The county-by-county population figures the Decennial Census released a couple of weeks ago showed that the growth in Jefferson County over the last 10 years has been seriously underwhelming. The growth rate for the decade was 7.9 percent over the 2010 population of 53,498. That’s the lowest ...
On June 23, Isaac Sponaugle conceded the race for the Democratic Party's nomination for West Virginia Attorney General to Sam Petsonk. The final margin in that June 9 primary contest was 140 votes out of about 170,000 cast, less than one-tenth of one percent.Many states provide for an automatic ...
The Tourism Development Bill (SB 657) became law recently. I think it's one of the worst bills I've ever seen pass the Legislature.It takes from town government any authority to regulate the construction of a "tourism development project" and gives it to the state Development Office in ...
In the last two dozen years, several states have adopted vote-by-mail (VBM). Two states, Oregon and Washington, vote only by mail. In others it's optional for each county.For many years I opposed VBM. I even refuse to vote early, unless I'm going to be out of town on election day. I like the ...
A news story in the Washington Post on March 20 by Luz Lazo reported that the Maryland General Assembly had passed a bill expanding MARC train service into Virginia and Delaware.The article did not say if Maryland Governor Larry Hogan would sign the bill. Either way, the bill raises interesting ...
The effort by the West Virginia Manufacturers' Association to repeal what it falsely calls the "inventory" tax has failed again.I use the word "falsely," because that term seriously misrepresents what WVMA was trying to do. What they've really tried to do, over several years now, is to ...
West Virginia and Maryland have signed a five-year agreement to continue MARC train service at three daily trains from Martinsburg to Union Station in Washington, D.C.The deal calls for West Virginia to pay MARC $3.4 million per year, with that figure rising slightly with time. According to the ...
Right before Christmas, Steve Paine, West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools, released a statement that a revision of the state-mandated high school curriculum was being considered by the State Board of Education.The revision in question is the elimination of several courses, including ...
SNAFU, TARFU and FUBAR are acronyms I learned years ago, while serving in the U.S. Army. The explanations will be found at the conclusion of this column, but since this is a family newspaper I will clean them up slightly.There is a foster care crisis in our state. We have more ...
Shepherd University and Blue Ridge Community College have been extremely poorly funded, compared to other public institutions of higher education in West Virginia. Why?I believe it's because our state has never had a funding model or formula for higher education. Other states have such ...