of activities that you do i know of one particularly that i'm involved was semi involved with because that's the washington county symphony yes yes how about a gem that is just starting to be found one of the best secrets person at one time when i was graduating from high school i was going to be a music teacher which i really never accomplished i was going to be a math teacher i never accomplished so i ended up the county commissioners the mouth but anyhow the music there  is a great organization made up of a lot of volunteers some more professional that we have to bring in at times we also have a great board on the on the symphony orchestra there and you know they do a lot of work they've been doing that for over ten years and i was glad to join them and and basically help do the outreach to our community and one of the things that we have found is that it's been growing every year and one of the things that we found is that people really didn't know there was a symphony orchestra  two years ago we did a outreach at the peters township community day and people came up and said we didn't know there was a symphony orchestra in washing county they do a great job and coming up in july will be the whiskey rebellion now we've finished our middle of the city and so we would say put that on everybody's calendar to come out and watch a good symphony orchestra and police you for the whole evening well you know i catch has been on a couple tests you know so i am but it has had the opportunity to spread the word a little bit help me more as the years go by but let's talk about some of the other organizations you're a part of well if you look at from a county operation and that should be in a county commission one a number of boards of mental health and the things we do but also i serve on as a second vice president as of january i was elected to the second vice president at our county association statewide and so therefore you kind of you enter into the chain of command and move into the presidency three years down the road and and i think that when i came into the commissioner four years ago three and a half years ago i said you know i want to concentrate on washing county this is the job i have to do found out as i was asked to do things at the state level that it's good to be involved at the state level because washington county's issues can be really addressed statewide that's where you start getting the bigger voice and making things happen and so by representing washington county on a state level i decided that yes i would accept that position and i've been very involved finance committee personnel committee executive board all those things are happening the other day we did a blight hearing down in carroll township talking about blight homes and buildings that are really being the terror it is around the county and i was asked by the sea cap which is the name of the organization county a statewide to go and speak and so i did that so they're reaching out and it gets you involved in things helping to american legion's and these are all things that you get involved with over time i just joined the board for the community action southwest and i believe i'll be going on the united way board coming up i don't want to do too many things because i like to do on one hundred percent and so when you spread yourself too thin you find out that you know things you just can't get to and then you start feeling guilty because you're not participating but also like a lot of other things i love my corvette and you should know a little now they're involved i just had a granddaughter qualified for the w p a l which has a track meet going on so so we were enjoying that and i know peters township milady other schools has some great runners and great throwers of that so that's a big thing so each season kind of brings brings you out and you get involved with the family and it's sometimes hard to balance your family life with the political scene but it's something that you know no one asked me to do this to something i wanted to do and so we try to work out that family because family's number one with me i like to be around when the kids are persistent baiting where there's music or art or sports it's just it's a family thing that you know you enjoy doing with twelve grandkids you keep very busy my wife think she's a taxi now and actually was an ass and i feel bad about that well that's you know but how do things you know having been involved in a state organization in the past i have to admit that it's a little unusual for a political newbie on the on the county or state level to be an officer position whenever you come to a state organization and you must be doing something somebody is paying attention to maybe i was the only one who said yeah yeah the last person now it's something that you know you get involved in you know when i was with the supervisors association that's called peace at the township soup of officials and so when i was involved they put me on the finance committee asked me to do that and so i did i did find that being out there helping to make decisions on the state level to represent your local communities i was also present in the township supervisors for washington county and i was my i was the shortest president however because i became president when another person had left i was next in line and he moved out of the area and then i won the election for county commissioner so i went in i came back out and i got my name on the list but that was pretty much the thing few things done did the banquets and things that we did their convention and and so it was a shortest probably the shortest president of the county associations supervisors that they've ever had well you've been in office now for three years ok let's talk about four months but who's as everything and in any situation we have a lot of things going the right way right now i feel the counties really move in the right way and we talk about economic development i think that has been one of the biggest things happening in my last three and a half years  we've created jobs by opening up the opportunities and getting out of the way you know we have private industries coming in but south point has been a great model of how you can create ten thousand jobs by creating a space where people can come when they want to bring their businesses to washing county and so south point's pretty much filled up so one of our big things coming up that's a good part that the tougher situation is finding the next south point and so we actually have done studies around the county we're working with a number of people right now to dan if i that next site ready location that we can bring a mix park and we have people asking right now i want to bring my business to washing county and my business background says that's how we create jobs we'll bring