Editorials category, Page 59
Laurels & lances: Stores, seats and lunch ladies
Laurel: To more stores. After years of the news out of malls being all about closings and going-out-of-business sales, it is refreshing to have the trend at one shopping center going in the opposite direction. Westmoreland Mall is seeing not just new tenants but also returning ones. It’s great to...
Editorial: Is Penguins sale good or bad for Pittsburgh?
Buying a sports franchise can be a little like flipping a house. Someone comes in with enough cash to do things that maybe haven’t been done in a while. Upgrade this. Rehab that. See if you can turn a profit. The difference is no one really sees a multimillion dollar...
Editorial: Invasive species are environmental threat everyone can fight
Pennsylvania is a state often associated with industry. Steel and glass. Coal and gas. But the Keystone State is just as famous for its nature. The U.S. Forest Service confirms that it has more areas wooded than not, with 16.8 million acres or 58% of the state. There are more...
Editorial: Police position vacancies more than a Freeport problem
The people of Freeport are supposed to have police protection. The borough has a police department, and council has approved funding of positions to operate it. It had people in those jobs for years, patrolling the streets and answering calls in the community of 1,813 people in Armstrong County along...
Editorial: Toll bridges could cost municipalities
Bridges need to be repaired so that people can continue to use them. That doesn’t seem to be a hard idea to process. The bridges were built for a reason. They need to be used to get from one place to another by going over something else. Sometimes they cross...
Editorial: Mask appeal is latest political power play
On Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that Pennsylvania schools could set their own mask policies as of Jan. 17, opening the door for districts where parents have bristled under the state requirement to ease or eliminate the demand that students, staff and visitors mask up in the face of the...
Editorial: Respecting employees can fix employment crisis
Businesses, especially the boots-on-the-ground variety like food service and retail, are in the midst of an employment crisis. Many are being forced to scale back hours or days to deal with the availability of staff. It’s a problem that was kicked off by the coronavirus pandemic and its layoffs amid...
Laurels & lances: Grants, pants and lanternflies
Laurel: To investing in people. The best thing to boom an economy is a good pool of people to do the jobs that keep the gears of any industry turning. That is why an investment in developing that pool is good news. Penn State is receiving a $1.5 million federal...
Editorial: Veterans deserve our leaders’ respect and support beyond just Veterans Day
Everyone loves a veteran. Especially a politician. On Veterans Day, that pride and appreciation of those who stood up and did their duty when asked or stepped forward to volunteer will be on display in many corners. Flags will be flown and speeches will be given. Ceremonies will be held,...
Editorial: Would Pittsburgh’s traffic stop proposal change anything?
Flashing lights in the rearview mirror and the whine of a siren are almost never welcome. They are, at best, the beginning of an irritating delay and frequently the herald of a pricey citation. But they can also lead to more tense situations. Viral videos of traffic stops that turned...
Editorial: Parental support for kids vaccine can make difference
Covid-19 has been a disease fraught with hot-button aspects: The masks. The mandates. The shutdowns. The treatments. And the vaccines. Eleven months after the first Pfizer-BioNTech injections were administered to front-line health care workers, about 61% of Pennsylvanians have been vaccinated, but there is still pushback from certain quarters —...
Editorial: Municipal budgets are public documents
When it comes to money, a municipality is supposed to be an open book. That’s not just a metaphor. The book in question isn’t a euphemism. It’s literal. The way a city or a borough or a township spend its money — whether from its own residents or passed through...
Editorial: Was Wolf’s ballot an honest mistake?
Often, changing a law is all about politics — especially when it has to do with the big issues that make headlines. In recent years, there is no issue that gets more attention than elections. How people register. How they vote. How those votes are counted and where and for...
Editorial: High tech hall passes are smart solution
Not all hall passes look alike. In some schools, they are slips of paper that detail exactly where a student is allowed to go, at what time and why. In others, they are physical objects — sometimes comically large or obvious — that not only tell other staff members the...
Laurels & lances: Election, sportsmanship and honor
Laurel: To having your say. The people turned out and made their wishes known. Because of that, there will be a lot of change in the area come January. Pittsburgh will have its first Black mayor in Democrat Ed Gainey, something not exactly surprising as the city hasn’t seated a...
Editorial: Wolf vaccine days off not his to give
Every elected official has good causes they would like to pursue and good ideas to get off the ground that are restrained by two things. First, you need the money to accomplish the task. Second, doing so has to be part of your job. Gov. Tom Wolf has problems with...
Editorial: Is Westmoreland Co. election confidence just spin?
Last week, Westmoreland County officials were spouting optimism and confidence when it came to the general election. “We’re not getting the same calls and don’t have the same concerns we did,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said. “Overall, our customer service has increased, and it just shows we now have the proper...
Editorial: This election matters
Anyone who paid attention to the 2020 presidential elections can tell you that more people voted in that race than have ever voted before. Nationwide there were more than 158 million ballots cast. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 9 million people were registered and 76.5% showed up at the polls...
Editorial: Shelter addresses invisible homelessness
It used to be the Applewood Personal Care Home, but a building in Brackenridge might see new life giving shelter to people who have no other home. The Allegheny Valley Association of Churches received a green light from the municipality’s zoning hearing board to use the property it is trying...
Editorial: Turnpike’s PennDOT payments lower but results still felt
The Pennsylvania Turnpike has several ins and outs as it winds its way through Westmoreland County. On Thursday, another one was announced after years of lobbying by locals. The Turnpike Commission gave the official go-ahead to an interchange in Penn Township at Route 130. The specifics of when the project...
Editorial: Kids rely on adults for safety – including vaccines
Getting a kid to take a shot can be more stressful for parents than for the children themselves. Don’t believe it? Watch a mom or dad holding a baby getting an injection at a six-month appointment. It’s clearly a bullet that the parents would take themselves if they could. It’s...
Laurels & lances: Applause, plead, respite
Laurel: To unintentional stardom. It is rare that the people behind the scenes in a production get a moment in the spotlight, but senior Noah Kessler did just that when it became his job to clean the microphone between acts at the Highlands High School “Fall Follies” talent show. Little...
Editorial: Stripped down issue of independent contractors
What does a freelance worker have in common with an exotic dancer? Maybe more than than you think. This isn’t about the work itself. It’s more about how the work is viewed in a strictly business sense. The law, after all, doesn’t care about what we do per se. The...
Editorial: The high price of even higher gas taxes
High gas prices are not exactly new to Pennsylvanians, but this is ridiculous. Maybe back in September, $3.33 a gallon seemed like the highest they could get, but here we are in October with prices up to $3.50 a gallon. For those wondering, it hasn’t cost that much to fill...
Editorial: Legislature legal bills should be open
There is a time-honored, court-supported concept of privacy when it comes to dealings between a person and lawyer. It’s an idea that extends to lots of areas of the law. You are guaranteed that your conversations with counsel will be as sacred as a Catholic confessional booth whether you are...
