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Our opinion: Outgoing CEO was steady hand

Warren General Hospital is about to turn a new page in its history with the naming of Dan Grolemund as its new CEO, succeeding the retiring Richard Allen. But it’s largely due to Allen that there is a page to turn at all. It may be difficult to remember now, but there was a time when Warren General Hospital faced serious financial difficulties. Allen led the hospital board through some difficult choices early in his tenure as hospital CEO - but those decisions have resulted in years of positive operating margins and a 20% growth in net revenues. Improved finances allowed the ...

Our opinion: Deficits, energy still a priority

As time passes, the excesses of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act become more and more clear. Recent analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute confirms that the cost projections for the law when it was passed were woefully — perhaps even deliberately — inadequate. The institute’s studying of the costs places its expense to the American taxpaying public at between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over 10 years and between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion by the year 2050. For a nation already struggling with a national debt of $34 trillion, we believe this ...

Our opinion: Crisis needs funds, not position

There aren’t many state legislators more engaged in the issues surrounding rural EMS services than Rep. Martin Causer. The Bradford-area Republican is frequently part of rural EMS task force meetings and is asking for support for legislation he is drafting that would create an independent Office of EMS Commissioner to operate within the state Health Department. The idea is one that Causer recently discussed during an EMS Task Force meeting he hosted in McKean County recently. Causer thinks creating the state office, which would require the state EMS commissioner to have a ...

Our opinion: More proof to let the status quo go

After listening to the community plead for the status quo in high school education over the past couple of years, we decided to take a look at how our students have been doing under the status quo. The results were sobering, to be quite honest. Some were sobering despite not being surprising, like the decreasing number of high school juniors taking the Keystone Exams across the county. The county’s overall junior class has decreased from 347 students in 2014-15 to 255 in 2023-24, with none of the four high schools seeing a growth in the number of test-taking students. The ...

Our opinion: A wrong way to balance budget

We knew there would be pain when President Donald Trump said he was going to right-size federal programs in an attempt to bring the federal budget under control. The only way to get control of federal spending is through spending cuts. Of course, now we’re finding out just how dependent on federal programs we really are - and some of these cuts come with real pain for people who are struggling to get by. Among them are the 189 Pennsylvania farmers and 14 Pennsylvania food banks that participated in the federally-backed Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program that gave money to ...

Our opinion: Tread carefully with lake renewables

We understand why New York lawmakers are so desperate to put wind turbines in Lake Erie. We’re not so sure why some Pennsylvania lawmakers are so enthralled with the concept. New York lawmakers have set some incredibly aggressive targets for renewable energy use with their Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The only way to meet the state’s demand for power is to scour the landscape for places to put wind turbines and solar panels, though Gov. Kathy Hochul is beginning to consider nuclear power as an option to meet New York’s power demand. But even New York, with ...