valley connections: before these empty streets

Sometime in early 2026, during a Borough Council Meeting, Charleroi Fire Chief Bob Whiten lamented what the current abysmal street conditions are doing to his Department's vehicles. Chief Whiten explained, in very simple, logical terms, the toll being taken on every fire truck, fire vehicle, and Emergency Service vehicle, both the Borough's and others.  Although many of the concerns Whiten voiced intrigued me, a question he asked really got me thinking:

"Who's gonna pay for the repairs?"

Quite frankly, I'd like to ask that same question, not only from a personal, selfish perspective, but on behalf of so many other drivers, most of whom travel Charleroi's land mine streets quite a bit more often than I do.  Not sure how many of them have driven in Saudi Arabia, but I have; I bounced around in my vehicle a lot less there than I do in the Magic City!

Don't get me wrong:  I realize how much more valuable the services Chief Whiten and his Team provide to the community are.  Their urgent need to respond to a call far supercedes my mother's desire to get her scratch offs in a timely fashion ... daily.

Ever since Whiten expressed his concerns, the situation has gotten worse, not better, with patch & repair jobs leading the way to nothing but more potholes.  Any time I think I'm avoiding one Grand Canyon, I veer into another.  Fallowfield and McKean Avenues are not only embarrassing, they're empty often.  Quite frankly, I avoid both as often as possible.

It appears, on the surface, that no one in a position of authority in Charleroi Borough has the actual authority to speed up the process of righting the ship.  Borough Manager Joe Manning, who always seems to be doing Herculean work for the residents, has to have his hands tied because nothing is improving with respect to these road conditions.

Maybe Charleroi's citizens should band together and file a class action lawsuit, demanding, in part, that whomever is deemed responsible for the delay in paving these streets in their entirety should pay residents for the damages & depreciation befalling our cars.  Maybe not.

I just want to drive from the Cougar Mart to cfs Bank without worrying that I'm losing an(other) axel. 

Luigi Mangione is guilty. Guilty as sin if we’re being honest. The facts, as I understand them, are that Mangione shot and killed the CEO of United Healthcare on the streets of New York in a most cowardly fashion. Anyone who knows anything about circumstantial evidence would be able to easily connect all the dots and come to the undeniable conclusion that Luigi Mangione is guilty of murder in the first degree.

Allegedly.

In order to avoid being accused of libel, I must add “allegedly” because Luigi Mangione is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of his peers. Under our country’s due process, any & every person accused of a crime is afforded the same presumption.  

My only wish for Mangione is that he would be courageous enough to say, “I killed Brian Thompson because he was a major part of the problem.” Say that, accept the consequences of your actions, and be real about the demon you truly are. If I had Luigi in front of me I’d tell him to stop wasting everyone’s time and money, and to be the tough guy he thought he was minutes before he murdered Thompson.

Allegedly.

Our legal system is the ultimate Catch-22: Love it when it’s helping us, hate it when it’s helping a scumbag like Mangione. We hate the “ambulance chasers”, those creepy lawyers on television who are just looking to make money, not really help anyone. Yet if we’re t-boned by another vehicle, John Morgan is the first leech we’re calling.

But the legal system isn’t just perplexing in high profile cases like Mangione’s. We’ve got a bit of legal dilemma here in the Mon Valley as well.

Frontier Heating & Cooling, LLC, is the company that Davies Ford hired to do some excavation work on McKean Avenue in Charleroi, between 8th & 9th streets. If you don’t know the circumstances, Google “Charleroi trench collapse” and you’ll learn how a young man, Vincenzo Lopez, nearly lost his life when a fifteen foot trench that he was digging collapsed on August 28, 2025.

Because of the collapse and subsequent gaping hole left behind on McKean Avenue, an entire city block of Charleroi was closed for more than three months, hampering traffic and hindering businesses from functioning. It didn’t help that the borough was already in the midst of a downtown sewer project that had already caused major road dilapidation when the collapse occurred.

