State should look to
city for ideas on roads
Kudos to Morgantown City Council, the city manager, the city’s engineers, paving contractors and especially people who pay the user fee for managing to make Morgantown a first class city.
Our state government could look to them for exemplary guidance on working together to plan, organize, direct and control a significant successful project that continuously improves from year to year.
Frank Gmeindl
Greenmont
Residents in and out of
city stakeholders, too
Signs declaring “Homeowners Against Annexation” have cropped up on commercial properties, including landlords and other business interests.
These are obviously not homes. I’d like to see actual homeowners speak up.
All stakeholders can take advantage of information sessions from 1-3 p.m. Thursday, at the Morgantown Municipal Airport; or from 6-8 p.m. Monday at Morgantown Event Center, 3 Waterfront Place.
As a 50-year resident and homeowner in Morgantown, I appreciate city services. I support the proposed annexation. Living just inside the city limits, I’ve had neighbors who lack services such as road maintenance and emergency response, parks, and who are “free riders” on amenities like city streets and parks.
On Monday evening at the Marilla Center meeting, I learned a lot. Of course, business and property owners are stakeholders, but also included are current city residents as well and homeowners in the areas proposed for annexation.
I urge others to participate in this important conversation.
Morgantown is a great place to live.
John Lozier
Morgantown
Mississippi’s lessons
still worth learning
The New Orleans and Mississippi Delta situation is an example of “Don’t mess with Mother Nature” that everyone and especially the climate-change deniers should heed.
The Greek letter “delta” has a sharp peak that expands to a broad base; thus the Mississippi “Delta” has a narrow floodplain inland and a wide base where it meets the Gulf. The delta has grown by the ancient Mississippi River switching back and forth across its width and periodically overflowing its bank spreading mid-continent soil, adding sediment to its surface that builds up the land surface across the width of the delta and extends the delta into the Gulf.
A delta grows and maintains its height above sea level only because of this process. On the other hand the added sediment adds weight on the earth’s crust and compaction (dewatering) of the sediment causes the surface of the delta to subside. The delta will grow so long as the sediment is spread by switching and flooding. Stop the sediment and subsidence takes over, and land is lost to an encroaching sea and the absence of flood waters.
Long ago, the government, decided to interfere with nature in order to maintain the current course of the Mississippi to maintain ship navigation. The public also demanded a stop to the flooding of their houses. Our government also increased the height of the levees to contain the flood waters. That has continued to the point where the surface of the Mississippi River is above the adjacent land in New Orleans. In places the back-water land is below sea level.
We know that if we persist in our current lifestyle and ignore the scientific data that has given us the reasons for our climate change, then we will be sowing a wind for our children to reap that will be a “wild wind.” Such “wild winds” include: Increased storm intensity, crop failure, flooding, human migrations, etc. Next time you see the pictures from New Orleans stop and think about our blind rush toward a fateful encounter with a rather dark, world-wide future.
Robert Shumaker
Morgantown
