Planners of Saturday's 30th annual Butler Fall Festival deserve plaudits for their determined efforts to assemble an event larger than any of the preceding 29.

While rainy weather forecasts threatened to dampen the event and attendance, the planning committee nevertheless cannot go unnoticed for what it sought to achieve this year.

The festival "avenue" was enlarged this year, extending from Penn Street to Wayne Street, rather than stopping near the courthouse, because of the number of new vendors who agreed to participate in this year's event.

The festival planners also worked to stage an improved entertainment lineup.

Going into the day's events, no one knew how much the weather would cooperate — or not cooperate — with the planned activities. But there was no shortage of enthusiasm over what the festival committee was able to accomplish.

And, those accomplishments should be a springboard for future successes as well.

In an article in Thursday's Butler Eagle, Tracy Hack, festival co-chair, was excited over how "businesses have been wonderful to us."

Such support is key for any festival of this kind. Keeping such support in place for future festivals — and trying to expand — must remain a priority as planners look ahead to 2009.

Many Butler area residents look forward to what activities the festival holds for them each year. It's a place where people get to see friends and acquaintances, some of whom they seldom see during the course of their normal activities and schedules.

It is to be hoped that the festival only gets larger in the years ahead and that the enthusiasm of this year's planning committee will carry over to future festivals.

The mural being painted on a side of My Buddy's bar on Pillow Street is an asset to the city's menu of sites-to-see.And, considering Pullman Park's long and proud history, it can be said that the mural and what it represents probably is at the best location possible.Not only does it honor some of the New York Yankee greats who played at Pullman, but it encompasses the city's steelmaking past as well as its era of automobile making and production of railroad cars centered in the city's West End.It's clear that My Buddy's owner Elizabeth Graham made the right choice in selecting New Castle artist Rabecca Signoriello to paint the 43-by-28-foot mural that is targeted for completion near the end of this month, weather permitting. Signoriello is no stranger to Butler County, having grown up in Harrisville.She is a 1999 graduate of Moniteau High School.According to Signoriello, by the time the mural is completed, it will have consumed about 20 gallons of paint and about 500 hours of labor and research.For Graham, the mural has been seven years in the planning, searching for an artist and getting the necessary city approvals.The mural that has emerged is one in which the city and its residents can take genuine pride. No doubt it will be a source of much discussion and reflection by people attending events at Pullman Park for years to come.City residents can feel a sense of great appreciation to Signoriello for the talent and skill evident in the mural. But even greater appreciation should be extended to Graham, whose initial idea has blossomed into a result much more dynamic than she ever imagined."The original image I gave her and what she has given me are like kindergarten and college," Graham said.The mural is a worthy addition to the West End-Island neighborhood revitalization that city officials envision.

The wizards on Wall Street have made plenty of news in the past week or so. The biggest headlines have focused on the 90 percent drop in the value and price of stock of the venerable WallStreet firm Lehman Brothers Holdings, the nation's fourth-largest investment bank. Lehman Brothers, much like Bear Stearns earlier this year, is in deep financial trouble due to its involvement in subprime mortgage investments.Locally, lawsuits filed by school districts in Butler and Erie, against JPMorgan Chase and a Pennsylvania-based investment adviser, are based on evidence in news reports that Wall Street firms enriched themselves to an unreasonable degree when they sold high-risk investment schemes, called swaptions, to school districts across Pennsylvania.Then at the end of the week, a U.S. Senate report revealed that Wall Street investment banks had in recent years developed and sold tax- avoidance schemes that allow non-U.S. taxpayers to evade millions of dollars of taxes a year on stock dividends from U.S. companies.The investment banks are accused of marketing the sophisticated plans to offshore hedge funds to allow them and their investors to avoid U.S. taxes.The report is the result of a yearlong investigation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. It projects that the tax avoidance schemes cooked up by Wall Street firms cost the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars over a 10-year period.The report on the dividend-focused tax-avoidance scheme is part of a larger Senate investigation into offshore tax abuses, which are estimated to cost $100 billion a year in lost tax revenues to the United States.Adding to the problem for U.S. taxpayers having to make up for the unpaid taxes in these schemes is the fact that the Internal Revenue Serv-ice failed to take action to prevent the abuses.Unbridled greed and an apparent lack of moral integrity on Wall Street is costing America dearly.