Letters: Support trustees’ fight for transparency; Easy choice for VP
Support trustees’ fight for transparency
Penn State’s Board of Trustees is making it increasingly difficult for ordinary citizens to participate in or even observe the board’s decision-making processes.
In 2017, after losing a lawsuit to several of Penn State’s alumni-elected trustees who were seeking information that the university’s leadership wanted to keep secret, the board changed its bylaws so trustees who sue the university can no longer be reimbursed for their expenses even if the Court determines the university was in the wrong. This makes it prohibitively expensive for trustees to hold the university accountable when its leadership improperly withholds information.
Earlier this summer, Penn State’s board further changed its bylaws to require alumni trustee candidates to be approved by the board before being allowed on the ballot. Once the current alumni trustees’ terms have ended, no new trustee candidates who might question the leading board members’ decisions may ever be allowed to appear on an alumni trustee election ballot again.
Penn State Trustee Barry Fenchak is currently suing Penn State’s board to obtain financial records necessary to provide proper oversight of the University’s activities. His lawsuit may be our community’s last chance to uncover and correct possible conflicts of interest within Penn State’s board.
Barry is paying the substantial legal fees for his case out of his own pocket, with no possibility of reimbursement from the university even if he prevails. Please consider supporting Barry’s efforts to provide proper oversight of the university by contributing to his legal fund at www.gofundme.com/f/support-penn-state-trustee-barry-fenchaks-legal-fund.
Easy choice for VP
Who would you rather have as your vice president?
Option A: Democrat Tim Walz, a man who signed legislation providing free tampons and other menstrual products in public schools.
Option B: Republican JD Vance who voted to allow surveillance of menstrual periods to make sure that a woman doesn’t obtain an abortion in another state if it’s not legal in her home state.
It’s an easy choice if you think that a woman should control her own body.
Urgent need for legislation to restrict sealants
Did you know that sealants, a common tool for filling gaps and cracks in homes and roads, can cause cancer? In the State College area, the usage of coal-tar ground sealants is polluting streams, lakes, and marine waters with carcinogens detrimental to human health. People living adjacent to coal-tar sealants are 38 times more likely to develop cancer than those who don’t live near the sealants. Chemicals found within these sealants can even lead to developmental delays in children.
There is an urgent need to pass state legislation to keep these cancerous sealants off our store shelves and to impose penalties on corporations that use these harmful materials. A lack of action to ban these sealants may put State College residents and wildlife at risk, but there’s hope!
In May, an act enacting various sealant regulations was introduced into the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee. This act restricts the sale and application of cancerous sealants and provides funding for the development of safer sealant alternatives. We need PA Senate members Cris Dush and Wayne Langerholc Jr. to openly support sponsor the act. As Centre County’s state senate representatives, it is their responsibility to uplift legislation that benefits their constituents like this one.
Thank you for your time, and protect our environment!