State officials announce solar grant for Central Cambria
State Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Richland Township, and state Rep. Frank Burns, D-East Taylor Township, announced the news Tuesday.
'Every dollar a school district spends on energy is a dollar it can't spend on educating children,' Langerholc said in a release.
'This grant will help pay for a project that will save taxpayer dollars and free up funds for education.'
Burns said in a statement that elected officials heard Central Cambria's request for assistance and are happy to help.
'We took their message to heart and now they will benefit from a state grant to help them reduce their electricity bills by generating their own electricity,' Burns said. 'It's advanced thinking like this that will help the district save costs and enable the districts to focus more on educating students and supporting their teachers.'
Central Cambria will receive $148,256 to purchase and install a 181-kilowatt system on the elementary roof.
The total project cost is estimated to be $370,640, and the average annual savings to the district is expected to be $22,374.
Solar for Schools is a novel competitive grant program created in 2024 and funded through the 2024-25 budget.
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Boston Globe
10-08-2025
- Boston Globe
How New England built the Plains
Advertisement But something shifted quickly and irrevocably that night he wrote about in 1854. It began with a man named Anthony Burns. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Burns had stowed away for weeks in the belly of a ship to escape enslavement in Virginia. By the time he stepped ashore in Boston, he had become both free and criminal — property that had, under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, escaped its rightful owner. When federal marshals arrested him on false pretenses, hoping to sneak him back into bondage before the public noticed, Boston erupted. The courtroom became a spectacle. The public was barred. Burns's own lawyer was rendered powerless — forbidden to object, speak, or protect his client in any meaningful way. And in a final insult, a government agent tricked Burns into dictating a letter affirming his status as an enslaved person. The judge empathized with Burns but nonetheless ruled against him. Advertisement Slavery, it turned out, didn't need Southern soil. It could be enforced right in the cradle of abolition, in close proximity to the Boston Common. Amos A. Lawrence in 1880. Wikimedia Commons The city's Black residents, who had always known the fragility of their freedom, mobilized first. The pastor of the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury demanded Burns's release. Protests filled the streets. Fearing an uprising, the federal government fortified the courthouse even before the trial had concluded. President Franklin Pierce ordered troops to secure the building. Soldiers lined the entrances, and chains were fastened across the courthouse doors. What changed wasn't just policy. It was perception. The moral quarantine in which elite white New Englanders had sequestered themselves failed. Slavery had entered their bubble. Henry David Thoreau, speaking just weeks after Burns's trial, demanded that his fellow citizens choose moral clarity over legal comfort. 'Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong?' he asked. 'Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made?' Amos Lawrence and others like him — well-heeled, genteel, cloistered — took notice. Eventually they also took action, albeit moderated and carried out on their own terms. Calls for a more direct confrontation with slavery were not only imaginable at the time — they were already echoing through New England's streets, pulpits, and newspapers. In the wake of Burns's arrest, some abolitionists demanded open defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act. Many had supported similar efforts just three years earlier, when Shadrach Minkins, who had fled enslavement in Norfolk, Va., was forcibly rescued from a Boston courthouse by Black activists and white allies. With the help of the Boston Vigilance Committee, Minkins escaped via the Underground Railroad and reached safety in Canada. Figures like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison urged moral suasion and civil disobedience; others, including activists in Boston's Black community, proposed disrupting the legal process altogether. In this atmosphere of mounting urgency, even violence in the name of freedom was discussed. Advertisement But rather than confronting slavery where it stood and calling for direct abolition or cutting off commercial interaction with the American South, Lawrence chose to abolish only the chances for slavery's expansion. He became treasurer of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, a joint-stock corporation chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature with one aim: to raise funds to send free-soil settlers west to Kansas, in order that they might outnumber pro-slavery forces and tip the future of the American West toward freedom. A war New England hoped to fund, not fight Boston didn't send revolutionaries out west. It sent Congregationalists. Missionaries. Schoolteachers. Families armed with shovels, hymnals, rifles, and righteous intent. The Emigrant Aid Company raised funds through an exhaustive network of some 3,000 churches, many of them Quaker or Congregationalist. 