As it turns out, Frontier Heating & Cooling’s owner, Charles “Chuck” Mrlack had failed to file for the permits required to do the digging in the first place. Secondly, Mrlack’s company had failed to secure the walls of the trench properly, which caused the collapse. It seems pretty clear who’s at fault for the accident that closed a major portion of a state road - Route 88 - for 100+ days.

According to due process and the presumption of innocence, we should assume that Mrlack is innocent until proven guilty, right?

Not so fast, my friends.

I know Chuck. Used to be good friends with him. He’s not innocent by any stretch.

Chuck has always taken short cuts, taking the easy way out and always believing that he’s above any laws or rules. Mrlack has so many dockets on the UJS portal that I lost count. He’s spread his disease from Allegheny to Washington and Westmoreland counties. Chuck’s a predator, seeking easy money and worrying about the details later.

My question from the beginning (and a question I asked Chuck directly to his face when he stalked & confronted me at my home) has been this: What if Lopez had died? Although I’m quite sure that Mrlack would have had an excuse for that as well, would his case continue to be continued? Or would Magistrate Eric Porter see what everyone else in the world sees and just get the judgment over with?

Mrlack’s case in front of Charleroi District Judge Porter has been continued four times since October. Four. The case is currently scheduled to be heard on May 4 although who knows what will happen then. At the rate we’re going, we’ll be a year removed from the accident before any sort of justice is served.

With Chuck’s history and his less-than-stellar reputation around town, I’d like to think that this is an open and shut case for Porter. I wonder if Porter realizes that Mrlack, immediately following the trench collapse, deleted his Facebook account, removing all of the pictures he had previously so proudly displayed of himself around the trench. What happened to all that bravado being displayed before August 28?  

I guess “The Working Man” only brags when things are going well.

The bottom line here, kids, is that Chuck Mrlack is guilty. He’s not the victim and he’s certainly not sorry for what happened. If he skates away from this one like he did with the accident in front of Lucero’s house a decade ago, Mrlack will only inflict more damage. He’s a rule breaker who needs to have his contractor license stripped and he should be prohibited from conducting business anywhere any more.

Charles “Chuck” Mrlack and Frontier Heating & Cooling are guilty as sin.

Allegedly. 

UPDATE:  I can't believe I'm even writing this, but at 11:52 a.m. on Saturday, February 14, 2026, I witnessed Charles "Chuck" Mrlack supervising trench work being done on PA Route 906 in Naomi!  Same type of excavator being used as the one that was used in Mrlack's "work" on McKean Avenue in Charleroi!

After toying with the idea of presenting this information to Magistrate Eric Porter, it occurred to me that I'd probably just be wasting my time since it appears that Porter - who has inexplicably continued Mrlack's case four fucking times - doesn't really care.

The sad reality is that Chuck will skate this time, as he has on so many other occasions.  Porter will most likely continue Mrlack's case (again) on May 4, continuing a major miscarriage of justice.

Hopefully Chuck will not supervise another disaster - or allow someone to be seriously injured again -  before someone in a position of authority puts a stop to him.  Hopefully someone will give a shit.

Driving through Charleroi these days is like being perpetually stuck on Evergreen Drive in Monessen, where even the potholes have potholes!  To say that the roads in the Magic City are treacherous would be an understatement because it's downright dangerous, and that's not even taking into consideration the unbearable wear and tear on vehicles.  

Please check out this piece from KDKA that features both Charleroi Borough Manager Joe Manning, as well as CFD Chief Bob Whiten, whose vehicles are taking an absolute pounding on an almost daily basis.  LINK

You’ve been warned before but haven’t yielded anyone’s advice. You know that you’re filling your head with gibberish & nonsense, yet you still believe 99% of what you read because, well, it’s in print. You feel sick to your stomach when you read a majority of posts and can’t understand why you feel the need to react to every single one of them.

Stop, in the name of sanity!

This “social media” thing is a farce, an unfunny joke with no punchline. It’s a disease that’s spread by uncaring, unthinking dupes who feel they’re doing the world a favor by disseminating misinformation.

