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Editorial

We can’t take our local businesses for granted

To quote Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” — “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” In the last couple weeks, two of Morgantown’s locally owned institutions closed their doors: Ruby & Ketchy’s after 66 years in business, and Sellaro’s Overhead Door Service after 38. Ruby & Ketchy’s was a family-owned restaurant in Cheat Lake named for its original proprietors: Ruby Nicholson ran the kitchen, whipping up meals and desserts using her own recipes, and her husband Wilbur “Ketchy” gathered her ingredients ...

Bring out your hazardous waste

Cans of paint collecting dust in the back corner of the garage? Dozens of dead batteries and lightbulbs in your junk drawer? Swimming pool chemicals for the pool  you haven’t had in three years in the shed? Anti-freeze and freon you’ve been hanging onto because you know you can’t throw it in the trash? Saturday will be your day to finally get rid of it safely. The Morgantown Utility Board, in partnership with local governments and services, is hosting its annual Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at MUB’s office at 278 Green Bag Road. (If ...

Put Preston school levy on Nov. ballot

Recently, members of the Preston County Board of Education mused whether it would be worth putting the failed school levy back on the ballot for November. The short answer: Yes. The long answer: There’s no harm in putting the levy back in front of voters. It was defeated in May by fewer than 600 votes — a decent but not insurmountable margin. If the BOE makes the decision to put the levy on the November ballot now, that gives them roughly three months to educate voters on its importance. That’s 90 days to help voters understand that school levies mean better teacher ...

The best time for school shopping is this weekend

If you have back-to-school shopping to do, this is the weekend to do it. Sales tax-free weekend West Virginia is bringing back the sales tax-free weekend for school supplies, starting Friday and running through 11:59 p.m. Monday. For that window of time, select types of clothes and school supplies will be exempt from the 6% sales tax (7% in municipalities), making this the perfect weekend to get your back-to-school shopping done.        Here’s a brief list of what qualifies for the tax exemption: Certain clothing with a purchase price of $125 or ...

How do we get more affordable housing?

The affordability of housing remains a hot topic. We feel this problem acutely in Morgantown, but the lack of affordable housing is a national — even global — issue. And it’s a complex one. For the U.S., the affordable housing shortage traces its roots to the 2008 housing bubble bursting. Ever since, demand has outpaced new supply, driving up the price of existing structures.  It doesn’t help that the house-building industry has been hampered by burdensome regulation that slows the process, adds to costs and limits what can be built and where. Urban development has ...

Justice’s business, debts could cause conflict of interest

As we’ve watched the Justice family’s creditors come knocking and their business assets sold off to cover debts, we’ve become increasingly concerned about how this financial drama could impact Jim Justice’s ability to serve as a U.S. senator. And, given West Virginia’s reliably red voting history over the last decade, he is most likely to be our next U.S. senator, though we won’t count Glenn Elliott out just yet. We aren’t suggesting Justice is pursuing office with the intent to benefit himself or his family. We worry, however, that the dire financial straits of his ...