West Virginia

No Exit published September 18, 2021

Source: https://www.playwv.com/longest-poker-game-lasted-14-years-in-thurmond-wv/

According to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, the longest poker game ever lasted 14 years and was played at Dun Glen, one of two hotels in Thurmond, WV. The hotel was owned by the McKell family in a town that was often referred to as the Las Vegas of its time.

The town was known for drinking, gambling, and prostitution, with Dun Glen being the hub for all such activities. Thurmond had saloons on one side and brothels on the other. It was also often referred to as “Hell.“

Thurmond is not technically a ghost town

Online poker in West Virginia is legal, but you wouldn’t know it. As of yet, no online poker sites have expressed interest in serving West Virginia.

When you think of poker and the longest game in history, you probably don’t picture it being in a ghost town. And technically, it wasn’t. The supposedly longest-running poker game was played in Thurmond, which to this day isn’t completely abandoned. The 2010 Census confirmed there were still five people residing there. That number had shrunk to three by 2021.

Regrettably, nothing else is known about the longest poker game in history.

The history of Thurmond

In 1844, the town was settled by W.D. Thurmond, who would become a Confederate Army captain in the Civil War two decades later. More people followed Thurmond’s lead and helped turn the settlement into a town, naming it after the captain.

Thurmond eventually boasted its very own post office in 1888. Four years later, a railway depot was built. Eventually, the Dun Glen Hotel, run by the McKell family, became the hot spot to party at. It opened in 1901 and was a popular destination. Unfortunately, arsonists set fire to the hotel in 1930, marking the beginning of the end of Thurmond.

The Thurmond National Bank shut down the next year in 1931, and the McKells moved their New River Bank to another town in 1935. By the 1950s, Thurmond was pretty much a ghost town.

Perception of poker has evolved over the years

Much like the town of Thurmond, the game of poker has transformed tremendously.

Poker has had a reputation, and in some cases still does, for being attached to drinking, drugs, and irresponsible gambling. It was played in the back of bars, restaurants, and in homes in its early beginnings. Smoking used to be permitted at the tables. And if you got caught cheating, you could be met with a bullet.

Fast-forward to 2023. People are now playing poker as their career. Players are signing up for training sites, paying coaches an hourly rate, and studying simulations using solvers.

Poker is now televised and played in some of the most prestigious rooms across the world. People even travel to locations such as the Bahamas, Macau, and Brazil, to name a few, just to play in a poker tournament.

Despite its popularity nowadays, it’s a good bet that Thurmond’s record for the longest game ever will never be broken.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6336065

Two children were found locked inside a barn in West Virginia without any running water or bathroom facilities and their adoptive parents are now facing felony child neglect charges, the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office says.

An investigation was launched Monday just before 6 p.m. after authorities received a 911 call regarding the welfare of the children, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

A sheriff’s deputy went to the barn in Sissonville and forced her way inside to find a boy and girl in the 20-foot by 14-foot room, the release said.

The children were locked inside without access to water, a bathroom, food or adequate hygienic care items, authorities said. At the main residence, another small child was found locked inside alone, the release stated.

The adoptive parents, Donald Ray Lantz, 61, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 61, later arrived and were arrested on felony gross child neglect charges, the sheriff’s release said.

Sgt. Joshua Lester told CNN the couple has five adoptive children ranging from 6 to 16 years old.

One child was with Lantz and Whitefeather as they arrived and another was with a separate caretaker.

All five children were placed in the immediate custody of Child Protective Services, Lester said.

CNN has been unable to determine if Lantz and Whitefeather have obtained a lawyer at this time. They are being held at South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, West Virginia, on a $200,000 bond each.

Sissonville is about 15 miles north of Charleston.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The U.S. Marshal Service said a man was arrested in misdemeanor charges Monday morning after a traffic stop in downtown Charleston.

A statement said the U.S. Marshal CUFFED Task Force personnel observed the man acting suspicious near the Byrd Federal Courthouse at around 9:15 a.m. When he was approached by the Marshal Service he got into a van and left the area.

“CUFFED Task Force Personnel observed the vehicle traveling on Virginia Street in Charleston, WV. The vehicle came to sudden stop in the roadway in the 1100 block of Virginia Street E. Kanawha County Sheriff’s deputies then conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle,” the statement said.

Charleston PD and US Marshal Service have Virginia Street in Charleston blocked this hour at Leon Sullivan Way. pic.twitter.com/Nu3y6VEqGS

— Chris Lawrence (@WVOutdoors) September 25, 2023

The man was charged by sheriff’s deputies. Neither the specific charges nor the man’s name were immediately released.

The van was towed from the scene.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A woman who set fire to an abandoned house in Kanawha City that claimed a man’s life was sentenced to spend eight years in prison Monday.

Patricia White, 50, of Charleston, pleaded guilty in July to voluntary manslaughter and second degree arson. She started a fire at the house on MacCorkle Avenue in February 2022.

White was mad at her husband but he wasn’t inside. Firefighters later found the body of Dennis Rutledge, 52, on the second floor.

White, who has admitted to a decades long addiction, was high at the time of the blaze. She apologized during Monday’s sentencing.

“I understand that my behavior was unacceptable and it has had a significant impact on the Rutledge family,” White said from the South Central Regional Jail. “I never intended to hurt anyone. May God be with each family during all of the endurance, the sadness this has brought.”

White’s attorney Joey Spano said White has been a model prisoner and wants to help others once she finishes her prison term.

“She has not had any write-ups and done everything she is supposed to do. She actually plans upon getting out to continue with her sober life and to get inpatient treatment,” Spano said.

Rowe sentenced White to 8 years for voluntary manslaughter and 4 years for second degree arson but decided the sentences will run at the same time.

“She is guilty of two crimes but it’s a single act,” Rowe said. “I see no reason given the circumstances to run those back-to-back. So it’s the further judgment of the court that they be allowed to be served concurrently.”

White will be given credit for time served. Restitution will be determined at a later hearing.

There was no one at Monday’s hearing to speak on behalf of Rutledge. Prosecutors said efforts to contact his spouse or any family member had been unsuccessful.

Jim Justice has filed a federally-mandated financial disclosure for his Senate run, revealing a mountain of assets — with many indicating they produce little or no income — and also a riptide of debt.

Two debts on the filing are promissory notes characterized as between $1 million and $5 million each to Bray Cary, the broadcaster and businessman who served as Justice’s senior adviser, as well as his Cary Foundation Inc. No explanation is provided for the notes, both issued August 31, 2021, shortly after Cary left the administration.

For many years, Justice was described as West Virginia’s only billionaire, but Forbes downgraded him after 2021 debt disputes. He declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate on April 27, facing Congressman Alex Mooney in the Republican Primary and aiming for incumbent Senator Joe Manchin in the General Election.

Mooney, who has millions of dollars in campaign support lined up from the hardcore Club for Growth, already submits required financial disclosures for his position in the House, submitting the most recent one May 25. Manchin, a Democrat, filed his most recent one May 15 for the 2022 financial year.

Justice took 151 days from the time he declared his campaign before finally filing the financial disclosure report. The submission finally went through 134 days after it was first due and took place on the first day a fine of $200 could kick in.

“Governor Jim Justice has created thousands of jobs and saved businesses, like The Greenbrier Resort, and kept companies open in tough economic times. He is a job creator, and his opponent is a self-serving career politician with decades in political office relying on the largest Never Trump group in the country to get him elected to the U.S. Senate,” stated Roman Stauffer, campaign manager for Jim Justice for U.S. Senate.

The DSCC campaign organization representing Democrats in Washington said it wanted to know three things from the release of Justice’s report: Who are any previously unnamed lenders or financers in Justice’s business dealings? Would the filings show any foreign investment in Justice’s financial structure? And is Justice’s personal wealth truly tied up in the businesses themselves?

Justice’s political persona has been as a businessman who can buzz the numbers. His report, like all others, leads with his earned income. In Justice’s case, that’s $250,000 annually as governor, although the report notes he has donated the base pay to the state Department of Education while still paying the income taxes.

Justice’s report also lists his $3,500 wages as basketball coach at Greenbrier East High School.

His list of assets stretches for 147 entries, ranging from checking accounts to the network of companies in his family-owned coal, timber and tourism operations.

The estimated value of the assets was between $37.5 million and more than $1.9 billion.

Yet many of the assets are listed as producing no or little income. The word “none” appears 276 times on the report, sometimes redundantly, to describe what type or amount of income they produce.

A checking account at Bank of Monroe is listed with $1,000 to $15,000. The contents of another checking account at People’s Bank is listed as “none.”

The report indicates Justice has more than $100,000 in People’s Bank stock, more than $50,000 in Caterpillar stock, more than $50,000 in HP stock, along with smaller amounts in other stock accounts.

Line after line lists assets in Justice’s network of family businesses, and many are identified as being of significant value. But the assessment on the filing is that many also do not produce income.

For example, Justice Receivable — one of the James C. Justice Companies, is listed as having value of more than $50 million. But its income is listed as “none.”

Likewise, Justice’s Southern Coal Receivable is listed with a value of more than $50 million but no income.

Virginia Fuel Investment, value over $50 million but no income. Bluestone Resources Investment, value over $50 million but no income. A&G Coal Investment, value over $50 million but income production of “none.”

The report also specifies major debts, with Justice reporting between $37.5 million and $108.1 million in liabilities between promissory notes and lines of credit between 2010 and 2023.

Justice’s companies face waves of financial disputes in court cases, with some now focused on how companies could ever collect. In an $18 million case involving Fivemile Energy Company of Kentucky, lawyers for the Justice businesses have objected that they lack the ability to pay, maintaining that economic headwinds over the past decade have whittled more than 100 coal and farming companies to just a dozen now actively operating.