'For Religion,' their circulars promised. 'For Education. For Temperance.' They were advocating a version of abolition that didn't disturb Boston's own social order. It was freedom as export. Righteousness at a distance. The ask was modest — $20 per settler, roughly $700 today. Enough to transport and equip a family to settle Kansas on behalf of abolition. Donations flooded in. The Rev. Horace James from Worcester sent $23.37, boasting of his congregation, 'Never did fingers and thumbs move more nimbly in the performance of any good work.' To him that meant that 'verily there is hope for Kansas.' Others weren't so flush with cash. The Rev. W.C. Jackson from Lincoln, Mass., whose flock scraped together $15, reported, 'Your circular for the Emigrant Aid Society came rather inopportunely for us farmers.' Some ministers like Jonathan Lee from Salisbury, Conn., apologized for the frugality of their flock: 'From my scanty purse a single dollar must be accepted in testimony of my interest in the cause of truth and freedom,' because, Lee wrote, 'I am without pastoral charge or salary.' Others enclosed neat bundles of cash with effusive letters, grateful for a moral cause that could be joined without leaving home. Lawrence threw himself into the effort. He wrote President Pierce — his cousin by marriage — to chide him for failing to protect free-staters. He tracked weapons shipments. He personally funded churches, schools, and armories. He, along with many others, made Kansas a proxy battlefield, a place to perform conviction while sidestepping a harder reckoning with what could be done to stop slavery entirely. Advertisement And Kansas, as it turned out, bled. Missourians — armed and incensed — flooded across the border. Ballot boxes were stuffed. Pro-slavery militias burned pressrooms. In 1856, just as the violence crested, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a searing speech comparing Kansas to a raped virgin and accusing Southern politicians of barbarism. In a more familiar scene, days later, a South Carolina congressman, Preston Brooks, stormed into the Senate chamber and beat Sumner unconscious with a metal-tipped cane. This was the war New England had hoped to fund rather than fight. But the borders were dissolving. Eventually, the South seceded. And when Kansas did enter the Union as a free state in 1861, its fate had been sealed not by New England idealism but by the absence of Southern senators in Congress. Advertisement When the Civil War gave way to a fractured Reconstruction, Kansas endured not as a solution crafted by New England elites but as a promise seized by Black Americans themselves. As Reconstruction's guarantees faltered, many formerly enslaved people fled the South for the Plains, becoming known as Exodusters. Others, like Edward McCabe, envisioned Kansas not just as a sanctuary but as a staging ground — a terrain on which to build something autonomous and Black. For McCabe, Kansas — and later, Oklahoma — offered a second chance. Edward P. McCabe, circa 1883-1887. Kansas State Historical Society via National Park Service And the names live on. The college town of Lawrence, Kan., bears Amos A. Lawrence's name, a monument to abolitionism at arm's length. In Langston, Okla., the Black town McCabe helped found, street names like 'Massachusetts' signaled to Black settlers that they were heirs to a longer freedom struggle — one rooted in, but no longer dependent on, New England's conscience. The limits of New England's good intentions The West that New England built was funded by abolitionists who had converted not to revolution but to strategy. They filtered their moral convictions through propriety. It's worth asking what their legacy means now. We live in a moment when the very institutions Amos Lawrence once stood for — elite philanthropy, intellectual inquiry, and cautious reform — have come under fire. Harvard, a beacon of New England liberalism, finds itself besieged by accusations from both right and left. Elsewhere, DEI offices are shuttered. History curricula are rewritten. Librarians contend with what books to put on their shelves. Even here, in the bluest of blue states, there's talk of 'indoctrination,' 'wokeness,' and 'elites out of touch.' And here too, migrants are detained often without the norms and sorts of protections we assumed would be durable. Advertisement In the 1850s, Lawrence and his cohort were shaken into action by a single courtroom scene on Court Street. But their response came with a caveat: They would confront injustice without addressing it at home. Today, Court Street is quieter, humming more predictably with foot and car traffic — but the moral decisions we must make haven't gotten easier. Who we detain, whose histories we erase, which freedoms we underfund — all still happen in that old Boston bubble. The difference now is that there's no Kansas to send our convictions to.
