Breaking News

Editorial

As long as the road work gets done …

State Sen. Mike Oliverio’s office announced the Division of Highways would be getting help from private contractors to help take care of ditching so DOH workers could focus on core maintenance — and a hallelujah chorus rang through the hills of north-central West Virginia. We are not unsympathetic to the DOH, especially here in District 4. We know it has struggled to hire enough staff to take care of the never-ending work. And we understand how demoralizing it must be to constantly be the source of the community’s ire. We appreciate every filled pothole, repaved road, trimmed ...

Connect downtown to riverfront? Make it safer to walk

We mentioned yesterday that the results of the Morgantown Riverfront Revitalization Task Force’s survey indicated locals had two main concerns about the riverfront. One was the number of unhoused people who tend to congregate around the rail-trail where it parallels the Monongahela River. The other concern cited was lack of connectivity between downtown and the riverfront. This has also been a known issue. As beautiful as the region’s rolling hills may be, they make getting places more difficult. It might technically be half a mile from the top of High Street to Hazel Ruby ...

Managed camps may solve more than one problem

Perhaps it’s a coincidence or perhaps it’s a synchronicity, but shortly after advocates spoke to Morgantown City Council about the possibility of “managed camps” for unsheltered people on city property, the Morgantown Riverfront Revitalization Task Force reported to council that survey results showed one of the primary “negatives” of the riverfront area was the sheer number of unhoused people around. Perhaps the former could be a solution to the latter. A managed camp is an approved encampment on city property for people who are unsheltered. (Someone can be ...

Lauren’s Wish granted: Program receives $800K

Sometimes we forget that addiction recovery isn’t as simple as deciding to get sober. Don’t get us wrong — that decision is the first and most important step. But once someone has made that decision, there are dozens of obstacles standing between them and recovery, many of which are beyond their control. The single largest hurdle is getting into a rehab program. The opioid epidemic has left treatment centers swamped. So what do you do until you can get into a recovery program? And then there are the challenges people rarely think about: Where do you go when you want to get ...

Legislators messed up PODA. They need to fix it

The thing about legalese — that strange, mysterious language of laws and binding contracts — is that all it takes is one misplaced punctuation mark, one misspelled word or one accidental phrase substitution to completely change the document’s meaning. Such was the case with HB 5295, the bill to expand private outdoor designated areas (PODAs) to include alcohol distributors who didn’t have a liquor license. (Think, any brewery or ale house that only sells beer.) A PODA is a defined district in which participating businesses can sell beverages containing alcohol to customers ...

For Mon BOE, no bad choice

The candidates for Monongalia County Board of Education sat down with members of The Dominion Post Editorial Board this past week. Incumbent Ron Lytle and newcomers Christina Fattore Morgan and Shawn Smith spent an hour answering the board’s questions, ranging from the Renaissance Academy to potential book bannings and a host of topics in between. We recommend you revisit Jim Bissett’s story from April 2 for more details. There are two open seats to represent the Eastern District on the Mon County BOE, and we think any of the three candidates would serve our county ...