Hits and misses
MISS: Shame, shame, shame on Monessen Mayor Matt Shorraw and Councilman Gil Coles for refusing to attend council meetings, preventing the city from purchasing liability insurance and forcing the possible shutdown of police and fire services in the city tomorrow. Their unexplained absences from meetings since May and resulting lack of a quorum needed to act on city business has created an unnecessary hardship for the city. City residents deserve better.
MISS: Speaking of Monessen, we would be remiss if we did not point out the irony in Mayor Matt Shorraw’s attempt to make a motion to pay the city’s liability insurance via email. Just seven months ago, Shorraw campaigned on a promise to increase transparency at City Hall. Need we remind you, Mayor, of the state’s Sunshine Act, which prevents agencies from conducting business outside of public meetings? Councilman Gil Coles seconded the motion, but fortunately, the remaining two councilmen had the good sense to refuse to act on the email.
HIT: Golf is flog spelled backward, and Pete Edwards is pounding Father Time. On June 16, the sprightly 97-year-old from Peters Township cobbled together a fortuitous string of fives: using a 5-hybrid from the fifth tee of St. Clair Country Club, he launched the fifth hole-in-one of his playing career, a masterful 121-yard shot. Edwards, a World War II veteran and still-active president of Brookside Lumber in Bethel Park, plays twice a week, and while he gave up carrying his bag at 94, he still mostly walks the course.
MISS: “Don’t spend that all in one place” is a commonly used phrase when someone gives you a pittance of money that could barely buy a cup of coffee. That could be said for the Trinity Area School District taxpayers who got little more than pocket change when the school board recently decreased its tax rate by .29 mills – or 2 percent – after concerns arose about its tax hike following the recent countywide assessment. Trinity’s tax revenue ballooned following the assessment, raising questions whether the school board properly recalibrated the tax rate to remain within the state’s “windfall” exception. The reduction will only save the owner of a property assessed at $158,000, which is the median of assessed values for homestead properties, about $46 a year. It’s just another example of how Washington County’s reassessment hasn’t been good for anyone.
HIT: A fair-minded person could hardly blame black Pittsburghers who harbor doubt that justice will prevail in the case of Antwon Rose II, the unarmed 17-year-old who was gunned down by an East Pittsburgh police officer June 19 as he ran from a car that had been stopped by police. Too many times, black Americans have seen unarmed people of color shot to death by police officers, then watched the officers get off scot-free or with a slap on the wrist. Some of the legal miscarriages have been truly egregious. In the Rose case, at the very least, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. brought a criminal homicide charge Wednesday against Officer Michael Rosfeld. A district judge then made somewhat of a mockery of that charge by freeing the officer on an unsecured bond, but we hope that when the case plays out in court, justice – real justice – will be served.