Hits and Misses
MISS: Clark County, Wash., has a vaccination rate of 78 percent, well below the national average of about 91 percent, and it’s led to an entirely predictable outcome: The community just over the border from Portland, Ore., has seen a measles outbreak. So far, it’s hit 49 residents, most of them children younger than the age of 10. It’s surely not a coincidence that Washington and Oregon are among the 17 states that allow children to skip vaccinations due to the personal or philosophical objections of their parents. Alan Melnick, the public health director in Clark County, told The New York Times, “If you have a population that is unvaccinated, it’s like throwing a match into a can of gasoline. Measles is exquisitely contagious and immunization rates have been dropping.” Legislators in Washington State are apparently reconsidering their lax vaccination rules. They would be wise to do so. It would also be wise for parents everywhere to look to what is happening on the West Coast as a warning and promptly get their children vaccinated if they haven’t already done so.
HIT: Gov. Tom Wolf unveiled proposals for the 2019-20 budget in a speech before the General Assembly Tuesday, and given the horse-trading that will unfold with the Republican-majority Legislature in the weeks ahead, it’s anyone guess how many of Wolf’s plans will survive intact. We hope that his suggestions for increasing education funding across the board get a fair hearing. Wolf would invest more in education from childhood to adulthood, starting with pre-K programs and continuing through elementary and secondary education, higher education and workforce training. Another noteworthy proposal: lowering the age of compulsory school attendance from 8 to 6 and raising the dropout age from 17 to 18. These are good ideas, because having a better-educated populace will strengthen Pennsylvania over the long haul.
MISS: Over the past few weeks, motorists traveling on Interstate 70 near the West Virginia state line have probably noticed heavy traffic backups due to concerns over how Tunnel Ridge LCC’s longwall mining in the area could damage the highway. The bottlenecks occurred as PennDOT and its counterpart in West Virginia closed one lane in each direction near the state line to monitor possible ground movement. It finally happened Tuesday as ripples began forming in the highway as the ground settled from the mining below, which occurred sooner than PennDOT engineers expected. The situation forced PennDOT to close the interstate down in 15-minute intervals throughout the day Tuesday to mill down the ripples, causing even more congestion on the very busy road. While coal mining is an important industry, there are not-so-hidden costs associated with it, whether its damage to the environment or infrastructure. Tunnel Ridge has agreed to reimburse the state of Pennsylvania for a portion of the repair costs, meaning taxpayers will likely be on the hook for some of the damage, not to mention the inconvenience for those traveling on I-70 in western Washington County.
HIT: In 1981, Ronald Reagan was spending his first year in the White House, the last Pittsburgh Pirates championship was a recent memory, and graybeard New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was still in preschool. It also was the year when Larry Spahr started working for the Washington County elections office. Spahr, as most locals know, rose through the ranks to become director of the office, and saw firsthand the transition from paper ballots to punch cards and finally to computerized voting machines. All the while, he offered Washington County voters the highest level of integrity and professionalism. The other day, Spahr called it a career. We thank him for his many years of service, and wish him a long and enjoyable retirement.
MISS: President Trump’s State of the Union address was hardly one for the ages, but Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi didn’t help matters. Whether intentionally or not, she distracted viewers with facial expressions, “sarcastic applause” at some of Trump’s suggestions, and thumbing through a paper copy of the address “as if she were looking for something more substantive, or at least more amusing, to read,” as Frank Rich of New York magazine put it. Rich added, “It was worthy of a Tina Fey ‘SNL’ bit.” Whether you like the president or not, a show of respect for the office was in order.