Hits and Misses
HIT: Working in any service-sector job is not easy. The pay is low, the hours can be long, the demands on the body can be punishing, schedules can be irregular and customers can be a handful. That being the case, Home Depot deserves credit for a new initiative that mandates corporate employees work at least one whole day at its stores to fully understand what its employees go through. The requirement includes senior management for the home improvement retailer. According to Ted Decker, Home Depot’s CEO, “We need to stay connected to the core of our business, so we can truly understand the challenges our store associates face every day.” This is an idea that more companies need to take up.
MISS: Last month, Washington County’s commissioners approved a $24 million contract with Motorola Solutions to pull together a new 911 emergency radio system, even though $8.5 million had already been spent on a system the board had previously approved with North Strabane-based MRA, Inc., before Commissioner Nick Sherman became chairman of the board. Making matters worse, the county has refused to release details of the new contract to the Observer-Reporter, which filed a request under the state’s Right to Know Law. The county contends that releasing the information would reveal proprietary information and could put public safety in jeopardy. But the county has the option of redacting those details. As Melissa Melewsky, an attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, pointed out, “There may be parts of the proposal that trigger these exceptions, but not the whole thing.” She added, “A $24 million contract and they say you can’t see that? It’s not just concerning. It’s outrageous. … The public has a right to know how and why their money is being spent. The fact that they gave (the Observer-Reporter) a blanket denial with no information is outrageous.’
MISS: Georgia is on a lot of people’s minds right now, thanks to its status as one of the seven battleground states in this year’s presidential election. And, as this election season has gotten hotter and hotter, there have been allegations that legions of noncitizens are casting ballots in our elections. It should be noted that these claims are made without much evidence to back them up. This week, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released the results of an audit of the state’s voter rolls and it found that in the fast-growing state that has attracted plenty of migrants, the number of noncitizens who were registered to vote was … 20. That’s out of more than 8 million registered voters. And of those 20, 11 had never voted and nine had voted years ago. Results like this should put to rest the myth that hordes of noncitizens are voting in America.