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New Monessen councilwoman sworn in; mayor still absent

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A new member of Monessen Council was sworn in Thursday, as the Mon Valley city’s mayor missed his eighth consecutive meeting.

Lois Thomas took her oath of office at the beginning of a meeting expected to last hours before council – which has for much of this year been unable to muster a quorum because of truant Mayor Matt Shorraw and Councilman Gilbert Coles – got down to four months of backlogged work at the front of a chamber full enough to be considered standing room only.

“We’ve got to get on a totally different plane,” said Thomas, 56, a Democrat who’s worked for Southwestern Pennsylvania Area Agency on Aging for the past two decades and is an ordained minister.

A panel of Westmoreland County judges picked Thomas from a pool of nine applicants last week to fill the seat on the five-member council Ron Chiaravalle occupied before he died May 28. Her term runs until the end of next year.

The vacancy in Chiaravalle’s seat and the serial absences of Shorraw and Coles, who both took office this year, left council short of the three members it needed present to fulfill routine government functions like paying vendors and voting on legislation.

The sole exception occurred June 29, when Coles showed up for an emergency meeting to authorize payment of the city’s liability and other insurance bills. That step averted a shutdown of the city government, including police and fire services.

“We’ve got a lot of business that we have to take care of,” said city Controller Wayne Vlasic.

Council also missed the deadline to fill the vacancy, so the decision fell on the county bench.

Shorraw, who backed former state representative Ted Harhai’s bid for the seat, had said he’d start attending meetings once the seat was filled.

He didn’t directly answer emailed questions Thursday night, but sent an statement that also included a message he claimed he’d forwarded to unnamed state officials the day before about “some very serious concerns in regards to the future of the City of Monessen.”

“I have still chosen to stay away from these meetings, as council has been combative, verbally towards me,” read part of the message.

Councilman Anthony Orzechowski said he expected the meeting to take up to three hours. Following Thomas’ swearing-in, she and her colleagues appointed Orzechowski to take Chiaravalle’s place as director of accounts and finances.

Council went on to tackle an 11-page agenda that included approving street work, fund transfers, building demolitions, an application for federal financial assistance for a sewer project, among other business.

“We’ve got to move the city forward,” Orzechowski said before the meeting began.

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