Dec 25, 2014 3 min read

Editorial voices from around Pennsylvania as compiled by the Associated Press:

So far, the 48,000-pound armored vehicle owned by the Center Township Police Department hasn’t been needed for law and order on the streets of Beaver County.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

The Center police is one of three regional law enforcement agencies to have snagged mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, which officers could use to shield themselves when under fire. Local police departments also obtained items such as an armored personnel carrier, rifles and infrared aiming lights.

For good reason, the military generally is not used for domestic law enforcement. The armed forces and police departments serve different functions requiring different arsenals and protocols. The mindset and materiel of the former are not neatly transferable to the latter.

That’s why local police, when faced with unusual threats to public safety, should rely on assistance from county SWAT units and state police. In too many communities, police and citizens already view each other with distrust. They don’t need armored vehicles driving them further apart.

A major policy question government leaders often are reluctant to answer is whether the public gets a fair return on the hundreds of millions of tax dollars it contributes to private-sector development projects through tax breaks, grants, loans and services.

Too often, the public makes the investment and the company pulls up stakes a few years later, in search of a better deal.

State law gradually evolved to tie job creation to most public grants and tax breaks for private development. A new performance audit of state economic development grant programs shows that companies do not always generate the promised jobs.

The auditor general’s office examined Department of Community and Economic Development records for 600 businesses that received $212.9 million in grants and loans from 2007 through 2010 and were monitored for compliance by DCED from July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2013. Overall, the audit revealed only 56 percent of the companies receiving the state money created or retained the number of jobs they promised in their applications.

The lesson from the audit is that policymakers should be skeptical and demanding when doling out public money for businesses. Such programs are necessary to keep the state in the game, but that does not preclude lawmakers and regulators from separating solid projects from others that do not fulfill their promises.

The president of Philadelphia’s police union last week launched an unfair and outrageous rant against protesters demonstrating against grand juries in Missouri and New York that cleared white officers who killed unarmed black suspects.

“We have to guard against a growing trend in this country to replace due process and the legal system with media-fueled mob rule and sensationalism,” said John McNesby, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, according to a report by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

McNesby denounced the outpourings of anger and protest sparked last month by grand juries’ decisions not to bring charges against police in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y.

This is exactly the wrong message police officers should hear from the head of the local police union.

McNesby should be directing his anger at bad police officers who make good police officers look bad by abusing their positions of great responsibility. He should be upset with officers who harmed the public’s trust of law enforcement.

As the leader of the local police union he should be leading efforts to reform and improve policing instead of attacking protesters.