Letters: Know before you vote; SCASD marks 100,000 free meals provided during pandemic

Know before you vote

For us here in the 76th PA house district (Clinton County and parts of Centre County), Stephanie Borowicz is our representative. She is running unopposed in the June 2 primary, but she has a challenger on the Democratic side whom she will have to face in November. That is Joe Waltz of Clinton County.

We are all preoccupied these days with COVID-19. However, the 2020 census is underway and voting districts will be redrawn, affecting us all for the next 10 years, long after the pandemic is over. In order to decide whom to vote for in November, citizens deserve to know where candidates stand on this issue.

Republican voters should be concerned that, although Republicans benefited from gerrymandering in 2011, Democrats could turn the tables in 2021 because the fifth member of the redistricting commission will likely be chosen by the Democrat-dominated PA Supreme Court.

FairDistrictsPA.com is a strictly non-partisan organization of volunteers seeking to take politics out of the drawing of Congressional and state legislative district boundaries. Joe Waltz has responded to their “Know Before You Vote” online survey (google it), but so far Mrs. Borowicz has not despite repeated requests that she do so.

SCASD marks 100,000 free meals provided during pandemic

Prior to the pandemic, students regularly got meals in their school’s cafeteria. Some did so because the meals are well prepared and healthy. Others appreciated the convenience of not having to pack a lunch each day. And some relied on school meals as a safety net to guard against hunger. When schools closed due to the coronavirus on March 16, an immediate priority for the State College Area School District was to find a way to continue to provide meals to students who needed them. Each Wednesday, through a USDA funded program, SCASD has been distributing a week’s worth of meals to any child age 18 and younger who wants them. Food Service Department staff and faculty volunteers have been on the front line of supporting families, preparing, packing and distributing meals for “their kids.” The 184th meal served on May 27 representx the 100,000th meal provided through this program. Please join me in thanking the SCASD Food Service Department staff and our many volunteers who selflessly work to support our community.

Urge passage of bill to fight climate change in Pa.

Two dams near Midland, Michigan failed this month after record rains, with 4.7 inches falling over 48 hours. Dow Chemical activated the emergency plan for its headquarters and production facilities in Midland, and reported that floodwaters were commingling with containment ponds at the site. There were concerns about effects of flooding on an associated US EPA SuperFund site just downriver of the Dow facility. Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate their homes.

This sad and worrisome news is relevant to us.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection recently issued its 2020 Climate Change Impacts Assessment Update. The report states that climate change is expected to increase extreme rainfall events in Pennsylvania, with impacts on infrastructure. From 1996 to 2018, flooding accounted for nearly 80% of the weather-related damage in the commonwealth. Flooding can adversely affect a range of important Pennsylvania sectors, including energy production and transmission, transportation, agriculture and storm and waste water treatment.

There is still time to take action. Over 3,500 U.S. economists have supported the idea of a carbon fee coupled to a dividend (returning the money to U.S. taxpayers), to limit emissions of the greenhouse gases that underlie climate change. A bill that embodies this approach is currently before Congress: The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763). A Columbia University study has shown that the bill should work. Write to your members of Congress soon to urge them to pass this bill!