Hits and Misses
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot chose to mark the second anniversary of her inauguration in a strange and counterproductive way – she told members of the Windy City’s media she would be giving interviews only to reporters of color. Lightfoot believes that the Chicago press corps is too white and too male, and it is more than her right to state that and believe that should change. But Lightfoot is the mayor for all Chicagoans, no matter their color, and no public official should be able to pick and choose who covers them. Florence Chee, director of the Center for Digital Ethics at Loyola University in Chicago, told The Washington Post, “There’s lots of ways to be anti-racist, but this isn’t it. It goes back to tokenism and putting people of color in an awkward position by focusing the topic at hand on them rather than the government.”
One day there are going to be reams of academic studies about COVID-19 and the time we’re living through. Decades from now, scholars are certain to be exploring the effectiveness of the lotteries that have been established in Ohio, New York and Maryland that are open to residents who have been vaccinated. In Ohio, some lawmakers are agitated that $5 million is flowing out of state coffers for five $1 million prizes, and you can understand why they would be perturbed – it was only just weeks ago that people were clamoring to get shots in their arms. But early indications seem to show that the lottery has been effective in getting the vaccine-reluctant into pharmacies and clinics. After Gov. Mike DeWine announced the “Vax-a-Million” program, the number of Ohioans getting the first shot went up even as the national numbers stayed flat. If the $5 million Ohio is spending brings more people in to get shots, and saves millions of dollars in health care costs and lost productivity, then it will have been money very well spent.
On Tuesday, the Wolf administration announced that $12 million was going to be flowing out of the Commonwealth Financing Authority and into communities around Pennsylvania to deal with blight remediation, and some of that money will be coming to this area. Rices Landing in Greene County will be getting $100,000 to demolish a long-vacant bank building that poses a safety risk to the community. An additional $100,000 is going to Greene County’s redevelopment authority to renovate five homes and demolish six others. Redstone Township in Fayette County is receiving $25,000 to develop a comprehensive blight plan, and $225,000 has been earmarked for Fayette’s redevelopment authority to complete the demolition of Brownsville’s old Northside Hospital and nearby properties. Blight is dragging down many of our communities, and getting rid of abandoned, dilapidated buildings is a necessary step in getting those communities to thrive again.
It was announced this week that the requirement to search for work will be reinstated for Pennsylvanians receiving unemployment benefits. As an indication of COVID-19’s continuing retreat, it’s clearly good news. And many business leaders applauded the development, saying that more-generous-than-usual benefits were keeping workers on the sidelines who would otherwise be in the workforce. But Jeff Kotula, who leads the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that some of the workers who have not yet returned could be holding off over genuine health concerns, since the pandemic is not yet over, and some have moved along to companies like Amazon or Target. Kotula said, “All these large companies are in direct competition for workers with our local businesses, which further tightens the labor market in our area.” Kotula should be credited for offering this nuanced perspective on a complex problem.