Dear Editor:
I am writing concerning the recent radio report about the Pocahontas County Board of Education. We listen to the radio at our office every day, so I’ve heard the report many times.
I am very disappointed in the way that these issues were so negatively discussed in an open session. Middle school years are very trying times for many if not most children; and therefore their teachers. We are too small of a county to portray ourselves in this manner.
Our schools are an integral part of our community, and this is not who we are.
Thank you.
Cathy Mosesso
Marlinton
Dear Editor:
In the past few months since I have been working in the flower beds and been out and about after my sickness, I have been asked dozens of times why I was not running for town council.
First, I sorta became a member of council five-and-a-half years ago when a member resigned and left town. I was selected to fill the vacancy, not knowing what I was getting into. I was so dumb, thinking I could do some little things to help our town. That was the biggest mistake I made in my 81 years of life. I got dumber than dumb, and I ran for a four-year term.
Nothing has gotten done. The water plant has continued to rust and is ready to fall down. The water and sewer lines have continued to rust out. The roof on the municipal building has never been fixed. The sidewalks are falling to pieces.
We have paid thousands of dollars for a building inspector and judge and nothing has been done to make things happen to the falling down, nasty homes, where the grass and weeds are getting taller than the houses.
I just can’t understand why.
I will continue to go to the meetings, and I am begging the Marlinton residents to get concerned and come to the meetings to express their feelings and help solve these problems.
The town council meets the first Monday of the month.
We could have a beautiful community if everyone would work together.
I know we have no industry, but we could keep what we do have fixed up.
I love living here, so, town residents, please, please, make it your choice to come to the meetings and help save our town.
Thanks for the support you have given me.
Louise Barnisky
Marlinton
Dear Editor:
Some of you may have recently received a mailing from Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). In the cover letter I read, The pipeline will also bring a host of much needed economic benefits. Listed are 17,000 construction-related jobs, $25 million in local tax revenue spread out over a three state area, and $377 million annual savings in lower consumer energy prices.
The letter begins, Dear Neighbor. That is a misnomer. Atlantic Coast Pipe-line touted jobs and lower consumer energy costs will not touch Pocahontas County.
Even its claims of $1 million in annual property tax actually will accrue to about $400,000 for local government and school operations with the balance taken up through the shared state school aid formula.
The ACP would make Pocahontas County an energy sacrifice zone for the benefit of investors and consumers and job seekers living far away from our county.
Pocahontas County would risk scars upon our pristine ecosystem and beautiful scenery, and lower property values and economic activity. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) needs to conduct an independent thorough economic analysis of proposed pipeline pass through counties in West Virginia and Virginia.
ACP reports that over 81 percent of the total 27,955 comments to FERC were supportive of the pipeline (The Pocahontas Times – May 21, 2015, p. 2).
This misleads readers.
Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), an organization funded by energy companies to generate grass roots support for various energy issues in Congress and the states, submitted a one-page letter attached with 21,860 names and addresses on 728 pages to FERC urging for the swift approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The implication to the public that each of these people had filed their own individual comments is a decided misstatement. An analysis of those names shows that only 176 reside in the five counties whose water, natural resources and economies would be most prominently affected by the ACP. Two of those names collected by CEA live in Pocahontas County.
Respectfully,
Allen Johnson
Dunmore