In the meeting of the State Executive Committee of the Mountain Party of West Virginia, a motion was made to consider a position on the Oct. 7 election about the Road Bond Amendment of 2017.

The vote taken was to recommend the defeat of the Road Bond Amendment of 2017 and encourage West Virginia voters to vote against the amendment.

Reasons cited involved questions about actually accomplishing some of the line items for the amounts budgeted. The concern was that West Virginia may incur serious cost overruns on larger projects which may leave the smaller projects unable to be undertaken.

A major concern cited was no provision in the language of the amendment to favor West Virginia contractors and suppliers. Further, several highways projects have been shown to be under way with fewer than 75 percent of the work force being West Virginia residents.

With the Workplace Freedom Act now to take effect, it was felt that the door would be wide open for out of state contractors to underbid West Virginia businesses. Many of these are likely to use low wage workers and/or undocumented workers.

An example was offered showing the similarity between this proposal and the funding of the West Virginia Turnpike in the early 1950s. Under Republican Gov. Cecil Underwood, the bonds issued for the construction of the Turnpike had to be refunded due to the revenue shortfalls from tolls. This gave West Virginia but another black eye before the world of international finance.

The State Executive Committee of the Mountain Party of West Virginia encourages the voters to vote “NO” to the Bond Issue on Saturday. We can do better.

Mountain Party of West Virginia