tragic events in the Plum Borough School District during his tenure.”
That may be true, but it makes one wonder what was on the resumes of the candidates not hired.
Lance: To viral fame. Dalanie DiSabato may be the only person to be excited about what happened to her at a porta-potty.
The Altoona college student has gone viral for a punching, kicking smackdown that happened at the Morgan Wallen concert Aug. 31 at PNC Park. The fight started over DiSabato cutting a line and led to her mom being attacked by an angry woman and the daughter charging to her defense.
DiSabato has embraced the fight’s fame, calling herself the “Romper Stomper” in reference to her baby blue outfit and saying she only did what any daughter would do. Now she is reaping predictable social media fame with millions of views and thousands of followers.
But scoring celebrity for a hair-pulling girl fight like this seems, well, as gross as the porta-potty where it all went down.