Progress Report

HOMEWORK

Dental health services in Athens and Meigs counties will receive more than a half million dollars this month to make dental care more accessible to lower income families. The Osteopathic Heritage Foundation of Nelsonville will present $578,000 to support the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services dental program, the Appalachian Dental Clinic in Meigs County and the Athens County Health Department. The Athens County DOJFS dental program will receive $150,000 during the next three years to help make dental care more accessible to lower income residents in the county. The program lost state funding in July because of budget cuts. Money from the Heritage Foundation greatly will help to reduce those losses, but state money for dental care should not have been cut. Dental care is too important a program to depend on private funding ­ state money should fund the programs.

PASS

Ohio University Student Senate’s Tour of Homes aimed to inform students living off campus of Athens’ code policies and legal actions they can take to correct violations. Student senators toured more than 50 off-campus student residences to judge the best and worst residences in Athens. While senators looked at criteria such as rent and landlord relations, they mostly considered overall conditions of the home. Students signed up to enter their homes in the tour. Senate voted the house at 226 W. Washington St. the worst property and voted the house at 138 W. Union St. the best property. Student senate gave students a valuable resource to use when they move off campus. To make the tour even more effective, more students should sign up to have their rental homes judged.

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FAIL

Since the city installed parking meters in the garage in September, custodians have patrolled for expired meters after regular parking meter attendants go off duty at 6 p.m. Athens City Council authorized city building custodians to write tickets only for expired meters in the garage. On an average weeknight, custodians write nearly 35 tickets — and take about three hours away from their regular duties. The weekend means 50 to 60 tickets and even more time from their nights. On Saturdays, only one custodian patrols the garage. Since January, the city has collected about $13,000 from the meters. Meters on the street are not ticketed after 6 p.m., and those in the garage should not be either. The same policy should be enforced at all meters in the city; the meters in the garage should not be separately enforced 24 hours per day.

PASS

The Food and Drug Administration approved use of a dense cushion that softens the squeeze of a woman's annual mammogram. BioLucent in California manufactures the cushion, invented by a female breast surgeon at Stanford University. It is invisible in X-rays and, aside from increasing comfort, appears to help prevent breast tissue from slipping during the procedure. The cushion is not covered by insurance. Women are asked to pay $5 to use the one-time pad. After they are used, the cushions are recycled as carpet padding. Making mammograms more comfortable with hope will encourage more women to undergo the potentially life-saving procedure.

FAIL

A man who called a police officer a pig served his sentence with a sow. A lunchtime crowd jeered and joked with Steven Thompson Feb. 7 as he stood on a city sidewalk next to a 350-pound pig in a pen for two hours, with a sign reading, “This is not a police officer.” Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti ordered the sentence instead of jail time after Thompson's guilty plea to disorderly conduct. Thompson, 44, of Painesville, had used the word pig while shouting obscenities in a Jan. 28 confrontation with a city police officer. Cicconetti is accomplishing nothing by ordering creative sentences. Standing with a pig in a pen for two hours is not an effective sentence for a charge of disorderly conduct. Cicconetti should stick to sentences that fit the crime ­ the courtroom is not a place for creativity.

FAIL

A bill introduced Monday in the Minnesota House would put Osama bin Laden's image on a state lottery scratch-off ticket. Players would discover any winnings by scratching off “and thus obliterating,” as the bill notes, bin Laden' s face. Sixty percent of the proceeds ­ the maximum allowed under the state Constitution ­ would go to anti-terrorism efforts. Making an Osama bin Laden scratch-off crosses the line from tasteful to tacky. Using Osama bin Laden’s face to sell lottery tickets is unacceptable.