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State of the State: Justice vs. reality

After the headline-grabbing stunts of previous years — including presenting legislators with a literal pile of feces and proffering Babydog’s rear-end for a celebrity’s smooch — Gov. Jim Justice’s final State of the State Address was almost surreal in its normalcy. Instead of using his allotted time for some kind of fantastical stunt, Justice used his last big speech in front of the West Virginia Legislature to make the case for his tenure as governor — and, ostensibly, the case for why he should be a U.S. senator. He, of course, painted his years as the state’s top ...

The Good, the Bad and the Shady: FirstEnergy Edition

When it comes to FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison, there are so many things going on right now that it’s difficult to keep them straight. To help keep the discussion organized, we’re adapting our favorite legislative breakdown. Presenting: “The Good, the Bad and the Shady: FirstEnergy Edition.” Good: Mon Power debuted the first of its five planned solar arrays earlier this month. As David Beard reported: Adjacent to Mon Power’s Fort Martin coal-fired plant, the solar operation covers 80 acres, with 49,032 solar panels generating 18.89 megawatts. ...

City’s fire levy request faux pas

There are few things we are taught in “career readiness” courses in high school and college that, while technically about submitting resumés, applies equally well to much of adult and professional correspondence: Address it to the appropriate individual or entity, and make sure to submit it in a timely manner. The City of Morgantown failed to do either. We’ll let you read Ben Conley’s article in today’s paper for the full details, but in short: The Morgantown city manager and fire chief sent a letter to the Monongalia County Commission asking it to “correct” ...

Fleischauer moves on

Former West Virginia Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer announced this week that she will not be running for office this year. Instead, she has taken a position with the Feminist Majority, a national women’s rights organization whose sister company publishes the famous Ms. Magazine. Fleischauer’s new job will take her across the country as part of the Feminist Majority’s 2024 campus campaign to teach young women about the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion issues and encourage them to engage in the political process. We are happy for Fleischauer — this position seems like ...

Lawmakers must prioritize recovery, not punishment

As the 2024 legislative session opens today, there are certain words already on lawmakers’ lips: drugs, addiction, substance abuse, fentanyl. And one more: punishment. Over the last few years, as West Virginia has tried to wrangle an out-of-control drug crisis, lawmakers have talked a big game on prevention and recovery services, but when it came time to put actions to words, the results focused primarily on punitive measures. This year appears no different. A 2023 West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy report acknowledged the importance of recovery residences — aka, ...

Elections’ unsung heroes: Poll workers

Now that we are officially into 2024 and the primary election (which doubles as the final election for certain municipal and county offices) is less than six months away, it’s time to talk about the most pressing issue facing West Virginia elections: a lack of poll workers. Prior to 2020, we all took poll workers for granted. No one really thought about it — there were just always people there, manning the signature books, printing the ballots and guiding voters to the voting machines. But if you stop and think about who those people were, you’re likely to recall that most of ...