This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The State College Area High School principal was named 2025 Pennsylvania Principal of the Year by 3,300 of her peers at the Pennsylvania Principals Association. The honor, which marks a two-year winning streak for Centre County principals – Bellefonte Area High School Principal Michael Fedisson was honored in 2024 – puts Tobias, who is a former history teacher and instructional coach who has prioritized student mental health, in contention for National Secondary Principal of the Year.

After years-long debate and a chaotic City Council approval process, the Philadelphia 76ers went back on their deal to build a Center City arena. Instead, they agreed to a deal with Comcast, their current landlord, to build a new arena in the South Philly sports complex. Comcast gets the Sixers to stay, along with a share in the team and a potential WNBA bid. Whither Market East? Stay tuned… 

Just a year into his tenure on the Dauphin County Commission, Democrat Justin Douglas is now its chair – replacing six-term incumbent and colleague George Hartwick, and cementing a new era of Democratic dominance on the once-solidly Republican board. Douglas has also brought a progressive viewpoint to the Capital-region commission, drawing on decades of activism as a community pastor and social justice advocate who has spoken widely on behalf of homeless and incarcerated people.

Pennsylvanians will lose their current consumer advocate after Patrick Cicero, who has been serving in the role since 2021, announced his intent to resign from his post, saying he faced an “open, vocal, and public campaign led by various investor-owned utilities” seeking to remove him as consumer advocate, per WESA. Throughout his time in office, Cicero had emerged as a critic of for-profit companies purchasing municipal water and sewer systems. His departure was announced this week by Attorney General-elect Dave Sunday, who said in a statement that he will be fielding applications for the position. 

A horrifying animal cruelty case took place in Northampton County, where 62-year-old Donna Giello-Turner was arrested and charged with aggravated cruelty to animals and aggravated assault after troopers executed a search warrant on the property Sunday. State troopers found a horse in severe distress – it had to be euthanized – before discovering 22 dogs, two birds and a cat in what authorities described as “deplorable conditions,” and a dead poodle that was found in a freezer. Giello-Turner was arraigned after resisting and kicking a trooper in the chest.

A Centre County-based water company’s own lawyers are asking a Pennsylvania court to hand over control of the company to a local water authority, citing the “obstinacy” of its longtime owners, according to a new report from Spotlight PA. Two lawyers for the Rock Spring Water Company – owned by J. Roy Campbell and his family – said in a filing this week that the “obstinacy of the Campbells and the conditions of the physical plant and water line poses a clear and present danger to all of Rock Springs’ customers.” Among the myriad of depredations the company has inflicted upon its customers are low water pressure, outages and boil-water advisories.