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HASD missing a key point: Transparency

Hollidaysburg Area School District officials are now paying the price for their lack of initial transparency regarding the proposal to house an Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth program. That lack of transparency — or the minimum amount of it — has spawned concerns and fears on the part of parents of students of the district’s regular student body — the students who show up for classes to receive a good education, not to disrupt educational proceedings. Parents and other well-meaning district taxpayers have a right to question, and express opposition to, how the issue ...

Kennedy Center renaming would tarnish jewel

Arose by any other name would smell as sweet, said Shakespeare, but the Orwellian name games played by our current president and his congressional lackeys truly stink. The latest: A Missouri congressman has filed legislation to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after Dear Leader, er, President Donald Trump. The Kennedy Center, long a jewel of Washington, D.C., culture, has become an odd obsession of Trump’s lately. After breaking with tradition by refusing during his first term to even attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors awards ceremony, Trump in this term ...

Casino workers set to lose big in spending bill

Thousands of casino workers across the United States thought they would be winners when Donald Trump was victorious for a second term. Candidate Trump, while on the campaign trail, told workers who rely on tips as part of their income that, if he were elected to a second term, after his four-year absence from the Oval Office, workers would no longer have that tip income taxed. Initially, many workers were skeptical about that ever happening, but then came the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that, thanks to Congress, seemed to make good on Trump’s campaign promise. But what a terrible ...

Railroad merger may aid Altoona

If Norfolk Southern Railroad’s proposed merger with the much larger Union Pacific Railroad comes to pass, the combining of the two carriers might be bad for Altoona’s Juniata Locomotive Shop, but it actually might be good instead. Look at the possible merger from two perspectives, first the negative one that seems to be dominant at this point. The negative perspective envisions at least a cutback in employment, if not total closure of the local operation. Union Pacific no doubt would control major decisions, if regulatory approvals are forthcoming, because it is the much bigger of ...

Weather spikes cause concern for our future

People here feel and express sorrow for those in this region and state, as well as those in other parts of the country and around the world, who increasingly seem to be beset with catastrophic weather events. Even in this region, which has experienced virtually nothing when compared with what others have experienced — destruction, injuries and deaths, thousands of people and families having been afflicted — many individuals and families here also have experienced difficult circumstances due to Mother Nature’s fury and ravages. While this region’s winter snow events are mild ...

Broad Avenue building’s woes could be worse

If there is one positive thing that can be said about the now-condemned apartment building on the 200 block of Broad Avenue, across from the front of the Jaffa Shrine Center in Altoona, it’s that it gave a warning before reaching a moment of disastrous collapse. Having extended that consideration to the neighborhood and the city as a whole, the building allowed all residents of the seven occupied apartments to leave safely — and take most, if not all, of their possessions with them. Had the situation played out in a more negative way, only one’s imagination can project what the ...