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The resolution to create the new Port Authority was on the commissioners' agenda for four consecutive meetings, following a six-week public comment period, which in turn followed a public meeting in October with about 50 community leaders.
A county port authority can leverage more federal dollars for larger projects. The county stands to benefit greatly from this new entity.
BRICKBATS: To the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recently paid $4.5 million of taxpayers' money on a public awareness campaign involving chronic fatigue syndrome.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is not contagious or life-threatening, and many experts question its merits as a focus for public health. Most researchers believe it's a real condition, but some feel the CDC has gone too far, at times putting such ailments ahead of the public good because advocates and politicians push for it.
The CDC was created to address serious, potentially fatal conditions such as cancer and heart disease. With due respect to anyone who suffers from it, chronic fatigue syndrome is just not that important.
BOUQUET: To Painesville Township artist Bill Callaghan, who immortalized the late Mentor police K-9 Bronco with a likeness in burned wood and colored pencils.
He then donated the pyrographic portrait to the Mentor Police Department, which has it displayed outside its roll call room.
"When I read about Bronco in The News-Herald, I couldn't believe his list of accomplishments," Callaghan said. "I had met him before, and he was the most beautiful German shepherd I'd ever seen in my life.
"I wanted to memorialize (him) and all the other police dogs. They are kind of unsung heroes - they do a lot of things no one knows about."
BRICKBATS: To JetBlue Airways, which responded very poorly during last week's blizzards, canceling more than 1,000 flights and leaving scores of would-be passengers stuck for hours on airplanes that never took off.
To its credit, JetBlue's response in the days since then has been admirable - including a new customer bill of rights that promises vouchers to certain fliers who experience delays.
But many of us will think twice before booking a JetBlue flight any time soon.
BRICKBATS: To the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which reportedly ignored lead levels in children's lunch boxes it tested in 2005.
A Freedom of Information Act filed by the Associated Press yielded 1,500 pages of documents that show the CPSC tested 60 vinyl lunch boxes two years ago, and that about a dozen of those boxes contained hazardous levels of lead. Several had more than 10 times the allowable levels.
Yet after the tests, the CPSC publicly said it found "no instances of hazardous levels."
Based on this, we have to ask, why are our tax dollars paying for this agency to conduct these tests?
BOUQUET: To Cavaliers guard Damon Jones, who refused to use his strep throat as an excuse for finishing fifth out of six in the 3-point-shooting contest ahead of last weekend's All-Star Game.
Jones had predicted he would win, in his usual boastful fashion, but was getting IVs in a Las Vegas hospital just four hours before the contest started. He didn't even tell the media about it at the time.
"No one knew," he said. "I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. I went out there to win it. I didn't want to put it on that."
BRICKBAT: To Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who has made the ludicrous claim that he can cure AIDS by closing his eyes in prayer, rubbing a green herbal paste onto the ribcage of the patient, then having the patient swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.
On a continent that is hobbled by AIDS, Jammeh's
claims are alarming public health workers who were
already struggling against faith healers dispensing herbal remedies.
Their biggest concern is that Jammeh's "cure" requires the patients to stop taking their anti-retroviral drugs, which could weaken their immune systems and make them even more prone to infection.
