A retired attorney and former administrative law judge has joined Ligonier Township’s board of supervisors to fill a vacancy through the end of the year.
The remaining four supervisors voted 3-1 Tuesday to appoint John Fraser, 69, to a seat vacated by the recent abrupt resignation of D. Scott Matson.
Fraser told TribLive he considers his appointment a caretaker role and is not running for one of the two supervisor seats up for grabs in this year’s municipal election.
“I’m there to keep the machinery running,” Fraser said. “I’m not a candidate for permanent office.”
As for tackling issues that come before the supervisors, he said, “My only philosophy going forward is to listen carefully and use my best judgment.”
From a field of eight applicants for the appointment, Fraser was selected by Supervisors Erik Ross, Dan Resenic and John Beaufort. Opposed was Supervisor Stephanie Verna, who at an April 8 meeting voted in a failed attempt to fill the supervisor seat by appointing Barb Nalle, chairperson of the township planning commission.
Bethany Caldwell, former township finance director and another of the supervisor applicants, was appointed to replace Fraser as township vacancy board chairman.
Fraser also will have to be replaced in his additional role as an alternate citizen representative from the township to the regional Ligonier Valley Police Commission.
Township Manager Michael Strelic explained Fraser has served as an alternate in the event regular citizen representative James Andrews was unavailable to vote at a commission meeting. The township already has a full complement of supervisors serving on the police commission — Ross and Resenic, with Beaufort serving as their alternate.
Fraser began his career in 1980 as a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit. He’s practiced labor and telecommunications law in the nation’s capital, owned a legal firm in Reston, Va., and served as a managing director and chief litigation counsel for other Virginia-based firms.
He was assistant general counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2010 until 2015, when he and his wife moved to a farm in Ligonier Township.
He then conducted disability hearings and managed the hearing office at the Social Security Administration office in Johnstown, retiring there as the chief administrative law judge in 2021.
He said his experience has taught him “it’s very important to listen and discuss options and then support the best option available.”
Fraser keeps 35 hives of bees at his farm.
“It’s a great place to live,” he said of the township.
