Westmoreland coroner challenged by former Scottdale mayor

Ken Bacha wants to break his father’s record.

Leo Bacha served as Westmoreland County coroner for 23 years and four months before he retired in 2002, the longest tenure anyone has had in the office.

A victory for Democrat Ken Bacha in November would mean the opportunity to take over his father’s longevity record sometime in 2025.

Republican Tim Carson wants to see the elder Bacha’s record stand.

Carson, the former mayor of Scottdale and owner of a popular restaurant and catering business, is seeking to end the Bacha family dynasty that has run the coroner’s office since the late 1970s.

“I’ll bring a fresh-set-of-eyes approach,” Carson said. “People are looking at the same thing since the 1960s and 1970s, with entrenched Democratic leaders who passed the job from father to son.”

Bacha said his experience, earned over his two decades in office, makes him the best choice to oversee death investigations in Westmoreland County.

“I tell people to compare the candidates. You have a coroner on one side and a caterer on the other,” Bacha said.

Bacha, 60, of Greensburg started his career in 2000 working under his father in the coroner’s office and took over after his resignation two years later. He’s been elected to full four-year terms five times since, and, in November, is seeking his sixth term in office.

Bacha also owns and runs two funeral homes, one in Greensburg and another in Unity.

The coroner’s office, which operates with five full-time and five part-time deputies, last year investigated about 3,500 deaths and oversaw nearly 190 autopsies. It was a job made more difficult as the coronavirus surged, resulting in nearly 500 deaths of local residents since March 2020.

Tracking the deaths as well as chronicling the opioid epidemic that’s plagued the county over the past decade has been a big part of the job, Bacha said.

“We’re big on statistics. We’re legally obligated to count the deaths, but we’re more obligated to let people in the county know what they’re dying of,” Bacha said.

During Bacha’s tenure, the coroner’s office relocated from the courthouse, where its administrative operations were based, to the county’s forensics center, which opened in 2014 to house staff, a new morgue and lab that is leased to Cyril H. Wecht Associates, the private pathologist firm that performs the county’s autopsies.

Bacha touted his effort to ensure most of his deputies are nationally certified in death investigations. All but two part-timers are working to gain the certification, he said.

“I’m just not done yet. I’m not ready to hang it up.”

Carson, 50, is owner of Carson’s Premier Catering in Scottdale. He served as the borough’s mayor for a decade and previously worked 10 years as the director of community affairs for the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Office and a brief two-year stint as the deputy Westmoreland County register of wills.

Carson was a registered Democrat when he served as mayor and while employed at the courthouse under Democratic officeholders. He switched to Republican after he left the courthouse in 2012.

“I kind of felt my beliefs were more in line with the Republican Party. I did some serious soul-searching and thought it was right,” Carson said.

After a decade break from county government, Carson said he’s ready for a return and identified the coroner’s office as where he fits best.

“When I worked at the sheriff’s office, I secured funding and worked on budgets. A lot of people don’t realize you don’t have to have a medical background,” Carson said. “My opponent has performed the same amount of autopsies as I have — none.”