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Cheers & Jeers

CHEERS to Melissa Yeso, Martins Ferry’s newest city council member, who was willing to step up and fill a vacancy left due to a prior member’s health concerns. JEERS to reports that young people in several local communities are riding motorized bikes and scooters without obeying traffic rules, creating hazards for drivers and themselves. CHEERS to Belmont County’s Early Intervention Program, which serves children from birth to 3 years old free of charge and in the family home. The program provides help during a formative period. JEERS to the fact that some children are in need ...

Make our money work for us

The story is becoming too familiar. Lawmakers who support spending cuts, then call for their reversal. Lawmakers who want to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, just not in the program that is politically beneficial to them. U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., joined several Senate colleagues in a letter seeking disbursement of already-approved Community Development Financial Institutions funds. To be fair, some federal actions seem designed to force elected officials to beg for the help they pledged to their constituents. In this case, $324 million from the fund was approved for more than ...

Get rail safety bills on track

With Congress on its August break, a number of important things are not getting done. A couple of recent incidents in West Virginia remind us rail safety reform continues to be one of them. Last month, a minor train derailment in downtown Parkersburg closed a street, and had residents asking questions about the contents of the tanks that were leaning. The tanks were safely sealed and empty, and a crew got the train back on track with no injuries. On Aug. 3, the St. Albans Fire Department responded to the derailment of a CSX coal train. There were no injuries reported in this ...

Improving outcomes for kids

Buckeye State residents generally think of Ohio as being a fantastic place for children to grow up. But perception does not always match reality, as WalletHub’s “2025’s States With the Most Underprivileged Children” suggests. Believe it or not, Ohio is ranked 18th on the lists of states with the most underprivileged children. A look at the metrics tells the tale. Ohio is 16th for the percentage of children in households below the poverty line, 26th for the percentage of maltreated children, 12th for child food-insecurity rate, 26th for the percentage of uninsured children, 20th ...

A plus for Appalachian Ohio

Folks in our part of the Buckeye State often feel left out or forgotten when it comes to state-level decisions and developments, but the Appalachian Community Grant Program is a real change-maker for the local region. On Friday, ground was broken for the Appalachian ECOTONE riverfront amphitheater and trails in Sardis. Monroe County received $4.4 million through the $500 million Appalachian Community Grant Program to create the new riverfront amphitheater and walking trail, located at 37800 OH-7. Gov. Mike DeWine launched the program aimed at creating transformational changes and ...

Protecting voter rolls

While some states are fighting back against U.S. Justice Department requests for access to their voter registration lists and other elections information, Ohio has begun the four-year process of ensuring voter rolls here are as clean as they can be. Among the states that have received requests from the federal government so far, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have simply said “no.” Officials there say they have questions about the legality of the requests and how the information will be used. After all, state elections officials are responsible for their own voter rolls, ...