Lawyers representing the Justice companies, in a federal court filing, noted that depositions by company representatives “painted a consistent portrait of a somewhat disorganized organization whose resources are stretched to the limit with respect to both finances and personnel. The cash that comes in is almost immediately transferred from those entities that have it to those that need it.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The newly-appointed Democratic delegate in Kanawha County Hollis Lewis went on WCHS Radio’s 580 LIVE Thursday to discuss his new-found legislative position in the House of Delegates.

“It’s a big honor, you know, it’s one of those things where you put your name down, hope you might get it, and when you get it it’s a good feeling to represent communities that I’ve worked in and been in for a while, so it’s an honor,” Lewis said on 580 LIVE Thursday.

Lewis replaces the now resigned democratic Delegate Doug Skaff, stepping into the role with 17 months on the current term.

He also joins the outnumbered party in the house with an 11Democrat to 89 Republican ratio out of a 100-member body. Lewis said the biggest challenge of course, is being a democrat in a majority republican state, but he’s ready to take on that obstacle.

“As far as that is concerned, we just have to state our position, do what we can to advance, not only agendas that we set forward, but represent the people and the best interests of the people,” Lewis said.

Lewis said his plan is to come into the position with a positive attitude of building bridges with the dominating party and not being so adversarial when it comes to getting work done.

He said the biggest lesson he has learned from his work out in the communities is that flexibility is key, as well as simply listening to what people have to say regardless of whether it’s an opposing view or not.

“Not everybody is going to get along, even if you have the same mission, even if you have the same goals, people have different ways they want to go about executing that,” he said.

Lewis said one of the big issues he plans to confront and try to get work done on in office is the problems within the criminal justice system in the state, a matter he has already been passionate about in fixing.

Another democratic member in the House of Delegates and Chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party Mike Pushkin came on 580 LIVE the day before. He said he was happy to see his friend Lewis joining on but sad to see Skaff go.

“Doug said he was stepping down to focus on business and family, I imagine it would be difficult to run HD Media as well as serve the public in the House of Delegates,” said Pushkin. “Doug is also a very good friend, I’ve enjoyed my time serving with Doug and I wish him the best.”

However, Pushkin went on to say that it was a good call on the governor’s part in appointing Lewis to the position.

“He’s a very well-rounded individual and he will be a great addition to the democratic caucus and the House of Delegates, I look forward to serving with him,” Pushkin said.

Lewis said his goal right now is to simply just get in and get an idea of the current landscape of the House of Delegates as it stands with such disproportionate numbers.

“I’m going to figure out what we can do and figure out how we can influence things maybe that’s not all our agenda, things that we obviously can’t do to the extent that we would like to just because we’re at such a disadvantage as far as numbers are concerned, but I think there’s ways to influence even those things that we couldn’t fully flesh out,” Lewis said.

A Charleston native, Lewis is a graduate of Criminal Justice from West Virginia State University. He then went on to attend law school at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He has held various positions throughout the community since 2013, including one as Kanawha County Magistrate, a member of the West Virginia Parole Board, an adjunct professor at WVSU, as well as serving on the Charleston Area Alliance.

As of Thursday Lewis couldn’t say for certain of the exact date of when he would be getting officially sworn in to the House of Delegates, but he did say that it should be very soon.

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) - A woman wanted for defrauding several organization that help flood victims has been arrested.

The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office issued an arrest warrant on September 15 for Brittany Hackney. Investigators say Hackney defrauded several organizations helping flood victims.

Deputies say Hackney, 26, of Sissonville, was arrested in Jackson County, West Virginia by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators believe Hackney lied about her home flooding last month and asked for assistance from West Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (WV VOAD) and the American Red Cross. Both organizations were helping people in Eastern Kanawha County who had suffered flood damage on August 28.

Both organizations told investigators they provided Hackney with goods and services totaling more than $2,000.

During the investigation it was determined that no homes existed at the address provided by Hackney to the flood relief organizations.

A preliminary hearing date has been set for Oct. 5, 2023 in Kanawha County Magistrate Court.

The Charleston City Council is in the process of passing a bill to create Private Outdoor Designated Areas around the city.

Establishments in these areas, often called PODAs, can be approved to serve alcoholic drinks in specific cups that people can carry with them around the area and into other businesses who allow them.

The bill was discussed Thursday at the Committee on Rules & Ordinances. Committee Chairman Chad Robinson plans to hold another meeting at 5 p.m. Oct. 2 to vote on the bill before that night's city council meeting. If approved by the committee, the bill could with a vote by the full council.

Business owners interested in being included in the PODA will meet at 9 a.m. next Thursday at Adelphia’s to discuss the bill.

PODAs were legalized by the state Legislature this year. Huntington has already created a PODA in its downtown. Other cities around the country also use PODAs.

The first proposed Charleston PODA is downtown, covering Summers and Capitol streets between Kanawha Boulevard and Lee Street. Haddad Riverfront Park, Slack Plaza and part of Hale Street also are included. A draft map of the area is available on the city’s website under meetings. There are already plans to expand it.

Smaller PODAs are proposed for the Elk City district of the West Side, on Washington Street from Crescent Road to Pennsylvania Avenue, and on Bridge Road in South Hills.

Robinson asked for a fourth PODA covering Capitol Market and the area around Go-Mart Ballpark.

Businesses interested in serving alcohol in the PODA would need to apply for an S4 license from the state Alcohol and Beverage Control Administration.

Under the current bill, all PODAs would operate on Thursday and Friday from 4-10 p.m. and weekends from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Under state law, the bill has to include the proposed amount of city personnel needed at each PODA. In Charleston, this includes four police officers and two public works employees in the downtown PODA, and two police officers and one public works employee in the smaller PODA.

After questions from council members, city attorney Kevin Baker said there was room for flexibility on how security was provided in these areas so that police aren’t taken away from other areas where they are needed.

Baker also pointed out that there could be some hiccups with the ABCA’s permitting for fairs and festivals coexisting with the PODA.

Other issues, such as the design and material of the cups and signage, are still being discussed. The city manager will have some rulemaking authority with the PODAs.

Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin said her administration has looked at other cities with PODAs like Cincinnati and Dublin, Ohio.

“The best cities that we’ve seen have robust communication to business owners -- what you can do, what you can’t do -- but also to the patrons, too,” she said. “Lots of communication for sure needs to be done.”

Kim Rossi owns the building with Stella’s Gelateria and the old Blossom Dairy Co. She opened her business in 2016 because she wanted to see the downtown expand and thrive, she said after the meeting. She said she’s seeing the Charleston that she grew up in coming back after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think it’s just going to bring more revitalization to downtown Charleston and more people who want to come,” she said. “I think it will be a great addition.

A citizens group in West Virginia is suing federal regulators after their Black community and others in Louisiana and Texas were left out of an effort to tighten rules to control cancer-causing air pollution.

The lawsuit filed Monday alleges that the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to protect vulnerable communities from cancer-causing chemicals by missing a key deadline.

Pam Nixon, a long-time environmental advocate and member of the Charleston-based People Concerned About Chemical Safety, said she felt like her community was often neglected by the EPA.

“There is no justice yet until all communities are treated the same and until people everywhere are breathing clean air and it doesn’t impact the health of their families,” said Nixon, who got sick after being exposed to a leak from the Institute plant in 1985.

The lawsuit seeks to pressure regulators to update federal emissions standards for facilities that produce polyether polyols — a category of hazardous air pollutants, which include carcinogens such as ethylene oxide.

These facilities are major sources of pollution that disproportionately affect communities of color and lower-income areas, which are often already overburdened by industrial development.

Institute, one of West Virginia’s only two majority-Black communities, faces an increased cancer risk from industrial air pollution at 36 times the level the EPA considers acceptable from the nearby Union Carbide plant — a facility that has helped define West Virginia’s “Chemical Valley.”

The Union Carbide facility, now owned by Dow Chemical, makes ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical that helps produce a wide variety of products, including antifreeze, pesticides and sterilizing agents for medical tools.

A 2021 ProPublica analysis of over 7,600 facilities across the country that increase the estimated cancer risk in nearby communities ranked the Institute plant 17th. On average, the level of cancer risk from industrial air pollution in majority-Black communities across the country is more than double that for majority-white communities, according to ProPublica’s analysis.

Institute was highlighted in a 2021 Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica story, detailing how Black communities across the country were saddled with a disproportionate health burden from industrial pollution.

Elevated cancer risks also affect the overburdened “Cancer Alley” along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and New Orleans as well as around Houston, Texas, where there are also clusters of polyether polyols production facilities, according to the lawsuit.

The Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the Sierra Club joined the Charleston-based organization in the lawsuit against the EPA.

On Monday morning, the environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the EPA for failing to perform its required duties by missing a 2022 deadline to update the polyether polyols production source category.

The EPA did not comment and Dow Chemical did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

The EPA is required by the Clean Air Act to review and update emission standards for hazardous air pollutants every eight years. However, the agency hasn’t updated its standards for the polyether polyol production source category since March 2014.

Because regulators missed the original deadline and still have not updated the source category, the lawsuit is asking the court to find the EPA in violation of the Clean Air Act and to compel the agency to update the emissions standards by a swift deadline set by the court itself.

The lawsuit comes after the EPA proposed a string of new requirements in April to reduce the risks to communities by ethylene oxide, including a significant reduction of air pollution from chemical plants. However, these proposed rules don’t address the outdated emission standards for polyether polyol production facilities – like the one in Institute.

While the EPA reviewed the polyether polyol pollutants in 2014, the agency hasn’t made any substantive revisions to the standards for this source category since 1999, according to Adam Kron, an attorney for Earthjustice representing the environmental groups.

The EPA made minor changes to the monitoring standards of polyether polyols based on the technology review in 2014, but the agency decided not to make any revisions based on its risks review — which looks at whether the current standards adequately protect communities against health risks.

