Laurel: To that time of year. School started this week for many students throughout the region. For others, that first bell is just days away. College students are back in their dorms and heading back to class in universities from Pittsburgh to Greensburg and everywhere else.

This could be when the complications of the coronavirus pandemic show themselves to be a long-lasting problem as students’ deficits from more than two full years of remote learning and social distancing emerge. On the other hand, it might be when things really get back to normal and school just becomes school again.

It’s hard to say. Covid-19 numbers are rising again in some places. Then there’s monkeypox. And let’s not forget Pennsylvania’s teacher shortage. But there’s just something hopeful about the start of the school year, with new clothes and new shoes and freshly sharpened pencils. Let’s hope 2022-23 makes the grade.

Lance: To birds of a feather. There’s no flocking together at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds.

While the fair is welcoming exhibitors, vendors and families for the annual festivities, there is one group that is off the guest list: poultry.

Because of avian flu, which is hitting flocks across the country, birds such as chickens and turkeys aren’t being displayed by farmers and farm kids. Instead, the Rhode Island Red roosters and Plymouth Rock hens are showing up only in photographs.

Judges and exhibitors alike are disappointed, but 40 million birds have been affected nationwide. In Lancaster, Berks and Northampton counties alone, over 4.2 million birds have been lost to the easily spread disease. The poultry might be protected, but it’s still missed in the barns.

Laurel: To a smart plan. West Deer is getting a brand new municipal complex.

The facility, which will include space for township offices, police, garages and community meeting rooms, will come with a price tag of $11 million. That’s the kind of thing that can make residents blanch as they anticipate the coming tax bill.

But officials are easing those fears, confident they will not have to raise taxes.

“Back in 2015, I believe it was, the supervisors instructed me to start putting money aside,” township Manager Daniel Mator said.

By banking $300,000 a year since then, the municipality has a nice nest egg for this project. It might seem obvious, like saving for the down payment on a new house rather than borrowing during a time of rising interest rates. But sometimes it’s the most common sense approach that gets the job done.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)