[naviga:h3]Cheer [/naviga:h3]

A cheer of greeting to David Cord. The new director of VA Butler Healthcare, Cord, 51, a former U.S. Navy JAG lawyer and longtime VA employee, set the right tone this past week during the first of what he said would be frequent public meetings.

The event drew fewer than a dozen people, but Cord said he would keep reaching out to the public and veteran service organizations as he builds a plan for the future of a system that serves about 19,000 veterans in four counties.

“It won’t really be my game plan,” Cord said, responding to a question about how he intends to use his time as director. “My plan is to talk to you, hear what you need, and move forward from there.”

Cord said he also wants to conduct quarterly update meetings on the construction of the new complex in Center Township. Quarterly meetings with the office of Congressman Mike Kelly, R-3rd, also are in the works.

Cord says the public meetings go hand-in-hand with open office hours he intends to hold from noon to 1:30 p.m. on most Fridays.

He promised to be a straightforward and consistent leader at the health system, and he reiterated that he could see himself staying in the position “for many years.”

If he can maintain his pledge of openness, Cord’s time in Butler will be a credit to the community, and to the VA.

[naviga:h3]Jeer [/naviga:h3]

As parting shots go, this one came off as especially insensitive, given the geographic location of the speaker.

It was at last week’s meeting of Butler School Board, and the topic was the proposed new teachers contract.

Board member Bill Halle wanted to delay a vote in favor of more discussion. He said he did not have certain figures from the contract until an executive session the previous week, and said the board never went through the contract item by item.

Board member Don Pringle said the board discussed everything. Halle said prove it: show the documentation. The item wasn’t even on the meeting agenda.

Superintendent Dale Lumley said he’d given every board member the same packet related to the contract. Lumley asked if the board could call for a vote. Halle asked if this meant he could not talk more about the contract.

That’s when board President David Korn chimed in. He said his time is limited.

“Some people have to work, Bill,” Korn remarked.

Ironic. Korn was speaking by telephone, only so he could vote. Korn was in Las Vegas on a business trip.

Right. Business. In Vegas, where many people do business, among other things. A lavish playground for grown-ups is not exactly the venue from which a comment like “I’m too busy for this” will draw any sympathy — not from the tax-paying voters back home, anyway.

[naviga:h3]Cheer [/naviga:h3]

Cheers to 14-year-old Nicholas Valenta, his mother Christine Valenta, and emergency medical technicians Dirk Baker and Ryan Kahsar.

In early June, Christine Valenta went into sudden cardiac arrest and her heart stopped beating while she was shopping at Kohl’s in the Cranberry Commons shopping center on Route 228 in Cranberry Township.

Baker and Kahsar, paramedics with Cranberry Township EMS, were able to restart her heart with a defibrillator.

They credit Nicholas with greatly increasing his mother’s chances of surviving the incident by performing CPR.

The four of them were recognized recently by the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association during the township EMS’s annual “Save a Life Saturday” CPR training event at the township municipal center.

Nicholas said when that his mother was in distress, his CPR training kicked in. The training was fresh in his head as he had taken a course taught by Quality EMS only a couple weeks earlier.

Baker and Kahsar arrived in a few minutes. It took them about 45 minutes from the time her heart had stopped beating to revive her, using a defibrillator — and all the while they continued CPR.

Nice job, Nicholas.