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Support project in Weirton

To the Editor,

I have been a commercial real estate developer in Weirton for more than 20 years.

My experience tells me that Southwestern Energy’s proposed well pad is a good project for Weirton. Over the years, my developments have contributed more than $100,000 in tax revenue inside city limits. I think this project is safe because the industry is so well regulated and a great source of long term revenue. I have personally visited the pad site and think that there are many misperceptions about how this pad will interfere with its surroundings. Environmental impacts of well projects are evaluated by the W.Va, Department of Environmental Protection. These evaluations are a comprehensive process that consider impact on surface and ground water, wildlife and hosts of human impacts. Any negatives will be far outweighed by the benefits that the revenue will bestow on the bulk of Weirton residents.

Locally, Weirton City Council has been prepared since 2012 for the possibilities of a local project like this one because of our mineral-rich region. At that time, council passed ordinance 1732 to make sure that Weirton would be in a position to collect a 6 percent tax revenue on natural gas extraction.

Council deserves accolades for their forward thinking. Without this foresight for the current city government to build on, Weirton would not be in the position to act toward increasing their revenue today.

The next natural concern is, what could increased revenue pay for?

Revenue is responsible to pay for city government, city improvements and amenities that enrich our culture. It is important that we have departments to support growth in the area. These employees have salaries and pension obligations that we are responsible to maintain. City planning, finance, utilities and more are all departments that we don’t think of until we don’t have them. Without foresight in revenue and development, we lose the support we need to provide basic services.

Without exception, we all have a wish list of city improvements. This revenue can contribute to fund these projects. Utility and Service improvements can be made without an increase in every person’s utility and service bills.

Public works and public parks and recreation budgets need to be increased and this is one way to give City Council the funding they need to do that.

I am not against any development, I don’t want to squash one project to spite another. The real question is not if we should allow development but, rather, how can we support development to bring better diversity of opportunity to our area?

It is the job of businesses to find creative ways to bring about the best results possible. We can choose to find solutions and success or we can deny progress because we are afraid of failure.

I urge citizens to encourage their representatives to support the Southwestern Energy project.

Michael Chek

Weirton

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