I retired to Jefferson County in mid-1993. At that time, Shepherdstown’s downtown and then-Shepherd College’s major need was a parking garage for students – and perhaps a few townspeople and visitors.

Now 18 years have passed. My friend and splendid Irish folk singer, John Doyle, remains area state representative. His Sept. 9 column (a feature I’ve long supported), concluded: “We’re back at ‘square one’ to find funding for the parking garage.”

Representative Doyle states this continuing problem is the fault of Shepherd College/University, Shepherdstown, and perhaps the death of Senator Byrd. Yet Doyle concludes no parking garage can EVER pay its own way via parking fees, because it can’t park more cars than are now parking in the streets! If no parking garage can provide more off-street parking than currently available on-street, what earthly good will ANY parking garage be?

Doyle notes Congresswomen Capito helped find funds enabling the long-needed, campus-joining underpass. Yet isn’t it odd a walkway tunnel is slated to cost nearly half as much as a large, multi-story parking garage?

While I’ve lived full-time in WV only 18 years, both Mr. Doyle and this phantom parking garage have been an unavailable necessity far longer! Surely the cultural center of Jefferson County is entitled to better ideas, and more leadership, for this desperately needed parking garage rather than “moving back to ‘square one'” after nearly three decades!

David L. Woods,

former Jeffersonian who moved to Berkeley County 9 years ago to find a place to park