Sunday, November 5, 2007 in the Dominion Post, my town’s city newspaper, there was a guest commentary by Paul Brown, a man who occasionally posts on a listserv I manage for a non-profit organization that has been fighting a power plant in our town called Longview for several years. Observe these contrasts, unlike most news organizations that allow people to freely view their content online, I can’t link to Paul’s guest commentary because despite the fact that DP is making out well on its newspaper, it wants to make more money by requiring people to pay for an online subscription, even those receiving the paper edition. Unlike most non-WV cities that have been beset with the prospects of having a traditional coal-burning plant built right besides the city, and who have repelled the proposal even before it could gain momentum, our town has failed in preventing its realization primarily because certain parties like the Economic Development Authority, County Commission, and School Board embraced the prospect because of all the money they could receive. Well don’t even get me started about Longview, but the point is that people in WV, even highly educated Morgantown just don’t get the long view and insist on the only industry that WV has ever really cared about, they just don’t get it, Dominion Post included, that you can actually make money by doing the right thing.
Posted by Jonathan Rosenbaum on November 5th, 2007