Chicago Tribune
05-08-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Geneva mayor taps former Aurora deputy chief of staff Alex Voigt for city administrator job
Former Aurora deputy chief of staff Alex Voigt is taking over as Geneva's next city administrator. She's replacing Stephanie Dawkins, who is set to retire later this month. Voigt's appointment by Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns was approved unanimously by the Geneva City Council at its meeting Monday evening. Joined by family and colleagues from the city of Aurora, Voigt thanked Burns and the City Council, and said she was looking forward to working with the department and division heads and others in the city. She is expected to start as city administrator in early September, according to the city. Dawkins has worked as Geneva's city administrator since 2016, having previously served as the assistant city administrator and director of administrative services, per the city. The city announced Dawkins' retirement in May. Her last day is Aug. 15. The city administrator is the city's chief administrative officer, responsible for supervising all department heads and preparing the yearly budget for City Council approval, according to the city's website. The City Administrator's Office also manages and administers city operations, like communications and business and liquor licensing. During Dawkins' time as city administrator, Geneva's bond rating was upgraded, the equalized assessed valuation increased by nearly 52% from a low in 2015, leading to a lower tax levy rate, and general fund reserves increased from covering less than one month of city operations to more than six months, according to the city's website. Burns recognized Dawkins' work for the city at the City Council Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, saying she 'built a team that … is second to none,' and 'earned the respect of the men and women who work for the city, who serve the city, the residents who call our city home, the businesses who locate here, who expand here, who thrive here.' At the Committee of the Whole meeting, Dawkins cited challenges during her time in the role, like the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the city's successes, like its upgraded bond rating, the East State Street Reconstruction project and its adoption of a facilities master plan. 'Through it all, I have been fortunate to work alongside talented, dedicated colleagues who care deeply about this community,' Dawkins said at the Committee of the Whole meeting Monday. 'And I am confident that the city is in good hands moving forward.' Voigt worked for the city of Aurora from 2010 until this past May, according to past reporting. Having served as the deputy chief of staff, she left the role when Mayor John Laesch took office. At the meeting, Burns noted Voigt's previous work assisting with Aurora's annual budget, modernizing internal systems, improving communication platforms and more. He also highlighted things like her public policy and advocacy skills and team leadership, and called her a 'champion of policy research, development and implementation.' Voigt told The Beacon-News that Geneva has 'always been a destination' for her, somewhere she enjoyed spending time both as a child growing up in Aurora and with her family now. After leaving the city of Aurora, Voigt said she didn't know exactly what was next, but then this role came up. 'In terms of career progression, this was what I was aspiring to and what I was working towards,' Voigt told The Beacon-News on Tuesday. Voigt said she's 'long respected and admired' Dawkins and is looking forward to working with the mayor, City Council and other city leadership in Geneva. She thinks there will be some similarities between her work in Aurora and new role in Geneva, but it will be on a different scale. And she's excited to have the chance to do something new. 'I'm used to just having the answers at my fingertips because I was there (at the city of Aurora) for so long,' Voigt said. 'I'm looking forward to starting something new and just figuring it out with the folks that are there. … I keep thinking about when I started in Aurora and just, I didn't know anything, and I didn't know what was ahead for me. And it's exciting to be having that experience again, but with … years of experience in a different community.'
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Yahoo
Dasha Burns To Host C-SPAN's Upcoming Series ‘Ceasefire'
Politico's Dasha Burns will host C-SPAN's Ceasefire, its upcoming series that is a twist on political panel shows, as it seeks to highlight finding solutions in an era of polarization. Burns will continue to serve as Politico's White House bureau chief and Playbook's chief correspondent, and as host of the weekly Politico podcast, The Conversation. She joined Politico in January from NBC News, where she was national correspondent. More from Deadline Kamala Harris To Publish Book On Her 2024 Election Campaign As Kamala Harris Forgoes California Governor Race, The Democratic Field Offers Praise (Likely With A Sense Of Relief) Kamala Harris Rules Out California Governor Bid, Leaves 2028 POTUS Run Open: "For Now, My Leadership - And Public Service - Will Not Be In Elected Office" C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist called Burns 'one of the principal drivers of the political conversation in Washington today. Dasha's non-partisan approach to her well-sourced reporting is what makes her an ideal fit for C-SPAN.' Burns has moderated more than a dozen discussions and public policy events that have aired on C-SPAN, the public affairs network that is funded by the cable industry. Ceasefire is the first major programming initiative since Feist took the helm of C-SPAN last year. The show will debut this fall and will feature lawmakers and political leaders who will be paired 'for honest and civil discussions about how to tackle the nation's most pressing problems,' per the network. Burns said in a statement that as 'polarized as this country may seem, Ceasefire will show that we can still work together as a nation to find common ground. I am looking forward to hosting this unique program and pushing people out of their comfort zones to move beyond partisan acrimony.' Best of Deadline 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Emmys, Oscars, Grammys & More Everything We Know About The 'Heartstopper' Movie So Far Solve the daily Crossword
