Brief opinions about events of the past week: Merit: For the N.C. Department of Transportation and contractor Balfour Beatty Infrastructure, who are completing a rebuild of the Morganton Road bridge over the All American Freeway on schedule.

The bridge, used by at least 32,000 vehicles on an average day, is expanding to three traffic lanes in each direction, plus left-turn lanes for freeway access.

The bridge, adjacent to Cross Creek Mall, will be open in time for the sales-tax-free back-to-school shopping weekend, Aug. 7-9. Happy days for Fayetteville drivers.

Demerit: For Maxton's town board, which forced out Town Manager Katrina Tatum without stating any reasons for her ouster. The board simply told Tatum to resign.

Mayor Gladys Dean refused to comment on Tatum's sacking, saying it was a "personnel issue." There we go again -- yet another government official hiding behind personnel privacy statutes to avoid accountability to the citizens and taxpayers.

Merit: For state Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin, who negotiated a lawsuit settlement with the insurance industry that will lead to refunds for about a million North Carolina drivers. Better yet, the settlement freezes car insurance rates until late 2011, saving car owners about $545 million.

The settlement leaves North Carolina drivers paying some of the lowest car insurance rates in the country. We'll take it.

Demerit: For North Carolina's unemployment rate, which doesn't seem likely to improve anytime soon. The June rate of 11 percent was only slightly down from May's 11.1 percent. It's substantially above the national average of 9.5 percent, which is a 26-year high.

It doesn't look like relief is on the way. An economist at N.C. State University predicts it will peak at about 13 percent early next year and stay above 10 percent until sometime late in 2010. Sadly, it appears employment will be the last part of recovery from the recession.

Merit: For Spring Lake officials, who finally are making progress in solving their plague of police problems. Aldermen have approved Interim Police Chief Gregg Jarvies' plan to hire a new chief and more officers, and improve department training and standards. The plan also has been endorsed by Chief District Court Judge Beth Keever, who stripped the town's Police Department of its powers. Aldermen also are negotiating a resumption of patrols by the Sheriff's Office while the Police Department is being rebuilt. It took too long to happen, but it's good to see the town move to regain its law-enforcement integrity.

Demerit: For the N.C. General Assembly, one more time, for failing to hit its own deadline and come up with a new budget. We're more than two weeks into the new fiscal year, and government agencies across the state still don't know what kind of funding to expect. Schools are only weeks away from opening day and can't make plans either. This is not good government.