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View from Hickory Heights: Buyer beware!

Local Commentaries

Today I share a personal experience with you. We were trying to refinish my kitchen floor. It was done about ten years ago, but needed a new coat of finish. My son came up one Wednesday and gave it a light sanding. He planned to apply a coat of finish on Saturday. We knew what we were doing so we had an expected outcome in mind. It looked beautiful when it was done. My son left for home, but left his equipment since he planned a second coat. A couple hours into the drying process I looked at my floor. It said it needed four hours of drying time. What I saw was not what I expected. ...

Our opinion: Disappointing DCNR audit

Our Opinion

Given the importance Warren County places on the outdoors, a recent audit by Timothy DeFoor, state auditor general, is pretty disappointing. DeFoor performed an audit of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources that showed the agency did not award all Community Conservation Partnerships Program (C2P2) grants competitively, instead using its own discretion when awarding some grants despite advertising it as a competitive process. The C2P2 program provides federal and state grants to municipalities, non-profit organizations and other community-based organizations for ...

The years pass but the impressions still remain

Local Commentaries

The 1964 death of Kitty Genovese profoundly affected my life. I never met the young woman, but her name has lived in my heart for 60 years. So, when CBS Sunday Morning mentioned her name last weekend, it got my attention. Big time. I sat straight up in my recliner. The show airs a short history piece each week. This past Sunday, the segment highlighted the February 16th anniversary of 911, our emergency number. Much of the urgency toward creating a centralized crisis line was fueled by the high-profile rape and murder of Genovese in New York City. In March of 1964, the New York ...

Our opinion: Bipartisan caucus interesting idea

Our Opinion

We don’t want to get overly optimistic about a new bipartisan caucus in the state’s General Assembly. A small group of Republicans and Democrats in the state House and Senate have formed the Pennsylvania Competitiveness Caucus, an effort the lawmakers say is an effort to unify efforts across state government and party lines to strengthen the state’s economic competitiveness efforts. Competitiveness is something that rural Pennsylvania struggles with, so it’s encouraging to see some state lawmakers who want to work together to collaborate on policies that drive economic ...

Our opinion: Rapp bill may help rural providers

Our Opinion

Rural health providers need help — the real question is how to provide that help. State Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren, has an idea that recently passed the state House Healthcare Committee to create a grant program that facilities could pass on to new employees to help pay down student loan debt. Individual institutions would be eligible to receive up to $250,000 per calendar year, which they would use to directly pay toward their recruits’ student debt. To receive the reimbursement, staff must stay in the role for a minimum of three years. The bill would apply to nurses, ...

Readers Speak

Letters To Editor

Dropping calls Dear Editor, I was very happy to hear we have some progressive township supervisors, poorly paid my I add, willing to form a partnership with a nonprofit to find a solution to the problem of residents with no access to high speed internet. If you do a search of the Times Observer you can find dozens of articles covering what paid County Commissioners were doing to bring Broadband to the county. We have been told they were holding $7.5 million dollars of the Counties American Rescue Plan allocation to match broadband state and fed grants. In 2021, they turned down a ...