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

Way back in 2021, when I abandoned my plans to run for Mayor of Monessen and throw my support behind Ron Mozer, I started a “podcast”, a weekly Facebook rant that tackled everything - and everyone - that had a hand in dragging our city down since 1996.  

I conducted a lot of research, scouring the pages of old newspapers to gather facts that proved the points I was making. I was meticulous in my quest for the truth, which I shared in abundance on the podcast, as well as on my personal FB page. To say that the information opened eyes would be an understatement: What we were able to provide the voters of Monessen was a blueprint, a guide to show why what we had tried for 25 years definitively wasn’t working.

During that time period I was fed “facts” by many Facebook “friends”, most of whom were looking to smear others, not to provide factual information. I vehemently vetted everything that came my way, discarding the majority of it and questioning the motives of those who shared with me.

Because I know the definitions of both libel and slander, I wasn’t about to get caught in a lawsuit because some bored housewife on Center Drive doesn’t like her neighbor.  

Social media, however, is not vetted. It’s private individuals who feel the need to share every thought they have every minute they have it. It’s mostly venting, nothing more or less. When you really review pages like Facebook’s “Charleroi Rambler”, you’ll find a lot of homophobia, misogyny and racism, much of which is both applauded and encouraged.  

Look at the slow adult who accosted Augusta “Queenie” Goll in Walmart just before Christmas. This blowhard was so proud of his accomplishment that he chose to post his video on social media, with the hopes of getting a lot of positive reinforcement from the MAGA community (which he’s gotten by the way). His fellow MAGAts on the Rambler are probably ready to get him back on Council, post haste!

Do yourself a favor and quit social media today. You won’t miss anything other than the constant headache you get every time you check your account to see who’s giving you the attention you crave.

Social media isn’t life, it’s poison. Stop feeding the beast before it swallows you whole.  

UPDATE:  Story featured on WTAE. LINK

UPDATE:  In case you'd forgotten about Michael Todora's sketchy background, here's a refresher.  LINK 

FULL DISCLOSURE: I feel extremely uncomfortable whenever I see the shortening of “autism” to “‘tism”. That said, I may be in the minority. It would seem that there’s a push - highlighted by the apparel offered at places like Spencer’s Gifts - to normalize autism, to make those afflicted with “the ‘tism” more accepted in society.

I totally get it because I understand how everyone wants to feel “normal”, particularly in the chaotic world in which we live. And I’ve always been a supporter of movements that speak to me, ones that touch my heart & soul.  

Maybe my age is just starting to show, or maybe I’ve always been leery of a movement that goes a little too far. Either way, I don’t get some of the messages being conveyed. 

Movements, in and of themselves, are a necessary part of our culture as Americans. I mean, the Boston Tea Party was a movement that, 250 years later, had a lasting impact on everyone reading this. The Women’s Suffrage movement has left an indelible mark and continues to remain part of the fabric of our society. Although the Vietnam anti-war movement is not remembered as being particularly “successful”, it certainly spawned other movements that were: Civil rights, gay rights, and the further development of the women’s rights movement.

Normalizing groups that feel forgotten or marginalized isn’t anything new in our country. We will never exist without a cluster of people feeling left out.

But there’s something that doesn’t feel proper to me about “normalizing” autism, especially in a way that seems humorous or mocking. It’s one thing to wear a shirt that touts Autism Speaks or to believe in wanting those who identify as autistic to be celebrated. It’s another thing entirely to choose to wear a shirt that says, “Please be patient I have autism and a gun in my pocket.”  

Seriously?

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose that no one is truly being “hurt” by this current movement. That said, I couldn’t imagine how a family that deals with autism on a daily basis wouldn’t be somehow offended by my references to “the ‘tism” or by my wearing a t-shirt that says “Not flirting just autistic”.  

I think that I’ll stay on the sidelines for this current movement, and just choose to treat every individual as another human being. I think I’ll just defer to common decency and decorum and leave my funny t-shirts to other causes.

Like the one I have that says, “You can’t spell c_ck__cker without O-S-U.” Now that’s funny, and it’s 100% truthful … grammatically speaking of course.