Diamonds to Wilkes-Barre City and all those involved in acquiring the new mobile health clinic, unveiled Tuesday. Wilkes-Barre Health Department Director Hank Radulski said he has dreamed of acquiring such an asset, and said the fulfillment of that vision “truly is a great day for the City of Wilkes-Barre.” We agree. The $921,860 vehicle, paid for with a grant, includes a waiting room, three clinical rooms, restrooms, two televisions and WiFi capability. Mayor George Brown said the city will partner with local physicians who will volunteer to provide services. It seems little known but well documented that access is often a major hurdle to healthier lives. While one would think most people in the Diamond City live within a short distance of some medical attention, the reality is often much bleaker, especially for the poor and elderly. Done right, mobile clinics bring the care to your neighborhood. We hope to see this become a model of how to do mobile clinics right.
Coal to the abrupt closing of the Keystone Job Corps and other similar federally-funded facilities intended to help low income youth who face school and job barriers. We are not defending the merits or successes of the Job Corps program. There well may be better ways to help the students who attend them. We are criticizing the way this is happening. With short notice and, apparently, scant understanding of the potential impacts, the Butler Township Job Corps is to begin the shutdown process by June 30. As a Tuesday story outlined, the repercussions will impact 467 students and numerous workers, and cut expected income at Butler Township, PPL and Service Electric. Perhaps most upsetting is the disregard to how this likely will affect Luzerne County, which owns the land leased for the job corps under a decades-long agreement. Cutting federal spending and employee rolls is fine. But it is not done in a vacuum, and considerably more time should have been spent studying all the repercussions before taking this too-quick step.
Diamonds to The Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Riverfront Parks Committee and all those who helped organize the first Bioblitz in Wyoming Valley. Naturalists worked to identify as many species in Kirby Park as they could in 24 hours, and succeeded in taking a census of more than 400 species just from 2 p.m. Friday to 11 a.m. Saturday. “It’s a great way to contribute to citizen science, our understanding of species that share space with us,” Environmental Council Program Manager Rachael Stark said, “and also to inspire communities to be better stewards of their local environments.” Kudos to a great idea with hopes of many bigger events to come.
Coal to everyone mentioned in a Hunlock Township brief published Tuesday. A man says he communicated with an unknown person on a dating app, exchanged phone numbers, then sent nude pictures of himself. He then told state police he received text messages and a screen shot of his sister’s social media account with threats his nude photos would be posted if he did not provide money. It sounds like a case of everyone involved doing the wrong thing, and watching the wrong compound.