people in not just to drill gas but to use gas and so we need to be able to write in the next five years short term s short term where is that next company going to go and those that's something we're working on a number of different areas around that all over the county by the way but you have businesses have certain objectives as where they want to go so that's a big part of what we're doing in the future and we look at the the drug issue this talk about drug and alcohol  the drug issue is something where you know we can put a lot of place on the on the street and we're doing that we're funding the d a s office and we're basically the drug task forces out there more stronger stronger than it's been in the long time but still you only can control that to some level you can go after in your chase it's like the tail wagging the dog here and so one of the things that we're going to negotiate here on the fifteenth we'll have a kickoff meeting we're going to talk about pretrial services what  do upfront in a process to look at mental health issues and look at drug and alcohol alcohol so that people that maybe do it the uy for instance and it's not a slight thing that throwing them in jail and six months they come  go back and do the same thing that's put them in the version of the programs that's make sure that they get treatment mandatory if it has to be to make sure they understand they need help you can't tell them but maybe let them decide they need out these programs i think would be diversionary  programs that the judge can sentence people to maybe help rehabilitate get them back to be productive citizen and let's try to make sure that people understand that they have a value in life and i look at all the things happen it's either drugs or it's gambling or it's something else that causes people then to commit crimes we need to go back and say where is the value in each individual and i think that's where we're going to tack it from a county standpoint with new programs enhancing programs that might have been there to make sure that they're across the only across the world and i mean like there's people making billions of dollars selling drugs and getting them filtering them into the country i sometimes wonder if  people the kids coming up understand the damage that they do if they're using drugs not just to themselves because you know it might feel good to be high for a little bit but then all of a sudden what's the next one through they may be going to technical schools maybe they're not ready to go to the college so and as a lot of people like to do things with their hands and they don't want to go to school but if they get all the training and then they're doing any kind of drugs when they go out to get a job guess what happened the person happens they have to do a drug test they fail the drug tests and they do not get the job these jobs can produce a six figure job sure hundred to hundred thousand dollars plus and so we have to start working at a younger level in the schools i think to make sure that they're aware of what the downfalls are they don't realize that the peer pressure is great right and also the bringing up bringing in what's happening in the society while i feel good when i'm doing that i get picked on when i'm not at the bowling there's a lot of things that cause this we need to get to the root of these things it's never going to be perfect i know that but it's something we've got to continually work to try the radical some of these areas well and i agree with that when i was director of safety for a company when we were building the west panel drug test a guy tested positive for seven different drugs i asked him why did you know this was drug free he said yeah so why did you come and waste my time he said i had nothing else to do no one else will hire me i said why why would you think we'd hire you know but it's a you know that's the that's the desperation people think well maybe the drug test won't test it well if you're on seven different types of drugs guess what yeah you know going to be our and our no and that's a that's one of the first things that they talk about two things that keep the people from the jobs today are the drug issue if you're not drug free second is wanting to work that's another area we need to really start working on i think sometimes people don't understand in the younger generation and older so we're not go pick on anybody but i think sometimes you go to work and you have to work long hours you're going to work hard and all of a sudden you look at this and say well i got my first paycheck i'm not going to go back because that's too much work it's something that we have to work on as far as the mindset of what into that area right now what's what's the plans for the future that you're looking at well let's look at economic development that's one big area that we worry about that creates jobs that creates money into the families and creek keeps our our children here for jobs big issue but we've got to have places for them as we talk so as we look at economic development we need to find new spots and so what we're looking at is access for those locations access would be maybe an interchange off the highway that interchange has to be able to bring traffic right into a development or any you know south point's a good example that south point was here for a while it lingered for a while but once the interchange was put in it sort of opened up the door at a front door to that location but if you look at it from the allegheny county line down to washington that's the place everybody wants to be location has a say in real estate location location location but we have other areas we have areas facing to the valley that are not experiencing the same type of robust economic development that we have seen in this area so we're working we're working in places like allen port where you had the old steel mill down there and we're looking at trying to bring businesses  will create a lot of jobs we're looking at that the nor there is a little place there and an or still that and actually in california technology park trying to expand some of these areas i believe the only way to build the mon valley which is really something i committed to when i came up and i've worked three years to try to do things down there making some progress as we go it's not easy but creating jobs in that area is where it has to be you don't have a need for housing unless somebody has a job nearby and so you don't have a need for stores and service stations another thing you bring jobs in the area it brings people it brings activity and that would just prune into economic development being really redone down in the valley that's a problem also in the valley we're looking at doing more with the recreation we've got a beautiful river in the monitor river is beautiful we need