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Before #MeToo, there was RDVIC

This October is the 37th Domestic Violence Awareness Month — and the 50th anniversary of north-central West Virginia’s Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center. As one would expect from an organization that helps survivors of assault and abuse, RDVIC’s origin story isn’t a happy one. As Virginia Hopkins tells it, she was a young, idealistic attorney, working for the North Central West Virginia Legal Aid Society in Morgantown in 1972. A young woman came to her for help: She’d been gang-raped months before and became pregnant but decided to keep the baby. She came to ...

Mon Commission’s not-panhandling ordinance unlikely to work as intended

Today, the Pedestrian and Vehicle Safety Ordinance will once again be up for public comment and possibly for passage at the Monongalia County Commission meeting. The current draft ordinance can be found at monongaliacounty.gov under the “county ordinance” link. Also known as the panhandling ordinance (because that’s who the law targets), if passed, the ordinance would make it illegal not only to be in the median or other rights-of-way for a purpose other than crossing the road, it would also make it illegal for anyone in a vehicle to hand something off — like money — to ...

Dear DOH, neglecting is abdicating

The season is changing, the weather is cooling, the days are shorter and the leaves are putting on their autumn colors. Yet one thing remains the same: The state-maintained roads are still in terrible condition. Medians are overgrown, ditches haven’t been cleared, potholes are popping up like spring dandelions and some stretches of pavement have more ripples and waves than the Mon River after a storm. And that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. Local officials, including members of the Monongalia County Commission and municipal governments, have repeatedly tried to ...

MPD wants to recruit more women. It’s on the right track

The Morgantown Police Department will host an open house for women to learn about joining law enforcement   from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the former Defense in Depth facility. The recruitment event is part of the “30x30 Pledge” to have 30% female officers in the department by 2030. We hope the event gets a good turnout — not just because the MPD has vacancies it needs to fill, but because there are multiple advantages to having women on the force. There is decades worth of research on women’s impact in law enforcement, with studies dating back to at least the ...

Sometimes the best choice is right in front of you

When it comes to leadership, organizations (public or private) often look far and wide to find the best candidates. But sometimes the best choices are in their own backyards. Such is the case for Maria Smith, the new CEO of Mountain Line Transit, and Josh Eilert, the interim WVU men’s basketball head coach. Both Smith and Eilert worked for years for their respective organizations under the individuals whose positions they have now filled. These in-house promotions bring the advantages of institutional knowledge and loyalty: They already know how things work (and what hasn’t ...

Mooney chose politics over W.Va.

This past weekend, U.S. Representative Alex Mooney proudly voted to shut down the federal government — once on Friday and again on Saturday — which would have put the majority of West Virginia’s 30,000 federal civilian employees out of work for however long the shutdown lasted. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, roughly 10,000 of those live here in Mooney’s District 1. Federal employees would have been furloughed (not allowed to work) or forced to work for the duration of the shutdown. None would have been paid until the government reopened; ...