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It was a week with a lot of local highlights, so diamonds all around.
Diamonds to the Wilkes-Barre branch of the NAACP for its annual Freedom Fund banquet, honoring the “doers” who often work behind the scenes with little recognition in the struggle against racism and the needed effort to make our area as inclusive and accepting as possible. This is particularly valuable in an age of highly divisive politics that seems endlessly feeding off culture wars and tribalism.
Diamonds to state Department of transportation for a pilot project to pave roads with a mix of asphalt and recycled plastic. We reserve judgment, of course, on the efficacy, but that’s what a pilot project is intended to determine. And there is no doubt we suffer a profound glut of plastic in our garbage and recycling streams. Every positive use for the discarded plastic items — and every effort to reduce their excessive use — is welcome.
Diamonds to Los Angeles Angels Manager Joe Maddon for his continued support of Hazleton’s future. Maddon held his annual golf tournament in Sugarloaf Township, raising money for his Hazleton Integration Project, a decade-old non-profit providing support for economically disadvantaged children in his hometown.
Diamonds to Boscov’s for again holding its “Friends Helping Friends” sale event. We generally stay away from giving kudos to commercial businesses because so much of what they do is, by definition, geared to their own succcess (and that’s fine), but this one offers customers a 25% discount on almost everything in the Wilkes-Barre store while providing substantial contributions to one of the participating local non-profits, chosen by the customer. It has always felt like a real win-win for the community.
Diamonds to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for awarding more than $14 million to the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority for the multi-municipality effort to reduce pollution flowing from our area into the Chesapeake Bay. That effort has been maligned by residents because it relies on a storm water fee that critics dub a “rain tax.” While that moniker is inaccurate, the lament that this effort is an unfunded mandate from the federal government is fair, and arranging such a substantial grant can help take the sting out of that fact.
Diamonds to Northwest Area School District administration for pushing a more uniform effort at mask breaks for students. The district announced an effort to let the state-mandated masks in classrooms come off for a few minutes at a time in an orderly fashion while maintaining at least six feet of distance between the unmasked. With frequent complaints about inconsistent application of mask breaks, this seems like a sound and reasonably safe way to assure mask breaks for all.
Diamonds to the start of cases in Commonwealth Court that may finally settle the legality of the state school mask mandate. It will almost surely take time some anti-maskers don’t want to spend, but it’s the right way to settle the issue, rather than the sometimes angry, sometimes conspiracy-laden debates at local school board meetings. The best case scenario would be for the transmission rate of COVID-19 to drop low enough that the mask mandate goes away, but until then let the courts decide. We encourage anti-maskers to let school board members do their work and leave the mask issue run its legal course. Then both sides will need to accept the final outcome.
— Times Leader