MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — They’re still talking about the roads, but that won’t be the focus of Tuesday’s annual Monongalia and Preston County Day at the State Legislature.
Preston County Commissioner Samantha Stone, freshly sworn into office, said she hopes the turnout among rank-and-file citizens is strong and the message is positive.
“We have a lot of great things to offer, and we want to encourage everyone down there, people all over the state, surrounding the state to come check us out,” Stone said Monday on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town.”
The Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce is organizing a bus trip for interested residents, seeking their chance to sample the big block of cheese.
“I think it really speaks volume that year after year, Monongalia County and Preston County work so closely together. We are so closely tied,” Chamber of Commerce VP Eldon Callen said.
That message can’t be forgotten, Callen said. Despite the differences between the two counties, he said their economies are intertwined in several different ways.
“We can’t exist without one another,” Callen said. “We work closely together, we’ve got issues together. It’s so important that people understand that we are united in the message that we carry.”
The two counties have representatives who have made noise on the issue of road maintenance since the 2019 session began — including local officials who formed a caucus to petition their representatives and the representatives themselves.
Sen. Randy Smith, R-Preston, unveiled “Randy’s Dreams” last week, a play-on Gov. Jim Justice’s “Jim’s Dream” announced during the annual State of the State Address. Smith said his dream is simple: “fix the darn roads.”
This isn’t the road bond though — much more complicated, officials say. Keeping up with core maintenance has been an issue for DOH district offices, as highlighted by an audit released earlier this month. In Preston County, a state of emergency went into effect last year by county commissioners to signify they know how bad the secondary and tertiary roads are — and the’re not happy.
“I will definitely be down there talking to anybody’s ears that will listen — and if not I will find the ones that will — about our road conditions and things that are holding us back economically in our state,” Stone, who did not serve on that iteration of the commission, said Monday.
Preston County is one of the first places you see in West Virginia coming from either Maryland or Pennsylvania — something Stone reminded listeners of when she quoted West Virginia’s “open for business” welcome sign on I-68.
“Now’s the time for change, to move forward to get our small issues taken care of, the big issues of the roads taken care of,” Stone said. “We are open for business, and we got to make a path for people to get here.”