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Road work headaches affect us all

Difficulty navigating streets and roads due to major infrastructure replacement projects is not a situation unique to what Altoona currently is experiencing. That is true even though the Mountain City is more compact than some other cities of comparable size in Pennsylvania and beyond the Keystone State’s borders — some of those cities engaged in their own efforts at ridding themselves of deteriorated remnants of the past. Like what is happening here, it is not uncommon to hear stories about motorists and non-motorists elsewhere who are frustrated and angry about what is going ...

Students now being courted with job offers

Parents and communities as a whole often lament the exodus of young people who move away to pursue opportunities that they don’t envision being close to home. Leaving home for college studies or to enter military service are pursuits that don’t usually spawn a mountain of dread. After all, no matter where the higher-education studies might be, they are seen as a path hopefully to a prosperous life. Meanwhile, those who choose to serve this country in one of the military services become a source of pride “back home” and for this nation as a whole. But what about those who ...

Amtran use should be monitored

From a financial standpoint, the Snyder Township supervisors appear to have made the right decision in refusing to pay $2,700 this year for Amtran bus service in that municipality. If the supervisors’ information is correct, the service, provided since 2023 under a pilot format, did not attract enough riders to justify the outlay. Jim Burket, a Snyder supervisor, said “I see this busload of air,” adding that he rarely saw people boarding or exiting a bus at the Amtran stops. The Amtran service in the Tyrone area doesn’t seem very popular, Burket said. Meanwhile, the ...

Memorial Day offers time for reflection

The weather-related tragedies many families have experienced this year, not only in this region but in neighboring states and those farther away as well, will no doubt distract some from celebrating this year’s important Memorial Day holiday in their traditional ways. By “traditional ways,” we’re referring to attendance at patriotic parades, attendance at other holiday-themed ceremonies and visits to cemeteries. However, many families victimized by Mother Nature’s ravages will use Monday’s holiday and attendance at holiday-related events as a respite from the tedious, ...

It’s Trump’s move on future of U.S. Steel sale

Nippon Steel is putting more money on the table. But will it matter? The nearly $15 billion elephant in the room is the Japanese company’s offer to acquire Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. It’s a deal that has been dragging on since December 2023. It slow-walked through the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States process in 2024. Both then-President Joe Biden and now-President Donald Trump expressed their opposition, along with legislators and other politicians of both parties. It looked as though it was dead in January when Biden quashed it but then punted a final ...

Hollidaysburg Area School District fiscal woes must be tackled

Taxpayers of the Hollidaysburg Area School District should take some time to contemplate the full scope of the district’s costly needs before they succumb to the knee-jerk reaction of heaping criticism on the current school board and administration. That’s because the district’s current financial concerns have been accumulating for years, because prior boards and officials were content to “kick the proverbial can down the road” rather than addressing the district’s growing needs when they could have been resolved for much lower cost. It is easy to say “we were fiscally ...