In 2016 — two years after the EPA reviewed the standards — the agency determined that ethylene oxide’s cancer risk was nearly 60 times greater than previously thought.

And in 2021, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General urged the agency to review polyether polyol production before its March 2022 deadline after a report on ethylene oxide-emitting source categories found that the EPA was failing to meet required deadlines for conducting reviews.

The inspector general’s report also noted that the EPA couldn’t guarantee that the current emissions standards were adequately protecting public health because it had fallen behind on reviewing them, according to the lawsuit.

In response to the report, EPA regulators said they planned to complete a review of emissions standards for facilities like the one in Institute by late 2024 – more than two years after the deadline.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin on Monday announced an event called “Here to Serve.” According to a news release, the community meeting gives residents an opportunity to speak with officials in an open meeting to meet members of the mayor’s team, ask questions to officials, share ideas, and troubleshoot challenges as well.

Goodwin said it is always her goal to have representatives from as many departments as possible so that every person who shows up can talk individually with someone who has the answer to their question.

The city is required to have a 10-year plan which her and her team plan to release and hear residents’ thoughts and feedback. This is something Goodwin said is not just about tomorrow, but the future of the city, as well.

“There is simply no substitute for meeting one on one, folks to listen and understand what’s going on in their neighborhood,” she said. “Not only is this a great opportunity to talk about some of the issues that you’re facing in your neighborhood whether it be paving, trash, parks and rec, but also I want you involved in our ten-year plan. We are going to have our comprehensive ten-year plan with us, and I want your input on what you want to see or what you don’t want us to spend our time and money on.”

The first meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Kanawha City Community Center.

Anyone who is unable to attend the Here to Serve events may use the online comment form to provide ideas, feedback, comments to the city of Charleston.

The head of the West Virginia Department of Transportation has approved contracts totaling millions of dollars for a major roadway project between his agency and an engineering consulting firm that employs his son as an engineer.

“It's a concern,” said Patrick McGinley, a West Virginia University law professor and administrative law expert. “The concern, really, is with the appearance of conflict, or appearance of impropriety.”

Department of Transportation Secretary and Division of Highways Commissioner Jimmy Wriston’s approval could violate federal statute prohibiting an employee from a contracting agency from participating in awarding a contract supported by federal funds if a real or apparent conflict of interest is involved. The prohibition applies when an immediate family member has an interest in the awardee.

Wriston signed two contracts in 2020 for the DOH to pay over $25.7 million to Michael Baker International, according to documents obtained by the Gazette-Mail through a Freedom of Information Act request. At the time, Wriston was deputy secretary of the DOT and deputy commissioner of the Division of Highways. Gov. Jim Justice named Wriston DOT secretary and DOH commissioner in October 2021.

Wriston’s son, Adam Wriston, joined Pittsburgh-headquartered Michael Baker full-time in April 2008 after starting as a college intern in May 2006, according to company spokesperson Julia Covelli. The younger Wriston conducts bridge inspections for Michael Baker clients across the country and performs engineering design for bridge rehabilitation and replacement projects, Covelli said.

The contracts were for quality assurance management for work on a segment of the four-lane Corridor H of the federal Appalachian Development Highway System from Kerens in Randolph County to Parsons in Tucker County. Most of Corridor H is open to traffic, with the Kerens-to-Parsons segment still under construction. The Federal Highway Administration has provided roughly $2.05 billion in federal funding toward Corridor H since 1975, according to the agency.

Michael Baker provides engineering plan review, National Environmental Policy Act documentation preparation and construction inspection services for Corridor H, Covelli said.

Covelli noted Michael Baker has a long history of partnering with state highways officials. Michael Baker designed the New River Gorge Bridge, which was completed in 1977, for state officials.

Federal Highway Administration statute prohibits any employee of a contracting agency from participating in the selection, award or administration of a contract supported by federal funds if a conflict of interest, “real or apparent,” would be involved. Such a conflict occurs, per the statute, if there is a financial or other interest in the awardee from the employee, any member of the employee’s immediate family, or the employee’s partner.

John Pelissero, senior scholar in government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, says there is a conflict of interest if a public official can award contracts to a firm that employs a family member.

“The conflict of interest occurs when a public official acts in a way that may favor the private or financial interest of a family member, either directly or indirectly,” Pelissero said in an email.

‘The Secretary has signed all the contracts’

The FHWA declined to comment directly on Wriston’s approval of the Corridor H contracts. An agency spokesperson noted federal statute makes it the state’s responsibility to enforce the requirements of the section of code prohibiting real or apparent conflicts of interest.

Federal statute also requires a contracting agency to “promptly disclose” any potential conflict of interest to the FHWA.

Wriston has been a vocal proponent of completing Corridor H. In a September 2022 legislative committee meeting, Wriston accused opponents of the DOT’s favored plan for constructing a 10-mile stretch of the project in Tucker County of spreading “disinformation” to delay the project long beset by funding and legal issues.

The DOH has paid Michael Baker over $16.2 million since Gov. Jim Justice appointed Wriston DOT secretary and DOH commissioner in October 2021 and over $41.7 million since Justice appointed him DOT deputy secretary in March 2019, per State Auditor’s Office data.

The Governor's Office did not respond to a request for comment.

DOT spokesperson Jennifer Dooley asserted there is no conflict of interest.

Dooley said Wriston never participated in selection committees that awarded contracts to Michael Baker while he was secretary or deputy commissioner.

But an April 2021 DOH memorandum listed Wriston as a voting member of a panel that ranked Michael Baker first in order of preference among three firms for a federally supported Glenville Truss Bridge project in Gilmer County. Wriston served on a standing selection committee that prepared the short list for the project consultant, according to the memorandum.

Dooley said in an email the memorandum was “found to be in error,” pointing to a March 2021 email from a DOT employee saying Wriston wouldn’t be available for interviews for a Glenville Truss project.

Dooley said the DOT secretary is the only person with the authority to sign agency contracts. Wriston, though, signed the 2020 Corridor H contracts with Michael Baker when he was deputy secretary. Dooley said then-Secretary Byrd White delegated areas of his role requiring technical engineering expertise to Wriston since Wriston is a licensed professional engineer.

West Virginia code allows the DOT secretary to designate their place in any hearings, appeals, meetings or other activities to any department employee. State code similarly allows the highways commissioner to delegate duties to their appointees or employees.

“It is our understanding that, should the need arise, the Secretary could delegate this signature authority to others, such as Deputy Secretary [Alanna] Keller,” Dooley said via email. “To date, the Secretary has signed all the contracts.”

“What could the [Division] of Highways do? I think the best thing they could do is not have Wriston involved at all even in signing or having anything to do with contracts with Michael Baker,” McGinley said.

Dooley contended Adam Wriston isn’t associated with his employer in a fashion that would trigger a conflict of interest per state code.

Dooley pointed to a state statute holding that public employees or members of their immediate family are considered to be “associated” with a business only if they or their immediate member are a director, officer or stockholder of 5% or more of stock of any class of the business.

West Virginia Ethics Commission Executive Director Kimberly Weber said the state Ethics Act wouldn’t prohibit a state agency’s contract with a business that employs the adult son of an agency’s official, citing past commission advisory opinions.

Weber said the Ethics Act wouldn’t prohibit a state official from voting on a contract with the employer of their adult son unless the son is a dependent or the public official has a financial interest in the contract.

Weber cited a 2021 commission opinion that held a county board of education member need not recuse herself from a vote on matters related to a lawsuit filed against the board by her brother because the board member had no financial interest in the litigation or financial relationship with her brother. The advisory opinion overruled parts of three past opinions.

But McGinley is looking for state officials to set a higher standard.

McGinley, in part, highlighted state code that prohibits a public employee from “knowingly and intentionally” using their office for their own or another person’s private gain.

McGinley said state code governing DOT employees doesn’t sufficiently match federal standards guarding against the appearance of impropriety. FHWA statute prohibits “apparent” conflict of interest stemming from an employee, their immediate family member or partner having a financial or other interest in a contract.

“When a public body is entering into contracts for millions of dollars of taxpayer money, as the federal regulations indicate, the agency should be forthcoming to remove any question about conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety,” McGinley said.

“Even if the official does not believe that a family member is benefiting from the contract award, there is the perception that the official is using their position to help a family member,” Pelissero said. “When members of the public believe that a conflict of interest is taking place, it can erode the public's trust in state government and its officials.”

The importance of transparency

An April 2022 memorandum from Wriston updating the DOT’s employee ethics and conflict of interest policy prohibits an agency employee from approving any contract in which they have any financial or personal interest. The memorandum doesn’t directly address the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Dooley indicated the DOH’s engineering division began submitting a letter to FHWA in any instance in which Michael Baker is selected as a consultant.

A DOH letter to FHWA sent on Aug. 14 notes that Wriston has an “immediate relative” employed by Michael Baker. The letter signed by DOH Chief Development Engineer Jason Foster said Wriston wasn’t involved in short-list or selection decisions that led to the agency’s Aug. 1 selection of Michael Baker to design a bridge in St. Marys.

Dooley said the DOH would keep sending letters to FHWA in any instance in which Michael Baker is selected as a consultant to make “abundantly clear that we are an open and transparent agency.”

The DOH letter to FHWA was dated the same day as a Gazette-Mail inquiry regarding DOT oversight.

It took the DOT 41/2 months to provide copies of agency contracts with Michael Baker in response to a Gazette-Mail Freedom of Information Act request.

The DOT said it didn’t determine that it wasn’t the correct custodian of West Virginia Turnpike-related documents requested by the Gazette-Mail in a Freedom of Information Act request until six months after the request. The DOT deferred the request to one of its subagencies, the Parkways Authority, which provided records a month later.

