Apparently there is half of $105 million of federal covid relief fund money languishing in a bank somewhere right now with Westmoreland County’s name on it (“Westmoreland’s plan for $105 million in covid relief funds remains elusive”).
Your county commissioners want to know how they should spend it. But not until they awarded bonuses and raises to their staffs, who fearlessly manned the typewriters and copy machines throughout the pandemic. Oh, and they also bought a couple of new machines, as well.
Too, instead of going after the architect and contractor whose work may have resulted in the cave-in of the county courthouse and office building garage, they quickly decided that taking $7 million from the covid relief fund was a great use of those “extra” funds.
Before any more of the covid relief funds are misappropriated, how about the nurses and maintenance people who actually served those sick and those dying with covid? With too few nurses to start with, how do you commissioners plan to make it up to those precious few who dragged themselves in to work long shifts, day after day and then night after night? You cannot, but perhaps you could give money for every hour worked under those terrible circumstances. But how long would the funds last? Perhaps scholarships for nurses would be an appropriate use.
But for God’s sake, let’s not blow it all on stuff that would be neat to have.
Ed Collins
West Newton