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Proposed light a necessity for safety

After initially denying the request, the West Virginia Division of Highways has encouraged Brooke County commissioners to submit a new application for a signal system at the northern intersection of state Route 2 and Pleasant Avenue in Wellsburg. The system, if approved – and we hope it will be – would be used by Brooke County Emergency Management to alert drivers when an ambulance would be making its way onto the highway from its new centralized station. A similar system has been in use in Weirton in recent years for the Weirton Fire Department to access the city’s Main Street ...

Hoping to see us all live longer

For many residents of the Tri-State Area, the choice to live here comes down to it simply being home. We’re here because we want to live here. But data released recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows some of the region’s residents are not living as long as residents of many other states. Ohio ranks 40th in life expectancy in the country, based on 2021 data. In the Buckeye State, the average lifespan is 74.5 years (77.5 years for women and 71.7 years for men). The national average is 76.4 years (79.3 for women and 73.5 for men.) And, numbers from ...

Charter schools testing well

We are a couple of years into West Virginia’s experiment with public charter schools, and a look at the results of the Statewide Summative Assessment for the 2023-24 school year revealed at least the two most established charter schools are making positive strides Thursday, members of the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board got the details of each school’s performance so far. For the two schools with results from the previous year to compare with the most recent results, there was noteworthy improvement. Morgantown’s West Virginia Academy and the Eastern Panhandle ...

Exercising our electoral responsibility

Most Mountain State residents will agree the upcoming November general election is among the more important we’ve been asked to decide over the past several years. Yet according to U.S. Census Bureau data, there is a good chance a small percentage of West Virginians will be making those decisions for all of us. West Virginia had the second-lowest voter turnout rate in the country in 2020 — behind only Arkansas. Back then a mere 55.3% of registered voters in West Virginia turned out to vote in the general election. This time around, only 30.49% of registered voters participated in ...

Program a benefit for our veterans

This month, the West Virginia Veterans’ Home Loan program launches, after passage of state Senate Bill 261 earlier this year. The program will help eligible veterans purchase their first homes. In this real estate climate, any help they can get will be significant. Republican State Treasurer Riley Moore, state Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, and representatives of the West Virginia Housing Development Fund were on hand to talk about the Sept. 12 launch in Weirton earlier this week. (Moore is running for the U.S. House West Virginia 2nd District seat in November, and Weld is unopposed in ...

Let’s talk about preparedness

Floods, nasty storms, high winds, fires, ice storms, power outages … nature can be rough on us here in West Virginia. But those are just some of the emergencies and disasters for which state agencies hope residents will come up with an action plan, as part of National Preparedness Month. This year’s theme is “Start a conversation,” and the West Virginia Departments of Health, Health Facilities and Human Services are hoping we’ll do just that. If it feels a little awkward or pessimistic, that’s OK. Start the discussion little by little, anyway. “Engaging in these ...