Timely explanation about
MUB’s role in paving
A recent editorial (DP-Friday) mentions MUB unfavorably for its role in a four-way partnership to pave Valley View Avenue near the new WVU Hospitals parking garage.
The editorial criticizes the Division of Highways for failing to pave local roads, and then criticizes the four paving partners for taking the initiative to do the DOH’s work at Valley View. The editorial’s point is that such actions reinforce the DOH’s performance (or lack thereof) and represent double taxation of local residents.
While MUB will not attempt to explain the reasoning of the other partners, I will explain our own.
The editorial acknowledges recent utility work by MUB at Valley View, but mistakenly suggests that work was related solely to the new parking garage. MUB has recently done a small amount of water line work for WVU Hospitals at Valley View, and at its expense. But in addition to that, we have also done over $733,000 of storm and sanitary sewer replacements, and $68,000 of our own water line replacements, all at MUB’s expense as general system upgrades extending well beyond the new parking garage.
We have had an agreement with the DOH that it will pave most of the areas that MUB disturbed at Valley View, but MUB remained responsible for a small portion at an estimated cost of about $20,000. MUB had planned to pave its portion of the area at the same time as the pending DOH paving. The DOH then notified us its paving will be delayed until the spring/summer of 2020.
The subject four party paving arrangement allows MUB to meet its previous obligation to the DOH, at no increased cost to MUB, and it apparently satisfies the needs of the other paving partners. In addition, the area will now be restored without suffering the unexpected delay that would have resulted from the DOH’s revised schedule.
In fairness to The Dominion Post, they reached out to ask why we participated in the four-way deal, and our answer merely described that it was because we had done system work in the area. In hindsight, a more detailed explanation may have avoided this confusion.
Timothy L. Ball
Morgantown Utility Board
Morgantown
Trump only attempting
to enforce our laws
I would like to address Johanna Winant and her statements about immigration (DP-Sunday). Twice she referred to the United States imprisoning and holding people in concentration camps after they illegally entered our country.
Is she making a comparison to to Hitler’s concentration camps? I think so. Have we become so ignorant of real history that we can make that statement without an ounce of reality? I would encourage her and others to learn real history. I would encourage her to learn what really happened on Ellis Island when masses of immigrants came to this country legally.
Seeking asylum is legal. But don’t you think, (as one of the Democratic presidential candidates recently stated) that immigrants should at least ring the doorbell. If a total stranger came into anyone’s home through the back door and started sleeping in their extra bedroom, what would anyone do?
I love America. Although we have made mistakes, we are the best example of freedom in the world. What has made us the envy of the world? Why do people want to come here? I suggest that we are a nation of laws. If we ignore the law to enter the country, what law do we choose to ignore next?
If we become a nation that does not obey laws, then we will be on a path to becoming what people are fleeing.
To blame President Trump for separating families is totally unfair. This policy has been around a long time. Trump is trying to enforce laws that are on the books. If I or Winant commits a crime and are arrested, we will be separated from our family. It is illegal to enter this, or any other country by sneaking across the border
Larry Efaw
Morgantown
