Hits and Misses
Political junkies were transfixed this week by the spectacle of Kevin McCarthy being denied the speakers’ chair in the U.S. House of Representatives by hardliners in the Republican caucus. It was the first time in 100 years that the election of a House speaker went beyond one ballot. But as the hijinks and wrangling proceeded on Capitol Hill, the state Houses in Pennsylvania and Ohio were choosing speakers who display an interest in compromise and governing. In Pennsylvania, the very closely-divided chamber chose Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who says he will lead his colleagues as an independent. State Rep. Tim O’Neal, the North Strabane Republican, helped broker the deal that made Rozzi speaker. Rozzi had the support of all Democrats and more than a dozen Republicans. O’Neal said Rozzi will offer “an independent voice and an independent mind…I think that’s what the people asked for. I think that’s what people want.” In Ohio, state Rep. Jason Stephens, a moderate Republican, pulled off an upset victory against a candidate on the far right. These developments offer some hope that sanity will prevail and extremism will be sidelined in both states.
Blight is an issue that afflicts many communities in this region, and Washington has three new ordinances going into effect today that, we hope, will chip away at blight in the city. One regulates the maintenance of junked vehicles that can sometimes languish on streets or in driveways, and levy fines for violations. Another ordinance would allow the city to levy fines for such neighborhood nuisances as tall grass and garbage dumping, and the third would establish an abandoned property regulation program for both residential and commercial properties. Owners of properties that are considered abandoned must register them within 90 days to the city’s Department of Code Enforcement. From there, security and maintenance requirements must be met, and enforced through monthly inspections. Violations will be met with fines. Blight not only damages a community’s quality of life, but it also hinders its economic prospects, so any progress Washington makes in reducing blight will be most welcome.
Even as the United States population ticked up by a tiny bit between July 2021 and July 2022, Pennsylvania lost residents. In the year that just finished, only New York, California and Illinois lost more residents than Pennsylvania. The reasons any community loses population are varied – residents die off, younger people have fewer babies, the weather is disagreeable, taxes are too high, and jobs are more plentiful in areas that are seeing more vigorous growth. This region specifically has been buffeted by the loss of manufacturing and coal jobs. Elected officials in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties say they are doing what they can to keep population losses down by keeping taxes low, and making investments in such areas as rural broadband. Still, since there are many reasons places become depopulated and not one single, easy solution.