The Gazette-Mail received records the DOT contends are responsive to a separate Freedom of Information Act request last week only after 81/2 months of delay and a Gazette-Mail lawsuit to compel compliance with the law.

McGinley says the DOT must be sensitive to appearances of impropriety and appearances of a conflict of interest.

“And they have to be transparent,” McGinley said. “Transparency is incredibly important with regard to what public agencies do.”

Having faced elevated cancer risk from carcinogenic chemical emissions for years, Kanawha Valley chemical safety advocates say that greater environmental protection is overdue.

In a new federal lawsuit, they’re making that case literally.

People Concerned About Chemical Safety, a Kanawha Valley-based grassroots group, is one of three plaintiffs in the suit that says the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to safeguard public health by not timely reviewing air emission standards that apply to a comparatively high concentration of Kanawha County chemical facilities.

“No one is above the law,” People Concerned About Chemical Safety member Maya Nye said.

Over a sixth of the more than two-dozen chemical facilities that EPA data show fall in the category of emission sources the groups have targeted are in West Virginia.

Included in the category are facilities like those in Institute and South Charleston that emit ethylene oxide, a flammable, colorless gas that sent Kanawha County’s cancer risk soaring after the EPA concluded in 2016 that the chemical was 30 times more carcinogenic for adults than previously thought.

“By having these very sort of potent ethylene oxide emitters, that is a great risk for folks living near these facilities,” said Adam Kron, an attorney for national nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice who helped file the lawsuit. “That’s what we’re hoping to do with this lawsuit is to get [the] EPA on track and on an enforceable schedule to make these revisions that we know need to get done.”

The EPA last updated hazardous air pollutant emission standards for its Polyether Polyols Production category of sources in 2014. Polyether polyols are compounds used to make cosmetics, lubricants, soaps and feedstock for substances that produce adhesives and sealants.

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review and, if needed, revise emission standards for hazardous air pollutants in listed categories at least every eight years.

Nye grew up near the Institute chemical plant site where two explosions in 1993 and 2008 killed three workers combined. The site was owned by former French chemical company Rhône-Poulenc and Bayer CropScience during the incidents, respectively.

Nye says her life was forever changed by the first fatal accident, which required her and others to shelter in place.

Institute is an unincorporated, historically Black community that has dealt with the cumulative effects of generations of pollution.

“Protections from cancer-causing chemicals are long overdue for the people who live, work, play, pray and go to school in [the] Kanawha Valley, especially for people in Institute, North and South Charleston, and surrounding communities,” Nye said. “Those protections are already too late for many people.”

EPA spokeswoman Shayla Powell declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the agency had no information to add because of the pending litigation filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. People Concerned About Chemical Safety is joined by two other plaintiffs: the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the Sierra Club.

The Polyether Polyols Production category includes ethylene oxide-emitting Union Carbide facilities on Route 25 in Institute, just west of West Virginia State University, and MacCorkle Avenue in South Charleston, according to EPA data. The two facilities combined to emit nearly 23,000 pounds of ethylene oxide from 2014, the year the EPA last formally finalized a risk and technology review for the Polyether Polyols Production category, through 2022, according to EPA data.

The category also includes a Covestro facility in South Charleston.

Local health concerns about ethylene oxide escalated after the EPA’s 2018 National Air Toxics Assessment. The assessment found that six of the 90 census tracts with the highest cancer risk from ethylene oxide were in Kanawha County.

The total cancer risk in Kanawha was 366 in 1 million, 10th-highest in the country.

It was the first such assessment since the EPA classified ethylene oxide as a carcinogen in 2016, causing risk estimates to go up — after the EPA’s 2014 review of the Polyether Polyols Production category.

Ethylene oxide is a flammable, colorless gas used to make antifreeze, detergents and plastics, and to sterilize medical and dental equipment. Long-term exposure has been associated with reproductive problems and increases in female breast and white blood cell cancers, including leukemia and Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

EPA data show that sites in Institute and South Charleston currently operated by Union Carbide emitted over 434 tons of ethylene oxide into the air from 1987 through 2021. EPA-approved air quality modeling has indicated a 600-in-1 million cancer risk around the Institute plant site, where Union Carbide and Specialty Products emit ethylene oxide.

That’s six times the 100-in-1 million risk level the EPA has used to help determine whether facilities need to reduce emissions in developing air toxics regulations.

The EPA Office of Inspector General, an independent office within the EPA that conducts audits and investigations aimed at improving the agency, issued a report in May 2021 recommending the agency conduct a new risk review for polyether polyols.

While a review wasn’t due for another 10 months at the time of the report’s release, the OIG said a review should be conducted “as soon as practicable” given the “potent carcinogenicity of ethylene oxide, demonstrated by the EPA’s 2016 revised ethylene oxide cancer risk estimate.

In a response to the OIG’s report, the EPA estimated a draft review for the Polyether Polyols Production category would be complete in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024.

The OIG noted the Clean Air Act “does not provide any exceptions” for the requirement that technology reviews be conducted for source categories every eight years.

The plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit cited the OIG report.

Kron said he hopes an EPA polyether polyols review results in provisions for more enhanced leak detection technology and more frequent detections.

The plaintiffs contend a new review must consider fenceline monitoring as a way to comply with emission standards, noting the EPA proposed a rule in April applying to another category of emission sources that would require plants to conduct fenceline monitoring if they use, produce, store, or emit any of six key air toxics, including ethylene oxide.

Fenceline monitoring is monitoring around a facility’s perimeter. If annual average air concentrations of the chemicals exceed an “action level” at the fenceline, owners and operators would have to find the source and make repairs.

The lawsuit asserts that as part of its next polyether polyol production review, the EPA would have to eliminate a loophole through the agency’s 2014 review designed to grant industry relief in cases of emission standard violations caused by malfunctions.

The 2014 review yielded provisions to provide an affirmative defense to civil penalties for violations of emission standards caused by malfunctions. An affirmative defense is a defense that allows a defendant to introduce evidence that, if deemed credible, erase liability even if the defendant is found to have committed the alleged act.

The lawsuit cites a 2014 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that found the EPA didn’t have the authority to create an affirmative defense for private civil suits.

“So that’s something we really want to see removed,” Kron said.

“[The] EPA is past due to update the rule,” Nye said, “and now they have to answer to a judge.”

FestivFALL returns in October

FestivFALL, Charleston’s annual fall arts and music festival, will be held Oct. 13-22. The event sees the return of favorites like the Harvest Art Fair, the Carriage Leaf Trail Walk and Glow in the Park at Slack Plaza.

New for this year includes City Center Dead, a tribute to the music of The Grateful Dead at Slack Plaza; the Down & Dirty country music festival at GoMart Ballpark; and the West Virginia International Film Festival’s A Film Under The Stars, presenting “Ghostbusters” at Base Camp Printing.

For more information, including the complete schedule, visit www.festivallcharleston.com.

Sound Checks lineup announced

The Clay Center has released the schedule for the next season of Sound Checks. The series runs from early October through mid-December.

Indie rock band Harbour opens the series Oct. 6. The show also features local band Aaron Fisher and Ghost Fleet.

On Oct. 20, it’s Wild Party with Brenna and the Boys. Zandi Hollup performs Nov. 10 with Khegan McLane and the Raccoon Wranglers.

John Inghram presents a tribute to “The Band’s Last Waltz” on Nov. 22. The 2023 season closes Dec. 21 with Fancy Haygood and Matt Mullins and the Bringdowns.

All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $25. For more information, visit www.theclaycenter.org.

Haven't been crazy about Mr. Bee chips since whatever changes they made about 8 or 9 years ago. I'm tempted to give these a try, though. Just have to prepare myself to be disappointed.

RITCHIE COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — The bond of West Virginia State Police whistleblower Joseph Comer has been revoked in a domestic violence case against him, court records said.

The order was filed in Ritchie County Circuit Court on Thursday, according to court records. An arrest warrant was issued Thursday and West Virginia State Police said Comer turned himself in to the Parkersburg Police Department on Friday.

Prosecutors said in the filing that Comer is accused of having contact with Vikki Marra, his accuser in the domestic violence case, in June 2023, which would violate his bond conditions.

“Upon review of the records received from AT&T, it is clear the defendant has been having contact with the victim,” the filing said. “Based on the records attached, first contact was June 16, 2023.”

Prosecutors said the contact was followed by about 89 phone calls lasting about 32 hours.

On June 21, Marra informed prosecutors she wanted to drop the charges against Comer. Prosecutors said this sentiment was the opposite of what she’d expressed in the days before June 16.

Marra had originally accused Comer of assaulting her during a custody exchange of a child that they share together.

Eyewitness News learned Marra allegedly used associates to reach out to Comer, explaining she was encouraged by former West Virginia State Police leadership to fabricate the accusations which led to criminal charges and a domestic violence protection order.

Sources told Eyewitness News that Marra later alleged an officer assigned to her case filled out a criminal complaint and took a photograph introduced as evidence. Marra said the photograph that showed bruises on her neck were intentionally mischaracterized and were not from Comer grabbing her by the throat.

Marra, who was also a trooper with West Virginia State Police, has since resigned from the agency, Eyewitness News has learned.

Both Comer and his attorney have continually insisted the targets were part of a smear campaign orchestrated by former State Police administrators who suspected he was the whistleblower outlining numerous alleged instances of criminal activity.

The alleged misdeeds include theft, fraud and the cover-up of a video camera placed inside the West Virginia State Police Academy's women's locker room, along with the subsequent destruction of that camera's video recordings.

Sid Bell is serving as Comer's attorney and told Eyewitness News attorneys plan to file a motion next week to get the bond reinstated.

LOGAN, W.Va. — The first elk management tours of the season get started this weekend on the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area in southern West Virginia. The tours are the easiest way for the public to catch site of the West Virginia elk herd which was restored in the state in December of 2016.

