Veteran Greensburg councilman Finfrock seeks 5th term

Veteran Greensburg Councilman Randy Finfrock is seeking another term on the board in this year’s municipal election.

Finfrock, 72, is completing his fourth term on council, all but one of which have been consecutive. He has served for 14 years as council’s director of accounts and finance.

He said the city for more than a decade has maintained services while avoiding any tax increase to support its general fund. Council last increased its general real estate tax by 3.8 mills in 2009. Last year, it added a 1-mill charge to pay for a $1 million loan for public safety expenses that previously were covered by revenue from the shuttered J. Edward Hutchinson Parking Garage.

Finfrock said the city’s existing elected officials need to remain in place to continue with governmental improvements.

“The city was being successfully reinvented until the pandemic,” he said. “Every budget was balanced and regulations were being reduced and revised. It was becoming easier to do business in and with Greensburg.

“The pandemic and the resulting economic problems slowed the progress considerably. This administration knows how to jump-start the process again and needs to remain intact.”

One of two Democratic council members on a five-member voting board that includes a Democratic mayor, Finfrock said, “We don’t care about being Democrat or Republican, we all just care about Greensburg. We work well together and need to remain a team.”

Finfrock joined other council members in March in engaging the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association to help evaluate candidates to succeed former police Chief Shawn Denning. Denning resigned after being arrested Jan. 24 on federal charges of serving as a go-between in purchases of drugs from California.

Finfrock and fellow council members also approved a discipline and retirement agreement with patrol Officer Regina McAtee, who was suspended over an undisclosed personal issue.

Now retired, Finfrock was manager of Atlantic Financial Savings & Loan for 12 years and director of enrollment management at Westmoreland County Community College for 25 years.

One of two principal authors of the city’s home rule charter, Finfrock also has served on Greensburg’s planning commission and on a task force that developed a recycling plan for the city.

He has served on the boards of Greensburg Hempfield Area Library, Greensburg’s SummerSounds concert series and the Westmoreland Arts and Heritage Festival. A life member of the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department, he served as treasurer of the department’s relief association and held the titles of president and other administrative positions with the department’s Hose Company No. 1.