Editorials category, Page 53
Editorial: Westmoreland ARP funds need tentative plans
In 2021, Westmoreland County received half of a $105.3 million coronavirus relief fund allocation under the American Rescue Plan. It’s a significant amount of money. The county’s entire budget for 2022 is $367.6 million, so being given nearly a third of that as a windfall with comparatively few strings opens...
Editorial: What do we do about gun violence?
“It was a war scene.” This is a short statement, but it is vividly, viscerally descriptive of the violence that erupted on Pittsburgh’s North Side in the early-morning hours of Easter Sunday. Almost 100 gunshots — half fired inside a home by the corner of Madison Avenue and Suismon Street,...
Editorial: Common problems, common sense solution
Hear that kids are being locked out of the school bathrooms, and it can bring up questions. It’s an issue that is happening at Kiski Area High School. Is this allowed? The number of bathrooms in a building are not just randomly assigned. They are prescribed by building codes and...
Editorial: Westmoreland County has to answer for hiring decisions
Westmoreland County government has some questions it needs to answer when it comes to hiring. On Wednesday, county commissioners voted to rehire Rich Gordon to run the Regional Youth Services Center. At first glance, this isn’t a big deal. People with a specific skill set are often known to leave...
Editorial: Celebrate our different holidays together
Faith is one of the things that defines us as people. Ask any historian, any anthropologist, any archaeologist and how a people worships is always a defining part of a culture. Unfortunately, it can also be a dividing aspect. That is seen in the footprints of war from our earliest...
Laurels & lances: Clean woods, dirty mouths
Laurel: To cleaning up. Boy Scouts learn a lot about how to interact with the environment. One of their top priorities is to “leave no trace.” But when Troop 284 of Irwin spent some time in a wooded area of North Huntingdon, it was obvious they had been there —...
Editorial: Does Pittsburgh’s plastic bag ban steal other municipalities’ choices?
The good thing about living near a big city is you get the benefits of events like concerts that would never come to a town of 2,000 people or sports teams that provide a reason to cheer on a Sunday afternoon. The down side can be that proximity can take...
Editorial: Elected officials need to work civilly
Elected officials are only human. They make mistakes. They have disagreements. They can get angry, just like anybody else. But representing their communities is a job they all sign up to do and, like any job, it should be done with respect for co-workers. So the proposed censure of Allegheny...
Editorial: Take me out to the ballgame? For Pirates fans, there’s little joy in Mudville
And so it begins. Another baseball season. The peanuts. The hot dogs. The fireworks. The game? Maybe? Last week, the Pittsburgh Pirates unveiled all the new things that will be happening at PNC Park for the 2022 season. When the home opener happens Tuesday, attendees will be able to enjoy...
Editorial: Cold cases like Cassandra Gross’ can’t be forgotten
Where is Cassandra Gross? This is a question that the Unity woman’s family and law enforcement have been asking for four years. On April 7, 2018, she had lunch with a friend at the Parkwood Inn in Southwest Greensburg, called her mom as she was driving home along Route 30...
Editorial: Avian flu precautions protect Pennsylvania economy
There is a pretty good chance that a chicken or egg eaten somewhere in the U.S. came from Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is the fourth largest producer of poultry in America. The U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the number of chickens alone at 201 million, and that doesn’t count other...
Laurels & lances: Support and punishment
Laurel: To shining a spotlight. For years, Steven Matto, 54, of Arnold, has taken people into the heart of area emergencies as the official photographer for many fire companies, particularly in the Alle-Kiski Valley. The pictures sometimes gather the attention they merit in print or in broadcast. They always document...
Editorial: A gigabyte of prevention is worth a server farm of cure
Prevention is important, whether we are talking about disease or drugs or crime. It is easier to extinguish a match than to put out a house fire. It’s the kind of thing that frequently is said and frequently ignored on a host of topics. The most obvious and timely might...
Editorial: Debates need all candidates to participate
There is a point to primary debates. It’s hard to imagine after the sideshows of the 2016 Republican presidential primary and, not to be outdone, the equally circus-like 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But it’s true. The point of a general election primary is for all of the voters to decide...
Editorial: The common problem of Pennsylvania bridges
Pennsylvania’s bridges need work. It isn’t just the ones with obvious problems — the ones with crumbling concrete or decaying superstructure. It’s not a question of which. It’s a question of when. The Fern Hollow Bridge spanning a Frick Park ravine collapsed on the morning of Jan. 28, while people were...
Editorial: Nalani Johnson Rule could save lives
Nalani Johnson deserved a long, long life. She deserved birthday parties and Halloween costumes. A prom dress and a graduation ceremony. She should have gotten married and had kids of her own. Instead she got less than two years. The little girl whose family said she had a clever head...
Editorial: Law doesn’t demand transparency. People should.
The state is getting just a little bit closer to requiring more transparency on the part of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. On Tuesday, the House State Government Committee approved the bill that would make legislative expense reports more easily accessible to the public online. “How can anyone be against it?”...
Editorial: Wheelchair restrictions could be more than Latrobe expects
It should go without saying that a wheelchair is not a bicycle. Sure, they have features in common. Wheels, obviously. Tires. There is a seat, and there are handles. Stripped down, they perform the same function: moving someone from one place to another. But use these kind of very elementary...
Laurels & lances: Wedding, weapon, wellness
Laurel: To an Oscar-calibre officiant. Tom Hanks may have famously declared there is no crying in baseball, but a few tears at a wedding are not unexpected. Here’s hoping he had a few hankies handy when he presided over the exchange of vows for a Bellevue couple. Krisna Poznik Stahl...
Editorial: Can John Pallone be a good open records officer?
A township manager is the person who is hired to steer the municipality’s work while the people elected to make the decisions are busy during the day. Elected officials, especially at the level of many townships, often have their own full-time jobs. Also, the person elected to make the decisions...
Editorial: Less recidivism requires more preparation for inmates
For some people, being arrested can be a wake-up call. It can be enough of a scare to cause a jump back to the straight-and-narrow. Maybe it was precipitated by a one-time mistake unlikely to happen again, or maybe it was a stupid move that could have resulted in a...
Editorial: Natural decline in population demands shift in priorities
Pennsylvania has a population problem. The problem isn’t that the overall population is shrinking. It’s not. According to the 2020 census, the number of people who call the state home grew by 2.4% — just over 300,000 — in 10 years. That’s not bad. Compared to neighboring West Virginia, which...
Editorial: Opioid prevention critical in cutting overdose deaths
In 2021, 168 people lost their lives because of accidental drug overdoses in Westmoreland County. Break that down over the course of the year, and that means just over every two days, someone’s high turned into a family’s worst low. It also means that drug overdose deaths are increasing at...
Editorial: Tipped minimum shows wiggle room on issue
Gov. Tom Wolf has spent years pushing to increase the Pennsylvania minimum wage. The state’s minimum has sat at the federal bottom line of $7.25 per hour since 2009. But anyone who has done a gratuity-motivated job such as waiting tables knows that isn’t the least amount of money someone...
Editorial: A nomination isn’t a political promise
There is a difference between an appointment and a nomination. In an appointment, a government leader is able to place someone in a position with nothing more than their own say-so. Pick a chief of staff or a press secretary? That’s completely up to a governor or senator. A nomination...
