Laurels & lances: Develop, restart, honor
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Laurel: To realizing big change can start small. Pittsburgh is looking beyond big development projects and placing emphasis on rebuilding neighborhoods and modeling transformation with its own blighted properties.
Mayor Bill Peduto made the announcement Wednesday, pointing to the potential impact that rehabilitating neighborhood business districts and the city-owned buildings and lots could have on poverty-stricken areas.
“It’s time that we dream small,” Peduto said.
The possibilities of nurturing improvement could be huge, though. Just as blight can be contagious, so can hope and pride. Build this park. Paint that porch. Replace those windows. Plant that kind of seed and you never know what might grow.
Lance: To not getting it right the first time. What the heck, Vandergrift? The borough held its reorganization early in January just like every other municipality in Pennsylvania. Then they had to do it again on Monday after realizing that five council members hadn’t filled out an affidavit required by state law certifying that, yes, they do live in Vandergrift.
They are certainly not the first elected officials to miss a step in the paperwork. They will not be the last.
But five of them? That doesn’t show that someone skipped a step. That says no one in the borough government read the rules.
Laurel: To showing compassion. While the Brookville-area teens whose video of an assault on an injured deer caused widespread outrage and criminal charges, a Greater Latrobe girl’s kindness has garnered appreciation.
Parker Williams was honored by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for helping to free a deer caught in a cow fence along a wooded area in Unity.
“It was nice to acknowledge someone who thinks beyond themselves,” said Deputy Game Warden Ken Williams — no relation.
Parker Williams’ actions demonstrated character and heart. It’s too bad there wasn’t a video of that to go viral.