Staff photo /
Nathanael Hawthorne
From left, Austintown Sgt. Valorie Delmont, Jeffrey McFalls, and Lt. Mark Skowron, stand by one of the Austintown police cruisers fitted with the new rear license plates McFalls designed for the department. McFalls created the design and now all the vehicles will bare his creation.
AUSTINTOWN The township police cruisers will have a slightly altered look after a donation of newly designed license plates were gifted to the police department.
Jeffrey McFalls, of Niles, created the new plates and presented them to police Chief Robert Gavalier at Monday’s trustee meeting. The new design adds the Austintown Fitch “F” signifying the relationship between the high school and the police department, township Trustee Jim Davis said.
AUSTINTOWN Anna Mangan and Phil Fusco are the latest additions to the Austintown Police Department.
“We have two real good candidates here, and I think they’re going to turn out to be good officers for the Austintown Police Department,” police Chief Robert Gavalier said Monday after they were sworn in.
Both Mangan and Fusco said their desire to be an officer stems from when they were younger.
“My sophomore year in high school is when I realized I wanted to be a police officer. My cousin is a police officer, and I did a ride-along with him. I fell in love with it right then and there,” Fusco said.
AUSTINTOWN The season of giving continues for 32 children in the Austintown school district.
Austintown Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 126 worked with the schools to provide Christmas gifts for nine families.
By extending the usual “No Shave November” the officers participate in, they were able to keep their facial hair as well as raise money for a good cause.
“The guys wanted to keep their facial hair and, with the money going to the kids, the chief was on board,” officer Valorie Delmont said.
About 25 officers paid $25 each to keep their facial hair. The FOP matched the funds raised and that money, along with funds collected from other donors, local businesses such as Walmart, Home Depot, GameStop, Pinnette’s Bowling League and American Towing, were used to buy the gifts.