to develop areas and there's a river towns organization we've been involved with from the county that are all the little communities along wrapper going together to say how can we attract people down here to look at the asset of our river and so they're doing docs are doing their thing walking trails beautifying some of the areas so people want to be there people are buying homes down there because they want to be the river instead of traveling they're going to go to the river and they can put their boat right into the mon valley is where an area that we really need to target but it's just one part of the county if you take venue bill west going towards clays or area a lot of areas there that we still can work toward developing but that's kind of the future and that's what we're working on now because then we can create to the airport is a jewel we have people that are right those jobs are growing because of taxes being taken off a fixed wing air aircraft now people are coming to maintain and get their their airplanes repaired that's a growing business out there so economic development a lot of work to do there and that infrastructure i have a study that we've done at the county where shows all the shorelines if you don't have sore lines and water lines not  thing but if you do not have those infrastructure pieces in place you will not see development happen it's too hard people won't come in to put their money and so that entices to the private dollars to be invested but if you look forward we have bridges that we're working on over one hundred some bridges that we work on we're putting money at thirteen money and other monies into bridges to keep people able to communicate with one community to the other so we look at that but parks are recreation that's where we want to go to we just did a ribbon areas on the eight forty four hope what township side and so we did a ribbon cutting and that's something people asked for when i came in four years ago three years ago they said we need access and it was in the plan people were talking about but that has come to fruition and and that's just a great addition we really are looking at putting money into parks and recreation because the money that's coming in from the parks in some of the gas industry parks or recreation so valuable to our quality of life but yet it's the last thing people like to spend money on sometimes there's so many other issues we are in the situation now where we're putting priority in that area also i think human services is where i would like to say that we talk about the drug alcohol before those programs but it develops into you chargers township very so help the whole the whole human services side aspect something we keep moving forward when i came into county commissioner in two thousand and twelve one of the things that was really a surprise was that there was many people being touched by human services it's a big part of what the county does providing services for from the children to the older people aging and i guess i kind of like that i'll look at here but basically there are so many people we touched whether it's the homeless whether it's the the the the aging people it's a lot of their work that we do out there through our groups right in the commissions are pushing that to make sure we're doing the best some of the communities in the mon valley and others we have houses and buildings are falling down and how can we really attack that this so that we can reduce something don't just tear the house or the building down what are the plans working with the communities to rebuild your communities that's the important thing have pride in your communities and things start happening but as i was going on by if you're not excited about washington county now i don't think you're listening well as i mentioned yesterday back in eighty nine there were the they were send you got find a place here i like dealing with people in western pennsylvania and so they came back the following day and he came over lunchtime he's looking at his will i told you to go out they said we want you said you found a place of sale we found it i ok what's going to cost us said about thirty four dollars he says thirty four dollars we've talked about so we found a little town called brownsville he said and hasn't moved out of the thirty's except for a stoplight and that's you know i said and that's a that's a sad statement yes that you know that yes those people haven't had the ability or opportunity to change because all the businesses basically left you go down there today and  storefronts are closed and they have been closed for twenty thirty forty years and that's you know you said that that's an area but it's not like eight hours away from here it's you know very very close hard and i'm going to give you the next couple minutes to tell people why they should continue supporting you for that office very good thank you go i think my business background has with thirty two years with a teenty in and fourteen years building homes as my with my own sch homes business custom home building i think along with the school board you mentioned in the township supervisor twenty years in local government with all the other activities i've been involved with has really been a training area ok and i think that and  that's been a good training for me it brings the experience of both business and also the local government together to allow people to and allows me to make the right decisions first to combine i love people i love working with people and i like doing the business process the county as a business that's a big business and the way we operate there efficiently keeping the budget intact and making sure we're ensuring the people's needs is one of the things i enjoy doing i've enjoyed the if this last three and a half years have been very very gone very quickly and i'm asking people to let me do it for another four years i think that this is something that i can probably do even with the four years or three and a half years i've had as a commissioner adds to that there's a lot of things we have started the booking centers in place we're doing these other programs which talked about a light to have a chance to complete those and maybe start new things i'd like to see the reassessment finish in a correct way we haven't a chance to change that is going to happen i like to see that go forward i got a lot of things i can do with along with my my peers up at the county and i asked everyone to give me a chance to do that and i'm there to work for the people while harlan once again thank you very much for coming on the community as well as in the county and i want to thank you very much for coming on talking politics in western pennsylvania i look forward to seeing you this afternoon when we have our district attorney gene the tone on thank you so