Anne Danahy

About 600 planners from across the state are expected in State College for the 2017 conference of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association. Hot topics will include medical marijuana, transportation planning and protecting water quality.

Ed LeClear, planning director for State College, is one of those involved in getting ready for the conference.

“The focus for this conference, I think, is really adaptability and innovation. We’re dealing with everything from climate change to fiscal distress in many of our communities, and how do we adapt to that.”

The concealed carry seminar wasn’t scheduled to take place until Nov. 2, but the mailings for it arrived the same week as a mass shooting in Las Vegas left nearly 60 people dead.

Jennifer Kocher, spokeswoman for state Sen. Jake Corman, said there was pushback on social media about the event. She said there was concern that the educational focus of the seminar would be lost, so the seminar was postponed.

For Jim Krape, from Lock Haven, visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, was about healing.

Krape served in the U.S. Marine Corps including in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966. On Wednesday, he was the road captain for the Traveling Wall.

“For years, I had a lot flashbacks and so forth, but once I got my hand on the wall, that seemed to go away. It’s a healing process, that we know that our guys are here and they’re safe. We are going to watch over them.”

Smokers who live, work or study on any Penn State campus may soon have to find somewhere else to light up.

Pointing to the health of the university community, the Penn State Smoke Free/Tobacco Free Task Force made the recommendation that the University become tobacco-free.

“We hope to see a healthier Penn State because of it. That was the impetus for the recommendations from the taskforce, and that really was the foremost thought in the process. We would really love to see everyone associated with Penn State be a little healthier because of it.”

When you have a question about voting, polling places or legislative districts in Centre County, a good place to start is the Elections Office. So, that’s where I began my quest to find the place in the State College area where three state legislative districts come together.

After rolling out a detailed map, Joyce McKinley, director of elections in Centre County, tries to pinpoint the spot.

“The 81st legislative district. It’s surrounded by the 77th and the 171st. That’s Zurich Road and Knob Hill Road, and this is Circleville Road.”

It’s a weekday morning on North Atherton Street in State College. For David Reitter, a Penn State faculty member, and others commuting on that road, it usually means one thing.

“Just like everybody else, I get stuck in traffic.”

A gas line relocation project means torn up roads on North Atherton in advance of a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation roadway project. Drivers there dutifully merge from two lanes into one, sometimes well in advance of road work.

Deb Nardone, executive director of ClearWater Conservancy, says the Slab Cabin Run initiative is important for the community’s drinking water and the water quality of the Slab Cabin stream that runs through the land. It’s also an opportunity to preserve 300 acres of farmland.

“We have a community and decision-makers and the public who have come forward and have supported an initiative that helped help protect the place that we love,” Nardone says.

Whether graduate assistants at Penn State can vote on unionizing has been the focus of hearings the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board is holding in State College. The hearings are scheduled to end Wednesday.

Liana Glew is a graduate assistant in the English Department at Penn State and record keeper for the Coalition of Graduate Employees. She wants to make the university a better place for all graduate employees.