The tours began in 2018 and are extremely popular according to Lauren Cole who runs the tours out of the Chief Logan Lodge in Chapmanville.

“They are an interpretative program. We meet at the lodge at either 5:30 in the morning or four in the evening and take a van ride out to Tomblin Wildlife Management Area and we go scout for the wild elk herd,” said Cole in a recent appearance on West Virginia Outdoors.

The tours take about four hours and include a snack or lunch depending whether you choose a morning or afternoon visit. Cole leads the tour which includes a ride into the area where the elk were first released. They haven’t strayed too far in their range from that original spot.

Although the public is allowed to walk into the area on the WMA property, only authorized vehicles are allowed to drive. It makes the tours the easiest way to see the elk. The trip also provides some valuable help in glassing from a long distance away.

“There is some walking involved, but it’s very slow paced. We’re scouting for wildlife, so we walk a little and we stop. We have binoculars available and we also have a spotting scope. I operate the spotting scope, so if you’ve never glassed game at 800 yards, don’t worry about it, I’m going to do it for you,” Cole explained.

Cole said there are no guarantees of seeing elk since they are wild animals, but a high percentage of the trips yield elk sightings and during this time of year there is a higher likelihood of hearing the bull elk bugling in the region. The mating sounds are often audible from a long distance away as it echoes on the steep southern West Virginia hillsides.

“It’s really about the management of the habitat and the history of elk and other game species in the state. You’ll see active habitat work and learn about what it takes to reclaim mountaintop removal sites and convert them into valuable, diverse wildlife habitat,” she added.

The tours have limited space and fill up fast. Reservations are available through the Chief Logan Lodge website.

The federal government has released an initial set of areas designated to receive financial support and technical assistance for projects aimed at helping communities grow resilience to climate change and other natural hazards.

Six census tracts in Logan, McDowell and Raleigh counties were included in 483 nationwide that will get the targeted federal support under the Community Disaster Resilience Zones Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in December 2022.

The resilience zones are disadvantaged communities that have high natural hazard risks based on combined risks of annualized estimated losses to buildings, people and agriculture from natural hazards; social vulnerability and community resilience, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA said a second announcement of zone designations will take place this fall for tribal lands, to be followed by a third in 12 to 18 months based on updates to the National Risk Index and stakeholder input.

The National Risk Index is a tool that shows communities most at risk for natural hazards.

FEMA said in a news release Tuesday afternoon designated zones will give a geographic focus for financial and technical assistance from public, private and philanthropic agencies and organizations for planning and implementing resilience projects.

Designated areas in West Virginia are a chunk of Logan County west of Logan that includes Sulphur Springs, Dehue, Hutchinson and Kistler; a stretch in McDowell County between Compton and Shawnee mountains that includes Sandy Huff, Wilmore, Roderfield and Kimball; and a slice of Raleigh County east of Cook Mountain that includes Leevale, Dry Creek and Masseyville.

Logan, McDowell and Raleigh counties combined to suffer 77 flood and flash flood events causing roughly $3.4 million in property damage from 2013 through May 2023, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

Floods are longer-term events that may last days or weeks, while flash floods are caused by heavy rainfall in a short period of time, usually under six hours.

Flooding and other extreme weather events are growing more common due to climate change.

A 2021 study by First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit that quantifies climate risks, found more than half of West Virginia’s critical infrastructure — including fire, police and power stations — was at risk of becoming inoperable due to flooding. West Virginia’s share of critical infrastructure at risk of being inoperable due to flooding was higher than any other state’s.

FEMA has posted information about the zones and an interactive map of designations at https://www.fema.gov/partnerships/community-disaster-resilience-zones.

A witness from out of town during this week’s West Virginia Public Service Commission hearing on Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power fuel costs and proposed rate hike couldn’t help but make an observation.

“I’m sad to see the capital of your beautiful state in the condition that I’ve seen it — almost nobody here,” Albert Ferrer, consulting executive vice president of Mesa, Arizona-based Critical Technological Consulting, said on the witness stand at the PSC’s Charleston headquarters Wednesday. “If you go in and put a rate increase, you’re not going to have economic development in the capital.”

Ferrer was speaking in the capital of a state that endured the second-highest rise in average residential electricity price from 2005 to 2020 as it clung to coal. West Virginia’s clip of coal-fired generation, 91%, is easily the highest in the country.

Ferrer’s firm, known as CTC, has recommended that the PSC disallow $202.7 million in cost under-recovery for Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power, which have asked for a $641.7 million fuel cost rate hike. CTC found in an independent review of the prudence of the utilities’ fuel costs, including fuel purchasing practices and power plant use, that the companies failed to take steps that could have better controlled soaring fuel costs for which ratepayers are liable.

But CTC’s observation that Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power should have burned more coal at their power plants aligned with a PSC requirement that the companies, renewable energy experts and Virginia utility regulator staff have deemed uneconomic.

That requirement — that the utilities operate their three coal-fired plants at a use rate of at least 69% — dominated the second day of an evidentiary hearing covering fuel cost cases on the companies’ fuel costs.

Jeff Plewes, principal at Washington, D.C.-based economic consulting firm Charles River Associates, testified that customer costs would have been much higher this year if Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power had met the PSC’s 69% capacity factor requirement.

For the second day in a row, Plewes rejected a suggestion from CTC that the utilities’ parent company American Electric Power’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance targets might have affected their fuel procurement decisions.

ESG is an investing approach that prioritizes investments that consider the environmental and social effects of an investment’s financial returns. ESG investing has come under attack from Republicans and energy transition opponents who contend that it values politics over profits at the expense of fossil fuel industries.

Timothy Kerns, AEP Service Corp. vice president of generating assets for Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power, denied that ESG investing affected budget levels or decision-making at the plants.

PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane asked Plewes if he saw any evidence that AEP “took seriously” her agency’s 69% capacity factor order issued in September 2021.

“Yes, because I saw all the activity that was happening in these cases around that topic and the questioning and trying to determine what does it mean and how to implement it,” Plewes replied.

Appalachian Power requested that the PSC clarify whether its requirement that plants must operate at or above 69% should be limited by “the principle of economic dispatch” in a filing last year.

Prompting the filing was testimony submitted to Virginia regulators by their staff utilities analyst leaving a door open to Virginia approval of federally required environmental upgrades at the Amos and Mountaineer plants that Virginia previously rejected.

The PSC has contended that operating at higher capacity factors would lower costs recoverable from customers, encouraging self-generation over paying rising PJM market prices for purchased power. PJM is the regional transmission organization that coordinates electricity movement through West Virginia and all or parts of 12 other states.

The hearing is expected to shift to the Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power-proposed rate hike.

Predicting in its April request for the $641.7 million rate hike that it would cause a “great burden” on customers if implemented in a single rate increase, Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power submitted two alternative proposals.

One alternative is spreading the recovery amount over three years, which would result in a first-year rate hike of $293.1 million, or 12.1% for residential customers.

The other alternative is to securitize the under-recovery and other costs over a multi-year period, raising residential rates by 3.5% for the $88.8 million the companies say is needed to meet projected fuel costs.

The second option was enabled by a law passed by the Legislature in March with the utilities’ backing: House Bill 3308. HB 3308, in part, authorizes the PSC to issue financing orders to utilities to allow recovery of certain costs through securitization via consumer rate relief bonds.

Customers are paying roughly $150 million annually for the remaining undepreciated balances of the Amos and Mountaineer power plants in Putnam and Mason counties, and securitizing those assets would eliminate that amount, according to Appalachian Power.

The Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based clean energy consulting firm, submitted a filing to the PSC in April in a case soliciting electric supply recommendations arguing that the PSC risks decreasing electric reliability by requiring coal-fired plants operate at a use rate of at least 69%.

The institute contended that forcing older steam units to run at a higher frequency could cause additional wear and tear on the plants, possibly resulting in forced outages and increasing the risk of unexpected reliability events.

The filing came in a case in which the PSC granted a West Virginia Coal Association request to create a task force to consider ways to decrease energy costs for West Virginia utility customers, including operating at higher capacity factors.

Capacity factors have been falling nationwide amid the decline of coal as an electric generation source throughout most of the country outside West Virginia in recent years.

The PSC denied an Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power $297 million fuel cost rate hike request in February pending its staff’s review of whether the companies’ policies for maintaining adequate fuel inventory levels are prudent.

The PSC has approved more than $174 million in fuel cost rate hikes for Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power since 2020.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WSAZ) - West Virginia University’s University Assembly voted Wednesday to approve a resolution of no confidence in the leadership of University President Gordon Gee.

Seven hundred ninety-seven members of the assembly voted yay, while 100 voted nay, and 8 votes were invalid.

The vote comes after WVU’s Faculty Senate Office received a petition Aug. 25 to convene a meeting to consider the resolution of no confidence.

According to the resolution, President Gee:

• Has mismanaged the university finances

• Falsely claimed in 2014 and 2016 that he would grow undergrad enrollment to 40,000 in 2020 to justify expansion and spending millions of dollars on projects that would increase WVU debt load by 55%, while during his presidency student enrollments have steadily decreased.

• University debt has increased.

• Failed to be transparent about the source of the budget shortfall

• Failed to communicate why budget cuts contribute to the greater school.

• Failed to disclose the impacts of the cuts, claiming to put students first while not doing that.

• Limited people’s access to quality education

• His administration has refused to be transparent academic transformation that clearly communicates the future of the university and benefits students.

WSAZ asked West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice his thoughts on the vote of no confidence, and he responded saying:

“I do have a lot of confidence in Gordon Gee, and I’ve got an absolute confidence in our university and our Board of Governors and we will get it right,” he said.

Some students like Shan Cawley, a second year Ph.D. student at WVU, said the university is making the wrong decision.

