MORGANTOWN — Members of the Monongalia County Commission said they would like to begin a conversation about decentralizing the West Virginia Division of Highways — at least to some degree.
This, according to Commission President Tom Bloom, will be one of the issues he intends to bring up when the commission meets with DOH officials in Charleston on Nov. 22.
Bloom said he envisions the state being divided into three segments, with leadership based in Charleston as well a location in North Central West Virginia and a third spot further north.
“I just don’t think we can continue to do what we’ve done for the past 100 years. It’s not working,” Bloom said, pointing to the lights on Monongahela Boulevard as an example.
The Commission was notified late last month that the DOH had awarded a $568,500 contract to place/replace lights along the boulevard. This movement, Bloom previously explained, took two years.
“Why do we need to go through Charleston to get someone down there to look at this when we could just deal with it,” Bloom said. “We should be able to take care of stuff like that here.”
Commissioner Ed Hawkins said there’s no question the DOH is hampered by the fact that so much has to be funneled through Charleston.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that — no question. The only decision-making process is taking place 150 miles away,” Hawkins said. “So I think there’s a tendency to see the economic status we’re achieving and yet never ask what it could be if we weren’t being crippled by the roads.”
Hawkins went on to say that he’s seen more work being done — and received a dramatic increase in positive feedback from the public — over the past month or so.
Part of that could be due to a pilot project recently described by District 4 Engineer Darby Clayton. Clayton told the Commission that Monongalia County is the first county in the state to see the DOH contract out maintenance work.
Hawkins said he wants to see that continue.
“I’m not badmouthing the district. We just need to look at how we keep this going. Is it more independent contractors that we need? Winter is coming, then spring, and we don’t want to be back in the same shape we were in before with no ditching, no drainage, basically no core maintenance,” Hawkins said.
Personnel and equipment issues faced by DOH District 4 are another critical issue, Bloom said. Of the 44 DOH positions in Monongalia County, about half are unfilled.
“The state is going to have to offer more money in certain areas, and ours is one of them. You can work at a fast food restaurant and make more money than you will working outside in those conditions,” Bloom said. “The other thing is equipment. It’s not getting up here. The local folks are doing what they can with the equipment and manpower they have. We just want to be treated equitably. That’s our major issue.”
The bottom line, Hawkins said, is that Monongalia County is the state’s economic engine and has some of, if not the, busiest roads in the state.
He said there needs to be more communication between Morgantown and Charleston and less sniping back and forth.
“Basically, I’m looking for a reasonable dialogue, face-to-face, so that we’ll be able to have communicated to us what we might be able to expect over the course of the next year or so,” Hawkins said of the meeting. “We don’t want to be a bad neighbor to Charleston. What we want is to be able to answer questions when we’re asked. We want to be able to ensure our continued success.”
