A little winter weather now challenges our coping skills

So what message does it send?

When people are reporting for work at jobs in vital areas — police and fire departments and hospitals — as well as those that are nonvital — department stores and fast food restaurants — what message does it send when hundreds of county employees get the day off?

One is that the work they’re doing must not be that important. The other is that they managed to get paid for doing nothing on a day when most of the rest of us go to work routinely.

Whatever the message (intended or unintended), the closing of the Mahoning County Courthouse Tuesday because of a few inches of snow and ice on the ground was the kind of waste of taxpayer money that people tend to remember. County officials better hope it doesn’t snow on the next Election Day when a county tax renewal appears on the ballot. The memories that a few snow flakes evoke could cost the county dearly.

How many employees in private companies got to stay home Tuesday? How many self-employed people decided it wasn’t worth hitting the bricks? Obviously we don’t know the numbers that would answer those questions, but we’d guess it’s small — maybe infinitesimal.

We’re not saying that the weather is never bad enough to occasion closures of one kind or another, But there seems to be a troubling trend toward more and quicker closures .

A different day

It wasn’t that long ago that Youngstown State University didn’t close unless there was a blizzard that would rival something from an episode of “Little House on the Prairie.” Not only did YSU close Tuesday, its closing was one of the rationales used by county officials to close the Courthouse.

The closings, it seems, just snowball. To be fair, the press must share some of the blame. Breathless reports of impending doom based on computer projections help paint a dire picture of a storm that wouldn’t have gotten a nod 20 years ago. And the routine citation of wind chill factors by which, for instance, a 20 degree temperature is given the equivalence of 9 degrees if there is a 10 mph breeze at play, don’t help.

Schools are a tougher call, especially when dealing with buses that must be on the road before the sun is up and with hundreds or thousands of kids from ages 5 to 18 who would be exposed to hazards when walking to school.

But college students should be able to find their way to class through a little snow, and certainly most workers should be able to get to work (as, indeed, most workers did Tuesday).

Adopt a plan

Here’s a suggested framework for a new county policy. Unless the conditions are so severe that plants and malls and banks start closing, county employees will be expected to work. Government workers shouldn’t be leading the no-need-to-come-in parade. Those employees who happen to live on top of a snow-covered mountain and dare not venture out, can burn a vacation day and stay home. That makes everyone even — including the taxpayers who have a right to expect a day’s work for a day’s pay.

And if anyone thinks we’re being hidebound, we defer to Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania, who reacted famously to the NFL’s postponed the Eagles-Vikings game in Philadelphia in December because of snow. “What do you think [Hall of Fame coach Vince] Lombardi would say?” Rendell growled. Then, answering his own question: “He would say that we’ve become a nation of wusses.”