As Christmas gives way to New Year's Day, thoughts turn from gift-giving and gift-getting to what is ahead for Butler County in 2014.

Construction is expected to pick up in Butler and Butler Township, while the county's first Catholic high school will open. The start of building for a health care center for military veterans also is anticipated.

Here are some of the events to be aware of in 2014.

Government

• The Butler County commissioners in 2014 are expected to make a decision about selling the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. County officials are reviewing a number of proposals.

The prospective buyers were required to submit quotes no lower than $13.5 million for the nursing home, which has an annual deficit.

• The county commissioners also are considering constructing an estimated $12.1 million office building.

The proposed government center annex on South Jackson Street calls for four levels, including a parking lot.

• Butler will have a Republican mayor for the first time since 1985.

Tom Donaldson defeated incumbent Maggie Stock in November.

Stock has served as mayor for the past eight years.

Donaldson will be sworn in Monday.

• The city will continue to seek an agreement with its firefighters union.

The two sides have spent much of the past year in arbitration over the firefighters' contract.

The city reached a deal with its police force in December 2012 and with its nonuniform workers last summer.

The contract would be retroactive from January 2012 and run through December.

Education

• The Butler School Board will begin its search for three top administrators.

The superintendent, assistant superintendent and business manager will retire at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

The board formed a search committee which will begin meeting this month.

• The retirements come at a time when the board will face other major issues.

Talks about school changes, possibly school closures, will be under way. Teacher salary negotiations for a year contract extension in the 2014-15 school year will soon begin, and then contract negotiations for the next five-year teacher contract likely will start this fall.

• The new Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School is set to open in the fall as the first Catholic high school in the county's history.

The school is on 71 acres near Cranberry Township's border with Seven Fields on Route 228. The 180,000-square-foot building will house more than 1,000 students. It is estimated to cost more than $70 million.

• Slippery Rock University, along with the 13 other State System of Higher Education schools, will be facing a tough budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year with a projected $10 million deficit just for SRU.

One professor has been furloughed, and six others had their positions modified. More personnel changes are expected. SRU is asking for all departments to cut 9 percent of their budgets.

However, all is not dark for SRU. The university will celebrate its 125th anniversary throughout 2014.

SRU was founded in 1889.

Politics

• Congressman Mike Kelly of Butler is expected to seek re-election.

Numerous state seats also are up for re-election.

• Gov. Tom Corbett is seeking a second term.

• State Sen. Robert Robbins, R-50th, on Monday announced his retirement, opening the door for a race in that district.

Although state Sen. Randy Vulakovich, R-40th, is up for re-election, he would be vying for the new 38th District, which does not cover any part of Butler County.

Grove City lawyer Tedd Nesbitt on Friday announced his Republican candidacy for the seat of retiring state Rep. Dick Stevenson, R-8th.

State representatives Brian Ellis, R-11th; Jaret Gibbons, D-10th; Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, and R. Lee James, R-64th, are expected to seek re-election.

Economic investments

• The location of a new VA Butler Healthcare Center is expected to be determined in the spring.

Four sites are up for consideration for the more than $70 million complex that will replace the main building on the VA Butler Healthcare campus on New Castle Road.

The project was to be built at the Deshon Woods site in Butler Township, but it was halted in July due to criminal allegations against an official with the project's developer.

Possible sites included farms in Center and Butler townships, a golf course in Franklin Township, and the 21-acre Deshon Woods site.

• Work on two new 80-room hotels will occur in 2014.

A four-story Holiday Inn Express already is under construction at the Butler Commons while work on a five-story Hampton Inn Hotel is set to begin early next year.

Both projects are expected to be finished by spring 2015.

• Construction on a Marriott Springhill Suites hotels, a new Rite Aid pharmacy, and a 225-slot parking garage is set to begin in downtown Butler.

Work on the hotel and pharmacy is expected to begin soon while the parking garage will be built later.

• The Pittsburgh Curling Club plans to open a $1.2 million curling-only ice arena off Myoma Road in Adams Township.

Curling is a winter sport, included in the Winter Olympics, in which two four-person teams slide heavy stones toward a circle at either end of a length of ice.

The club, which currently operates out of the Robert Morris University Island Sports Center on Neville Island, hopes to open the facility in the fall.

Other

• The fate of the minority ownership in the Butler BlueSox will be determined in 2014.

The Butler Parks, Recreation Grounds and Facilities Authority is attempting to sell its 40 percent of the club to the Nonprofit Development Corp. of Butler for $40,000.

But the club's majority ownership group opposed the deal, claiming a clause in a 2009 agreement gives them first right to any stake for sale.

The authority said it will not sell to the ownership group, but will continue with its application to sell its stake to the nonprofit.

A Prospect League board of directors is expected to discuss the sale Jan. 10 and 11.

• The expansion of the Route 528 Park and Ride in Jackson Township is set to open in the summer.

The lot, which is used by the New Castle Transit Authority for trips to Pittsburgh, will be closed until the project is completed.

The expansion, which will be owned by the Butler Transit Authority, will increase the size of the lot from about 100 spaces to about 300 spaces.

The Butler Transit Authority hopes to start service to Pittsburgh with the lot.

• A Butler Township man will attempt to break the world land speed record in August at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Rob Freyvogel, owner of Carbinite Metal Coatings in Forward Township, wanted to break the record in his custom designed car this year, but bad weather and the federal government shutdown forced him to wait until 2014.

He hopes to top 500 mph with his vehicle, called a streamliner. The record is 439.5 mph.