“They really wanna spin it as a win for the university, but no one is winning in this fight, especially one that 179 faculty members livelihoods are at stake,” Cawley said.

Cawley said she hopes to have her voice heard about why this is bigger than just cutting some university programs.

“I am so proud of the faculty for passing both of these resolutions saying that they have no confidence in gee and that they want to freeze the cuts at WVU because it doesn’t just impact the people in the moment its going to impact West Virginians for a very very very long time,” she said.

The WVU Board of Governors released the following statement:

“The West Virginia University Board of Governors appreciates the faculty members who shared their perspectives at today’s University Faculty Assembly meeting regarding consideration of a no-confidence resolution for President E. Gordon Gee and a resolution calling for a freeze of the University’s Academic Transformation process.

“We acknowledge the passage of these votes.

“The Board of Governors unequivocally supports the leadership of President Gee and the strategic repositioning of WVU and rejects the multiple examples of misinformation that informed these resolutions. The University is transforming to better reflect the needs of today, and we must continue to act boldly. President Gee has shown time and again he is not afraid to do the difficult work required.

“The challenges we are facing right now are not unique to WVU. The Board is determined to address the challenges head-on and directed the administration to address Academic Transformation. The Board maintains that we must do this work to remain competitive and relevant as we become an even stronger university.

“Though the University has been working to maximize resources and improve efficiencies since 2015, the Board outlined specifically the need for academic transformation in December 2020. It is important to note that, although the structural budget deficit may have added to the urgency, this transformation process – particularly academic transformation – would still be taking place. We know the process is critical to ensure a strong future for the University, and we required strict timelines which the president and the leadership team are meeting. The Board of Governors will continue to work with university leadership, faculty, staff and students to move quickly and efficiently.

“We do recognize that this is a difficult process. We feel for those who may be affected. We realize this is not easy and none of this was entered into lightly. We remain committed to the work of transforming this beloved University, and together we must continue to focus on our highest priority of educating our students and serving the people of West Virginia.”

The WVU Board of Governors will meet and vote on Sept. 15.

CLAY — Lucy Cruickshanks walked into Small Town Market and headed straight to the counter to greet the store’s owners.

“We really depended on you a lot,” she told Sarah Williams one afternoon in late August, as her husband toured their 1-year-old grandson around the store. Cruickshanks, who lives in nearby Maysel, has known Williams and her husband BJ since they were kids.

“Until you all came, there was nothing in Clay,” she said. “You couldn’t get a head of cabbage, you couldn’t get tomatoes, or any kind of vegetable.”

Now, Clay County is back to not having a dedicated grocery store or fresh foods market. After three and a half years of running Small Town Market, the Williamses closed their store permanently on Sept. 1.

Earlier this year, Mountain State Spotlight reported that Small Town Market, like other rural independent grocery stores in West Virginia, faced fiscal challenges that put it in danger of going out of business. Without financial support from county or state governments, experts said it was likely that these types of stores would cease to exist, leaving many of the state’s rural communities without access to healthy foods.

Small Town Market didn’t receive any financial help. Instead, its struggle to be profitable has only increased since this winter, culminating in its closure.

“It just sucks,” Sarah Williams said. “You put everything you possibly can into it, and it just isn’t enough.”

When the Williamses opened Small Town Market in 2020, it was a cause for celebration. Over the prior decade, Clay County had lost multiple chain supermarkets and residents struggled to find nutritious food options in the area.

The Williamses decided to fill that void and built a small grocery store in their hometown. Sarah Williams was even named one of WV Living’s 2020 Wonder Women for her efforts.

“We missed vacations, missed sporting events,” she said. “Late nights and in here seven days a week.”

For a while, the store turned a profit. BJ Williams said federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provisions from the COVID-19 pandemic gave some folks in the county money to spend on Small Town Market’s produce and meats.

But when those funds slowly started to go away earlier this year, the small business struggled. Despite previous legislative proposals to create a state office to help counties support fresh food stores like Small Town Market, lawmakers didn’t pass bills to improve food access in rural areas. Gov. Jim Justice did announce a $10 million fund to support food banks, but nothing to keep places like Small Town Market from disappearing.

“The county school board makes sure that children can access public education,” said Joshua Lohnes, the director of the West Virginia University Food Justice Lab. “Is there a role for counties to ensure that residents can access food?”

Meanwhile, the federal government continued to roll back the COVID-19 SNAP provisions. From February 2023 to June 2023, more than 16,000 state households lost their food assistance benefits. More residents are expected to lose SNAP benefits in the coming months, as the state will soon require additional qualifications for families to receive the assistance.

Already, SNAP losses have been felt deeply by both West Virginia families and Small Town Market.

“We’re 50% behind last year just in EBT sales,” said BJ Williams, referring to SNAP benefits. “It’s hard to make it in a town like this.”

With that hit to their customer base, the Williamses knew their store was at a crisis point. This summer, they decided closing was their only option.

Although a couple of gas stations in Clay County sell a very limited variety of produce and protein, residents think these options cannot fill the hole that’s left by the market.

“BJ and Sarah, they gave their all,” said Tom Mills, a Wallback resident who went to Small Town Market regularly. “They really added a great value to the community. To me, it’s a devastating loss.”

Although their brick and mortar operations closed, the Williamses will try to keep selling fresh fruits and vegetables in their community. They just built greenhouses at their home in Clay to grow produce throughout the entire year. The Williamses plan to sporadically sell excess produce at a pop-up farm stand, but it won’t be nearly as reliable as Small Town Market.

“There’s gonna be some growing pains there because I’ve never grown through the winter before,” said BJ Williams. “But hopefully I’m able to get it all under control, and I’m able to provide at least to some of the people around here.”

In the meantime, Clay County will have to wrestle with how its residents can get healthy foods. Those discussions will happen as the state simultaneously aims to build up the tourism industry in the area.

To Cruickshanks, the Maysel resident, any plans for Clay to increase tourism will be limited if county and state leaders don’t make it possible for places like Small Town Market to survive.

“You’re shooting yourself in the foot by trying to get tourism if you don’t supply other things there,” she said.

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Crowds packed the Putnam County Board of Education Meeting Tuesday hours after Hurricane High School’s principal ordered signs reading “supportive space” and “diverse, inclusive, accepting, welcoming safe space for everyone” be taken down from inside the school.

Administrators cited a years-old district policy reading:

Non-school-related political and/or commercial literature or campaign posters supporting one (1) or more candidates, issues, or a particular point of view shall not be displayed within the schools or on school-owned or occupied property unless done as part of any approved teaching unit.

Wendy Fife, a math teacher at Hurricane High School, said she was told to take the signs down Tuesday afternoon.

“We did ask why [we were told to take them down] and were told it goes under political, religious, I will political and religious choice,” she recalled. “I will say being political, your political party is a choice, your religion, whether you are a religious person or not, is a choice but being gay is not a choice, it is who you are.”

Fife was one of 21 speakers to address the board at Tuesday’s evening’s meeting.

The Putnam County School District said later Tuesday that Hurricane’s principal announced no posters or literature other than announcements of events fundraisers or meetings would be permitted by the school and that no club or organization could post any signage other than approved items.

In a statement, the district added the principal’s actions are a “neutral interpretation of Putnam County Board of Education policy and not based on the content of a particular sign or poster”.

Several speakers supported the district’s current policy.

“I understand why people are doing what they’re doing and they’re trying to show love, and I understand that, but we have to come back to the basis and that’s what I wanted to do a reminder that if you’re in a public school, and it’s being paid for with tax dollars,” said Douglas Doss, a Putnam County resident.

“There are Muslims, there are Christians, there are poor people, there are blacks and whites, there are gay people, there are many people that can feel rejected familiar different ways, and you can’t try and push an agenda for any of them. You come, you create a safe space, you make that a safe space. By the way, you run it, and you show equality for all that. It is not a place to push any political agenda.”

Students like sophomore Evan Mann, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, said the signs are a reminder to people in the community they are welcome at school and seeing an inclusive sign could save a life.

“Even though these posters are being taken down, or even if this board doesn’t change their ruling, you’re accepted, you belong,” he said. “It’s completely right for people to feel accepted and included and safe environments and it has nothing to do with politics. It’s just, it’s just basic human decency.”

The board took no action on the current policy during the meeting.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia University Office of the Provost has released the final recommendations from the final three appeals as part of the Academic Transformation.

WVU announced Tuesday the School of Design and Community Development won their appeal to keep the bachelor’s degree program in Landscape Architecture but with fewer faculty members. The school will lose the master’s degree program in landscape architecture.

Additionally, the school must submit a recruitment and marketing plan to the Provost’s Office by Oct. 31 to set first-time freshmen enrollment targets and set an enrollment goal for fall 2026. The unit must also provide the Provost with follow-up fall enrollment reports for each of the next three academic years.

“The School made a strong case for retaining the BSLA major by demonstrating it could achieve efficiencies while addressing the needs of landscape architecture students who do not have a similar degree program to pursue here at the University,” WVU Provost Maryanne Reed said.

Division of Resource Economics and Management

The PhD Resource Management major will be discontinued due to low enrollment and a lack of dedicated faculty.

In the Division of Resource Economics and Management the PhD in Natural Resource Economics will continue and the MS Energy Environments major will be eliminated.

Three additional majors will be discontinued and merged to create new cooperative programs by Jan. 31, 2024, in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design.

1. The BS Agribusiness Management will be discontinued and combined with the BS Environmental and Natural Resource Economics;

2. BS Environmental and Energy Resource Management will be eliminated and merged with the BS Energy Land Management;

3. BS Environmental and Natural Resource Economics will be discontinued and merged with the BS Agribusiness Management.

Department of Public Administration

Appeals for the MLS Legal Studies and MPA Public Administration programs in the Department of Public Administration were denied due to declining enrollment and low student-to-faculty ratios.

