Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Kudos to California Area School District for becoming one of just 11 districts nationally – and the only in Pennsylvania – to be recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for its innovative sustainability efforts. For years, the district has offered a variety of hands-on, theory and practical application environmental curricula, including an aquaponics program that allows students to grow their own food on campus, and an apiary, where students raise bees and make lip balm and other products. And last year, solar-powered scooters were brought to campus. “We’re really honored,” said Superintendent Dr. Laura Jacob. “If we’re going to see change and if we’re going to see action, we have to teach it to our kids, so we have to model that.”
Cheers: Fayette’s board of commissioners last week voted to approve the county’s share of a national opioid settlement involving retailers like Tera, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, which have agreed to pay nearly $20 billion to communities across the country. Though the amount the county will receive has yet to be determined, the money will be used to help fund the local fight against the opioid epidemic. “We were one of the first counties in the western part of the state to bring legal action on the opioid issue,” said Commissioner Vince Vicites, noting that the commissioners felt those responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of opioids needed to be held responsible. The first settlement was reached in 2021 with pharmaceutical manufacturers, and Fayette County received about $9 million. The county will work with the Fayette Drug and Alcohol Commission to develop a plan and administer the funding.
Cheers: At the outset of this year’s Major League Baseball season, most prognosticators forecast that the Pittsburgh Pirates would do better this time around than the last couple of 100-loss seasons, but that they would still end up with more losses than wins, and come nowhere near the top of the National League’s Central division. That, of course, could still be the case – there are still five months of baseball left to play – but the Pirates have gotten the season off to a rousing start. At the start of this week, they held the second-best record in baseball, after the Tampa Bay Rays, and were on a seven-game winning streak. The team was still impressive in a Tuesday night loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the game that brought the winning streak to an end. As Zachary D. Rymer put it on the website Bleacher Report, “It’s a good time to be a Pirates fan.”