ORCHID: To the Niles and Weathersfield police departments for sharing a part-time officer to transport inmates between the Trumbull County Jail and Niles Municipal Court. Neither town operates its own jail, a costly and dangerous business for small towns. Both towns are in the Niles court system. By sharing a part-time officer to transport inmates they reduce the cost by not paying more expensive full-time officers and by splitting the bill.
ONIONS: To commissioners from Trumbull and Mahoning counties for waiting so long to request an evaluation of Western Reserve Port Authority Executive Director Rose Ann DeLeon. Each county contributed $100,000 of taxpayer money to fund the highest-paid public employee in the region and, arguably, the most important government job in the region. After two and a half years, there are many complaints about DeLeon's progress, yet those who committed the public's money to fund her efforts have not, until this week, asked the Port Authority board of directors for an evaluation.
ORCHID: To Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti for being the lone person in his position from either county to push for a DeLeon performance evaluation. Traficanti and his peers should conduct their own interviews in the business community and include that information in their evaluation of the Port Authority's executive director.
ONION: To Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel for his ongoing praise of DeLeon without a performance evaluation on which to base it.
ORCHID: To the Warren G. Harding High School Quiz Bowl team, which won the state championship. The team is moving on to compete at the national tournament in Atlanta in late May. This is one of many ways Harding has excelled in extra-curricular academic activities. Its successful robotics team is another.
ONION: To the city of Warren for not addressing the horrible conditions of Pine Avenue S.E. It has been in bad shape for a long time and is in desperate need of repair or replacement.