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Take part in the process

Editorials

New Cumberland Council will be holding its final vote Monday on proposed increases to the city’s water and sewer rates. A public hearing will be held as part of council’s regular meeting, set to begin at 5 p.m. Monday, with the agenda also to include the second – and last vote – on the rate increases. We aren’t taking a stance on whether the rates should be increased. Unfortunately, that often is the only option for a community in order to make improvements to their utility system, or cover the costs of operations. We are, though, encouraging residents to let city council ...

Don’t wait to get children vaccinated

Editorials

Despite the irresponsible “political” noise surrounding the matter, vaccines remain an important step for parents to take in keeping their children as healthy and safe as possible. For those with children old enough to enter school, state law — West Virginia Code 16-3-4 to be exact — continues to require “a child entering school or a state-regulated child care center in this state must be immunized against chickenpox, hepatitis-b, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough.” The start of another school year is creeping up on us more ...

Support farmers and vulnerable families

Editorials

Understanding the strain economic uncertainty can put on both farmers and those vulnerable to food insecurity, U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., has joined forces with Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to introduce the Strengthening Local Food Security Act. The effort is meant to tackle a variety of challenges, including reinforcing the food supply chain, improving economic opportunities for farmers and other food producers, and improving access to local food in communities and in schools. It is being pitched as an amendment to tack on to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. A permanent grant ...

A government about laws, not men

Local Columns

I have no blood connection with John Adams, one of our nation’s founding fathers and the second president of the United States. But I’ve read enough of his letters to find a real kinship with the underappreciated man. One of his famous quotes is often paraphrased, but below is a direct quote from an Adams letter to fellow Continental Congress delegate John Penn. “…The true Idea of a Republic, is ‘An Empire of Laws and not of Men’: and therefore as a Republic is the best of Governments so, that particular Combination of Power, which is best contrived for a faithfull ...

A letter to my grandson, please remember ...

Local Columns

Dear Layne: There is something I would like for you to know, something no one else may ever say that I believe you should hear at least once in your life. As your grandma, I feel it is my responsibility to let you in on a secret. And no, I am not trying to persuade you into changing who you are or who you will one day become. That wouldn’t be fair. Just please know this … in case no one else ever tells you. You are growing up in a completely different society than the one I grew up in, different than the ones your grandparents and great-grandparents lived through, ...

A tribute to Slugs Smarrella

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor, The recent passing of Joseph Smarrella is a great loss to the people he served as treasurer of United Steelworkers Local 1190 in the tri-cities of Steubenville, Weirton and Pittsburgh. He was known as “Slugs” to the community of Steelworkers where he worked for 40 years. What people might not have known was that he was a regional coordinator of a national, nonpartisan coalition of unions in 30 states. The coalition represented unions that fabricated products made from the steel mills in the Tri-State Area. The coalition included defense and aerospace workers, ...