The committee also considered the lack of faculty leadership for MLS Legal Studies and market saturation relating to online options presented by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

The final recommendation is to discontinue both programs and reduce the number of faculty to 0.

School of Design and Community Development

The BS Interior Architecture, BS Design Studies and BS Fashion, Design and Merchandising programs will move from the School and Davis College and into the new unit created by the merger of the College of Creative Arts and Reed College of Media.

“Bringing these design programs into the new merged college will enable students to benefit from the new collaborative curricula and instruction that can arise by such restructuring,” Reed said. “This epitomizes the goals of Academic Transformation.”

Proposals for the BS-AGR Agriculture and Extension Education, BS Environmental and Community Planning, and PhD Human and Community Development majors were not appealed. The number of faculty will be reduced to 21.

Process and next steps

Appeal hearings were held by the Program Review Appeal Committee from Aug. 24 to Sept. 1 for 19 of the 25 programs under review. The School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, Department of Philosophy, Management Department and Department of Mining Engineering did not file notices of appeal.

“We’ve been impressed throughout this process by the faculty, department chairs, deans and others who have brought forward innovative ideas for enhancing their programs,” Reed said. “It’s clear we share a desire to create the high-quality, industry-relevant academic offerings that will help our students be successful.”

The Board of Governors will hear public comments from those who have signed up or submitted their comments in writing in advance of Sept. 14 before a planned vote on the final recommendations during its regular meeting on Sept. 15.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The WVU Faculty Assembly is set to meet at noon today at the Creative Arts Center to take up two resolutions including a ‘no confidence’ vote in WVU President Gordon Gee.

Gee, under fire from the faculty for proposing program cuts and eliminating 169 faculty job, acknowledged the stress for everyone involved in the process during last week’s Faculty Senate meeting and admitted higher education in Morgantown is being disrupted, but not dismantled.

Gee said reports of the university being “gutted’ or ‘eviscerated” are simply untrue. But, he said it is true they are making difficult decisions to cut programs that are not cost effective and the transformation process has been going on since 2021.

Gee called the process of transformation “pruning to grow.”

“I have two responsibilities. I hate the one responsibility I have, which is the fact that we are eliminating some friends of mine, faculty and others,” Gee said. “But, I also have responsibility to those 90-plus percent of people that are here so they can stay here, so they can have a life.”

Field Education Director and Clinical Instructor at the WVU School of Social Work, Lindsey Rinehart said at last week’s meeting that she is concerned about what will be left after the transformation process is complete. Rinehart said she is being asked to make changes that could drastically change the way her classes operate today. She believes those changes will not add to the student experience in a positive way.

“I’m kind of being told need to redesign my courses and cut them out because I’m going to have to start offering them to almost twice as many students as they were designed for, for the foreseeable future,” Rinehart said. “So, at what point are we pruning to grow here? We’re going to damage our program.”

The $45 million in cuts under consideration are needed to keep the university financially viable, but Gee said the investments that could come in the future because of the cuts could lead more people to WVU for an education.

“We have certain programs that have over just extended themselves and we can no longer sustain those based on student numbers,” Gee said. ” We have to listen to our student numbers, they vote with their feet and they’ve doing that rather dramatically.”

Professors are scheduled to rally outside the CAC before the meeting.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/6314847

Hundreds of West Virginia University (WVU) students staged a class walkout outside the school’s student union in Morgantown, West Virginia, on August 21 to protest an administration proposal to cut 32 academic programs and 169 faculty positions. The students, wearing red T-shirts and bandanas as a nod to the West Virginia coal miners who famously went on strike a century ago, chanted “Stop! The! Cuts!” and held up signs that said, “save World Languages,” “protect the arts” and “fire [WVU President E. Gordon] Gee.” The WVU Board of Governors is expected to vote on the recommended cuts on September 15.

“The students of this university are not protesting because we hate this place — we’re protesting because we love it so damn much and we are sick of it bleeding us dry,” Shan Cawley, a Ph.D. student at WVU, told Truthout.

Weeks before the start of the fall semester, the university announced its proposal to eliminate nearly a tenth of its majors, including the entire department of world languages, literatures and linguistics. Sixteen percent of WVU’s faculty, or 169 faculty members, may have their positions eliminated. This includes all 32 faculty in the world languages department.

“It’s been stressful, I think, since we got the news because the news came right before the semester started,” Nicole Tracy-Ventura, associate professor of applied linguistics at WVU’s Department of World Language told Truthout. “So, we were all prepping our classes, already having meetings, and then, since then, it’s been trying to still teach but also fight the fight.”

If the proposed cuts move forward, WVU students would no longer be able to study Spanish, French, German, Russian or Chinese, despite the university previously celebrating students who received Truman, Marshall, Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships, which rely on language study.

“On top of the uncertainty of our jobs, there’s also the frustration of where we see the university going and what it’s leaving behind and the type of students that it won’t be serving anymore, the students that we interact with all the time,” Tracy-Ventura said. “It’s been really an emotional rollercoaster.”

Instead of offering a foreign language program, WVU is exploring “alternative methods of delivery” for foreign-language instruction, such as partnering with other universities or online language apps like Duolingo. However, Duolingo told The Chronicle that it had no plans to enter into an agreement with the university.

“To be extra clear, we have never had any conversations with any university about replacing their foreign-language program,” Sam Dalsimer, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email to The Chronicle. “This is a sad continuation of a trend of disinvestment in foreign-language education that has been occurring across the United States for over a decade.”

According to the university, the budget cuts would affect at least 434 students, or 2 percent of total students currently enrolled at the public university. In fact, the number of affected students is most likely much higher, because the university’s estimate only included students whose first major would be affected by the cuts, but not students with second majors, minors, or general course loads in programs outside of their majors.

“It’s incredible that those in power continue to say ‘only 2%’ will be affected when (a) why is it okay to abandon ANY of our students? and (b) countless WV kids will be affected in the future by these changes,” Jessie Wilkerson, an associate professor in WVU’s history department said in a post.

WVU is not only the largest university in West Virginia, with more than 24,000 students enrolled, but also the state’s only R1 university. According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, R1 universities are leading research institutions that produce accomplished researchers and graduate doctoral students. However, if the cuts are implemented, the university’s R1 status may be endangered. Currently, five other states don’t have a R1-level university: Alaska, Idaho, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.

“These cuts are draconian and catastrophic and … jeopardize the institution’s continued standing as an R1 university,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a letter to the WVU Board of Governors.

If language programs are eliminated at the university, WVU could also cease to have a Phi Beta Kappa honors society chapter. “The Phi Beta Kappa Society is gravely concerned about the recent proposal by West Virginia University to eliminate its entire department of world languages, literatures, and linguistics,” the organization said in a statement.

Despite WVU being a public land-grant university, the state has cut its financial support of the institution by 36 percent, or nearly $100 million, over the past decade. According to an analysis by the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, if the state had continued to finance the university the same as it had a decade ago, WVU would only be facing a $7.6-million deficit, instead of the alleged $45 million deficit.

West Virginia’s state government ended the recent fiscal year with $458 million in unappropriated surplus. In fact, during a recent legislative special session, lawmakers attempted to add $45 million in surplus funds, the same amount as WVU’s projected deficit, to a bill appropriating millions to Marshall University for a cybersecurity program.

However, the state is unlikely to rescue the university from its financial issues. Earlier this month, state Senators Mike Oliverio (R) and Mike Caputo (D) who represent the district surrounding WVU’s Morgantown campus, issued a joint statement. “We know some of the decisions the University administration is making are not popular and have real costs associated with them. However, we also understand that the University needs to make some serious changes in order to remain the community stalwart it has been in the past,” they said.

WVU’s President E. Gordon Gee has refused to seek further funding from the state, despite the university’s dire budget crisis. Faculty say that this shows the university is capitalizing on the crisis in order to implement planned austerity measures.

“Gee’s whole selling point as to what makes him a good university president is his supposed skill at fundraising and making connections with legislators and that sort of thing, so straight up announcing you’re not even going to try a very obvious solution to the problem suggests it’s more of a shock doctrine-style ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ kind of situation,” Jesse Wozniak, associate professor at WVU’s department of sociology and anthropology, told Truthout.

While departments affected by the recommended cuts are appealing the decision, the committee that will rule on the appeal is made up “almost entirely of career administrators, some of whom were involved in issuing the original recommendations,” Jonah Katz, associate professor of linguistics at WVU, told Truthout. “My department is mounting an appeal case, but we don’t believe that the appeal process or the BOG [Board of Governors] decision will be fair or credible.”

During a Campus Conversation, a virtual town-hall-style event series, WVU administration stated that departments that appeal earlier recommendations may actually face harsher actions, such as discontinuation of programs and more eliminated faculty positions. “It is not the intention of the appeals process to subject further reductions or introduce new program recommendations. But is it possible? Yes,” a note issued by the administration after the Campus Conversation warned.

“Not only does this show a blatant abuse of power that retaliates any show of opposition, but they also made the recording of today’s conversation private so that nobody may access it,” Julia Condie, a WVU senior with a double major in history and women and gender studies, told Truthout.

WVU originally made the Campus Conversation recording private, but later changed the recording to ‘unlisted’ on YouTube.

WVU’s Budget Issues and President E. Gordon Gee

Since 2015, the university’s enrollment has declined 10 percent, which is far worse than the national average. The proposed cuts are part of an effort to manage a $45 million deficit for the 2024 fiscal year, which could balloon to $75 million by 2028, the university says. WVU faculty told Truthout that it is not clear where the university has gotten these numbers and that WVU’s administration has not been transparent throughout this process.

“WVU is facing an apparent $45 million deficit. I say ‘apparently’ because the number has changed quite a bit over the last few months,” Wozniak told Truthout. “Initially, it was somewhere around $15 million, and then it became $35 million, and now it’s $45 million, though I’ve also seen them throw around a $75 million figure.”

