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Our opinion: Three-year bachelor’s degrees an idea worth pursuing

Higher education has taken quite a beating lately. Lawmakers have been going after administrators and faculty at high-profile institutions over Gaza protests and diversity initiatives. Students and parents are getting increasingly impatient with rising costs. Faculty are disgruntled in many places over tight budgets and a lack of job and tenure opportunities. Administrators fret about demographics that could lead to fewer and fewer students being in the shiny, state-of-the-art student centers and dormitories that have been built in recent years. Is there anybody out there happy with ...

Our opinion: Pitching in to beautify Warren

Twice last week reporter Heather Cathcart-Norris caught up crews cleaning up Warren landmarks. They weren’t paid. No one asked for coverage. Warren Koppenhafer, the owner and CEO of local business Kope Services, noticed that Soldier and Sailors Park looked dirty, so he and his crew volunteered their exterior cleaning services to the city at no cost starting at 5 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Koppenhafer and his crew started their day at 5 a.m. and cleaned the park’s monument, gazebo, amphitheater, and walkways. Friday, city resident R. “Gene” Robillard, family friend Emily ...

Our opinion: Sales tax increases are regressive

House Rep. Michael Sturla, D-Lancaster, is proposing one of the most brazen tax shifts we’ve seen in quite a while. Sturla, with House Bill 678, wants to give counties the ability to levy a 1% sales tax, with the bill specifically targeted for counties like Warren County that don’t generate as much in property taxes as they used to because of an increase in tax-exempt properties. Of course, what Sturla doesn’t tell you is one reason so much land in Warren County is exempt from property taxes is because the state has taken it off the tax rolls. Allowing Warren County, and ...

Our opinion: Streambank work vital to area

There are some who question the value of streambank stabilization projects like the one taking place along Brokenstraw Creek. Diane Brant of Warren isn’t one of them. Two members of Brant’s family were walking along a trail near Brokenstraw Creek in late May when a family member walked up to the bank, unaware it had been undercut about 18 inches by high water. The bank gave way and the woman fell 8-10 feet, breaking five vertebrae and five ribs. She wrote in a letter run in the Times Observer on Saturday that a nurse told her of similar streambank mishaps, including one on ...

Our opinion: Only court must stop senior project

Once again last week the Warren City Council heard arguments from city residents who want the city to step in and stop a senior housing development downtown. This time, those with concerns asked the council to commission an independent study on the proposed senior housing project proposed by Hudson Companies that would result in two buildings with 40 units on Liberty Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Developers say all of their permits and funding applications are tied to the site. Attempting to move it now would result in going back to the starting blocks with no guarantee that prior ...

Our opinion: Properly rewriting the records

In a distant corner of Pittsburgh’s sprawling Allegheny Cemetery, you have to march up a steep hillside to find the grave of Josh Gibson. It’s a flat stone, set in the ground, and has Gibson’s game engraved on it, his dates of birth and death and the words “Legendary Baseball Player.” It’s decidedly low-key when you consider that, indeed, Josh Gibson is among the most legendary of baseball players, his feats on the field spoken of in awe. He was among the greatest hitters the game has ever seen, not merely hammering hundreds of homers, but swatting them way out of the ...