Summary
Short takes IN some cities in West Virginia, economic collapse is physically visible. In Bluefield, the west wall of the Old Peoples Bank building crumbled into the street in November, closing part of Princeton Avenue, a main thoroughfare. It was a vacant building. On Feb. 5, part of the old Lincoln Hotel collapsed in Gassaway. Its roof had collapsed a few years earlier. It, too, was vacant. It, too, has caused a detour and disruption. Gassaway officials are seeing if the states Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan program will help clean it up. Cities need to go after property owners who let old buildings fall apart like this. Cities should be able to condemn such buildings and make the owners demolish them or sell them to someone who will. Whatever help the Legislature can provide likely will be appreciated. Towns that have long-vacant buildings are not likely to be able to pay for demolitions, but the old must give way to create new possibilities.
* n n EDUCATION may or may not be the key to economic development for West Virginia, but certainly it is a key for individuals. Just ask James Butch, a 1975 graduate of West Virginia Tech. Butch is president of Eagle Research Group in Hurricane. Eagle is a high- tech electronics company that provides measurement and control systems to the oil and gas industry. Butch is giving back to his alma mater, which is now West Virginia University Institute of Technology at Institute. He donated $125,000 to his old school and another $125,000 to WVU, where his two daughters earned engineering degrees. People can be successful in West Virginia, and they look out for the state that helped them.See the full content of this document
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Short Takes
* n n THE 21st century brings with it cell phones and t...
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