Faculty and staff say that this budget crisis is driven by years of financial mismanagement, reckless borrowing and spending decisions related to a failed growth strategy, and overshooting enrollment predictions.

“The WVU administration played an active role in this crisis,” Myya Helm, a 2022 graduate of West Virginia University, told Truthout. “Their proposal is a result of financial mismanagement, lack of institutional transparency, and an astonishing failure to recognize the power of education in transforming the lives of West Virginians.”

Specifically, many critics of the proposed cuts believe the blame lies with WVU’s president, E. Gordon Gee.

“One of the central reasons WVU is facing a deficit is that Gee and his cronies ran up a massive debt buying up land and facilities they were going to use to profit off of the increased enrollment Gee kept promising he would deliver,” Wozniak said. “A Chronicle of Higher Education analysis found the debt load at WVU tripled between 2008 and 2021 to $969 million. And rather than take any sort of blame for the mess he has personally caused, Gee is instead blaming faculty and students for his mistakes and making them pay the costs to account for his mistakes.”

From 2013 to 2022, state appropriations to WVU declined 36 percent, or $99.3 million, the Chronicle of Higher Education analysis showed. In 2010, WVU’s administration implemented a growth strategy which was predicated on increased enrollments. However, the university struggled to reach their goal of 10 percent growth over 10 years. Despite this, after Gee was named president of WVU in 2014, he ambitiously promised to achieve even greater enrollment growth.

These enrollment goals were never close to being met. In fact, despite WVU’s student population falling 10 percent since 2015, the institution continued to expand and spent millions of dollars to acquire property for future construction. From 2010 to 2023, the university also constructed multiple facilities, including a basketball practice facility, a research center and student recreation fields, and undertook dozens of renovation and maintenance projects.

“The administration has reacted to this by proposing extensive and radical cuts to academic programs and personnel, rather than addressing any of the expenses that have skyrocketed over the past 10 years,” Katz told Truthout, “or utilizing more funds from the $2.5 billion endowment to cushion the blow and spread out cuts over time, or attempting to reverse the state funding decline.”

However, in a recent interview with The Daily Athenaeum, WVU’s student newspaper, Gee said that the anticipated $5.8 million the university would save by cutting the World Languages department is not even planned to go to the university budget deficit. “For example, let’s just use World Languages. We’ll take $5.8 million, and we put it into forensics,” Gee said.

Additionally, in a comment to Truthout, a university spokesperson said that the cuts have been planned for nearly a decade, despite the university’s recent current budget crisis.

“In his 2014 State of the University address, President Gee talked about the need to be more efficient and streamlined and we began that work in earnest on the nonacademic side of the house,” the spokesperson said in an email. “In 2016, President Gee again stated we would need to overhaul everything — including academics. … Today, make no mistake, WVU would be undertaking Academic Transformation regardless of the budget challenge.”

This isn’t the first time that Gee has been criticized for mismanagement of funds. When he was president of Ohio State University, the university spent $7.7 million on his expenses, including $64,000 on bow ties. During his tenure at Brown University, the university picked up the $3 million bill for his home renovation, and while he was chancellor at Vanderbilt university, the university spent $6 million on renovating his mansion and $700,000 on his social events.

“Bloated executive administrators and the costs that come with them need to be looked at, audited, and cut down to size,” Cawley told Truthout. “Gee has very extraneous spending habits — whether it be on bow ties or private jet rides — he is using our tuition dollars to ensure that he gets to sit pretty at that house on top of the hill. Why a college president is allotted $60,000 to spend on bow ties — more than many of his staff and even faculty — in a year is beyond me.”

In 2018, the Gazette-Mail reported that Gee spent more than $2.2 million of WVU student tuition dollars on private air travel between May 2014 and June 2017. Despite Gee’s exorbitant expenses, in July, WVU’s Board of Governors extended Gee’s $800,000 a year contract, in the fact of the budget crisis. Gee is planning on stepping down as the university’s president in 2025. He intends to serve as a faculty member in the law school, where the university’s proposed cuts plan to eliminate two current faculty.

“This will presumably create an opening for a certain university president to fill in 2025,” a self-described anonymous WVU faculty member posted.

Student organizers have demanded that Gee resign immediately.

“Gee’s opinions on higher education are dangerous to the people in this state, the majority of whom are from working-class backgrounds with limited mobility,” Condie told Truthout. “He isn’t putting in any effort to seek help from the state, [which] has already slashed funding to the university, and whose surplus could easily remedy this situation. WV Gazette notes that he is a ‘wealthy academic in a state with a poverty rate near 17% and the lowest percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree in the United States.’ Why are we trusting him to lead the school when he has such a lack of care for the material conditions of the citizens of WV?”

The Neoliberalization of the Academy

West Virginia is the country’s fourth-poorest and least-educated state in the country. The state also suffers from a brain drain problem and has been steadily losing population since 1950 in part because of the state’s history of extractive industries. This extractive history has led some scholars to call the state a “sacrifice zone” for outside state capitalist interests at the expense of its own environment and community.

“Appalachia has an extraction problem. From coal to timber to clean water — and now our brightest minds — the natural resources of this mountainous region have been snatched from beneath us, profits pooling instead in faraway cities,” Rachel Rosolina, WVU alum and the communications director for Appalshop, wrote for Belt Magazine.

Aparajita De, a graduate of WVU’s English Department and current associate professor at the University of the District of Columbia, says that the proposed WVU cuts build on this history of extraction and will continue to disenfranchise West Virginia students.

WVU administrators have a “predetermined mindset that seeks to create a technical school without liberal education and the humanities,” De explained. “Mimicking the classic white supremacist ideology (know less, ask less, obey more), the corporate scissors sustaining the neoliberal university model show that WVU is a symptom of a larger malaise.”

While some WVU faculty told Truthout that this crisis is specific to WVU, as other public universities in neighboring states and peer universities in the same athletic division at WVU are not facing budget crises as severe as WVU’s. WVU’s current predicament, they say, seems to be caused by administrative bloat and financial mismanagement, but others see what is happening at WVU as a larger issue higher education across the U.S. is facing.

“For West Virginia specifically, we feel the biggest brunt of our country’s issues at all times and in all ways because of the lack of resources we have, and the exploitation we face from politicians as well greedy businessmen,” Cawley told Truthout. “What happens on the perimeters of this state and beyond are recalled with 10 times more force when it finally makes it over these mountains — and higher education is no exception.”

Many universities across the country have eliminated humanities departments over the past few years, while freezing, or even cutting, teaching faculty wages and exploiting precarious adjunct labor. Academic workers have blamed these austerity measures, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, on the “neoliberalization” of the university.

Under this neoliberal model, universities have increased the power of university administrators while undermining faculty self-governance. “This kind of move [at WVU] seems to just be finishing the job to make sure no academics have job security,” Wozniak told Truthout.

At the same time, university administrators and state legislators are fighting a war on humanities and academic freedom, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion curricula. “Those openly or implicitly committed to reinstate white supremacy as the law of the land, including nostalgic academics who are angered to see their precious ivory tower filled with minority students, would want to see the destruction of many newer disciplines and practices within the humanities,” Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado wrote in the Los Angeles Review of Books. “The gutting of the humanities results from a parallel but equally troubling process of democratic backsliding in the university, which in turn feeds a persistent anti-intellectualism.”

What makes WVU different, however, is that WVU’s proposed cuts go further and enact more harm to faculty and students in the state than other austerity measures have. For example, it has been claimed that George Washington University (GWU) had similarly eliminated language requirements for graduation. In response to this, GWU language faculty responded that this claim “not only propagates false information, it also deceptively mobilizes the reputation of a major research institution to justify dangerous policies that will harm the students of West Virginia.”

“What’s happening at WVU right now is unprecedented, and if the administration is laying the blueprint for future institutions to follow, then the entire higher education system is in jeopardy,” Condie told Truthout. “We have reached a point where higher educational institutions are treated as businesses, and that’s exactly what the WVU administration and President Gee are doing here.”

If these cuts at WVU are implemented, the other universities that have followed this neoliberal model may be encouraged to implement similar austerity measures and eliminate tenured faculty. Therefore, this “evisceration” of the public university, as described by Lisa M. Corrigan, a professor of communication and director of gender studies at the University of Arkansas, in The Nation, may be “a preview for what’s in store for higher education” across the country over the next few years.

“Higher education has changed and will continue to change,” a university spokesperson told Truthout. “We recognize this is difficult and intensely personal, but higher education is at an inflection point. We must change and adapt. And West Virginia University is simply doing what it’s done for decades, adopting our ‘Go First’ motto to be relevant to the students of today and the industries of tomorrow.”

This has a very real, class-based rationale for conservative state legislators who have refused to support struggling public universities while, in tandem, undermining their academic freedom.

“The future of higher education looks bleak,” Corrigan wrote. “Money will flow to elites in private schools, who will benefit from comprehensive language instruction, liberal arts, inclusive critical thinking skills, and a global curriculum, and thus have access to global careers in the arts, finance, diplomacy, national security, international business, international law, AI, and other fields. Students at state schools will receive the education that the oligarchs want them to, based on their largesse.”

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire, echoed this sentiment. “What’s happening at West Virginia University is happening in part because of people who believe that people should only be educated to the point of utility and they believe formal math and languages is not useful (for West Virginians),” she wrote on social media.

However, WVU students are challenging the belief that they do not need or deserve to study foreign languages and other humanities. The West Virginia United Students’ Union, which has nearly 300 members, is calling on students to continue the fight.

“WVU Students, do not stand down. You have not lost. You are nowhere near the finish line. Stand together closer than ever because our fight has only just begun,” West Virginia United said in a social media post.