2 Harrison residents with lengthy community service vie for local magistrate's office

A Harrison attorney hoping to bring fresh ideas to the magistrate’s office is taking on an incumbent who has served in office for three decades.

Thomas Babinsack will compete against Carolyn Saldari Bengel for the position that covers Brackenridge, East Deer, Fawn, Harrison and Tarentum.

Magisterial district judges earn about $106,250 a year.

“I’d like to make the magistrate’s office a place where people can get direction,” said Babinsack, who also serves as part-time business manager for Guardian Angels Parish, part of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

“I’d like to bring in student lawyers to help seniors with wills and do other work from that office to help the community. There is a lot of opportunity for that office to coordinate people to work for a common good.”

Incumbent Bengel, also a Harrison resident, is seeking to continue in the role she was first elected to in 1993.

A full-time district judge, Bengel said she always has focused on the need for a fair judicial system that represents the people of the community.

Bengel said she has worked to create and support programs that help youths.

She sponsors the Red Ribbon Drug Awareness Campaign in the Highlands School District and was one of the first district justices outside the city of Pittsburgh to institute a domestic violence program in her court.

Bengel is a 15-year member of the Harrison Hills Volunteer Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary.

Babinsack is a retired police officer from Lower Burrell, past president of Highland Hose Volunteer Fire Company in Tarentum and a military veteran.

“I joined the Marines at 17 and then signed up for the Army National Guard right after 9/11,” Babinsack said. “District judge would be another way for me to serve the community.

“I have legal experience and life experience to bring to the court. I care about what happens in this community.”

A graduate of Highlands High School, Babinsack earned his law degree from Duquesne University.

He served as student manager of the university’s Veterans Clinic and as a parent advocate in Dependency Court. Babinsack also had an externship at the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office and Public Defender’s Office. He holds an honors certificate for pro bono/public service at Duquesne.

Bengel earned an undergraduate degree from Saint Vincent College and her law degree from the University of Toledo.

She was selected in 2016 to serve on the Veterans Diversionary Program Committee at the magisterial district judge level in Allegheny County.

Bengel previously worked in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office and also served as an Allegheny County assistant public defender.

She serves at county night court on a rotating basis, performing arraignments, protection from abuse orders and signing off on search warrants.

Bengel said she has the “mental toughness,” combined with practical on-the-job experience, to serve as magistrate.

In the community, Bengel sponsors youth athletics, is a member of the Optimist Club of Allegheny Valley and Italian Sons and Daughters of American Integrity Lodge 79.

In 2018, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Max Baer nominated Bengel to the minor judiciary education board.

“There is no substitute for experience,” she said.