Wows & Scowls
Scowl: The highly successful chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, Jonathan H. Newman, resigned this week, a move directly related to Gov. Ed Rendell’s secretive creation of a new $150,000 chief executive officer position that amounts to a make-work job for retired state Sen. Joe Conti of Bucks County. It’s understandable that Newman would feel his position was being undermined. But taxpayers should ask what public debate took place before Rendell created the position and had it filled by Conti. Moves like that make any talk of reform coming from the governor’s lips seem suspect. Wow: Pennsylvania Superior Court has overturned a Lackawanna County judge’s order that a reporter must reveal the identify of a source in a story about a grand jury investigation into alleged prisoner brutality. The state’s Shield Law gives reporters the right to guard the identities of their sources, something that’s refreshing to see the appeals court recognize.
Wow: Pennsylvania will get $1.4 billion from the federal government over the next 18 years to clean up the state’s 5,100 abandoned coal mines, and rivers and streams affected by acid mine drainage. Some of the cash will also go to pay for health care for retired miners whose coal companies no longer exist. If the feds are going to spend money, it’s far better that they spend it at home than overseas.
Wow: Uniontown Police Chief Ronald Kozak commended the city’s firefighters and paramedics for exemplary work in simultaneously responding to a fatal accident and two fights that occurred within minutes of each other. Any job is tough when crunch time comes, but ably handling life and death matters has a special significance.
Scowl: Steelers coach Bill Cowher has everyone hanging on his decision about whether he’ll retire or continue coaching the team. Barring some last-minute change of heart, it’s pretty evident that Cowher, for whatever reason or reasons, wants to step away – if not from coaching, at least from Pittsburgh. People don’t build big, expensive houses in North Carolina and watch their wife and daughter move there, like Cowher has done, if they don’t plan to follow suit.
Scowl: In another sports-related item, hockey icon Mario Lemieux is checking out Kansas City, one of the suitors to acquire the Penguins franchise should it not get want it wants, a new arena in the ‘Burg. The question for taxpayers is, “Do you like having the Pens around enough to help pay for their playground?” If you feel that way out of some sense of regional pride, fine. But don’t buy any argument about how having the team in town will create all kinds of economic ripple effects. Do you know anyone who has personally profited – i.e., got or maintained a job – because baseball’s Pirates and football’s Steelers got new facilities a few years back? That part of the argument is overblown.