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Volunteer fire companies need and deserve our support

As reported in the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of the Sun-Gazette, homes in Gamble Township, the Newberry neighborhood of Williamsport and Montgomery all were lost to fires in the earliest part of the week. First, we hope the families affected by these fires recover. Second, we hope communities throughout our region and state, after these fires and after any fire, can reflect on the important role volunteer fire companies fill in keeping our communities safe. As the Sun-Gazette has documented over years, volunteer fire companies often struggle to find men and women willing to serve ...

What other newspapers are saying: Punishment must always fit crime

Public corruption should always trigger outrage, regardless of the offender. When people entrusted with public dollars abuse that trust, the damage goes far beyond the financial hit. It erodes confidence in institutions that rely on credibility to function. That is why the stark contrast between two recent public corruption cases in our region is impossible to ignore — and deeply concerning. In one case, a former Marshall County assessor, an elected official, was sentenced to two to 15 years in state prison for embezzlement. That sentence properly reflects the seriousness of the ...

Fiscal recklessness will have consequences

An analysis by Truth in Accounting on which The Center Square reported in the Feb. 10 edition of the Sun-Gazette finds that Philadelphia will overspend in the 2025/26 budget year by about $17,000 per taxpayer. As we note that this sort of budgeting is unsustainable, we do not want to single out Pennsylvania’s largest city. The budget proposal by Gov. Josh Shapiro, as we’ve repeatedly criticized in editorials the past two weeks, uses assumptions about future laws and the state’s “rainy day fund” to ramp up government spending — despite our Legislature’s clear and ...

City’s lack of cost estimates unacceptable

Williamsport’s government, as the Sun-Gazette reported in its Feb. 17 edition, has heard a recommendation for its condemned City Hall on West Fourth Street. As we have expressed many times over the past four and a half years, we remain concerned. We have not seen either the leadership or ...

What other newspapers are saying: Survivors deserve full transparency

“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him,” commented the US lawyer Lisa Bloom in an interview with the Guardian this week. As Ms Bloom, who represents 11 of Jeffrey Epstein’s dogged and brave victims, drily notes: “That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work.” From the outset, the Epstein affair has offered a textbook example of the ability of the influential and well-connected to avoid scrutiny and intimidate those who would exert it. A ruthless pursuit of ...

Budget process should not be bogged down with other debates

Over the past year or so we’ve noted that the decision to tie the status of marijuana and skills games to the budget was unfair and counterproductive. The concerns we editorialized about were simple: These issues need thorough debate, on their own terms, with lawmakers considering the drawbacks and disadvantages, especially for either legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana. Concerns about how driving under the influence will be investigated and prosecuted, about the impact on workplaces and employers and how to mitigate unwanted effects, about what legal or decriminalized marijuana ...