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Time To Modernize Wheeling’s Tax Structure

Recent reports in this newspaper that the city of Wheeling’s revenues are running $1.3 million ahead of last year should be welcome news for city officials and residents alike. A healthy bottom line means the city has the resources necessary to maintain services, invest in infrastructure and continue improving the community. But it also presents an opportunity for reflection — particularly when it comes to Wheeling’s primary revenue source: the Business and Occupation tax. The B&O tax has long been a staple of municipal finances in West Virginia, including here in ...

Robotics Students Excel

Schools in the Northern Panhandle have quickly become tops in West Virginia in the field of robotics. Teams from both Ohio and Marshall counties excelled at the recent VEX Robotics West Virginia High School and Middle School State Championships held in Fairmont. Four high school teams from the two counties ­—three from Wheeling Park High School and one from John Marshall High School ­­—qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championships scheduled for April 21-30 at the America’s Center Convention Center in St. Louis. At the middle school level, five teams from Sherrard Middle ...

Pats on the Back

- To all the participants at the Wheeling Country Day School Youth Show of Hands, especially winner Writely, for showing their ingenuity. - To the Warwood Dog Park, for opening early and allowing four-legged friends to get some exercise outdoors. - To Wheeling Park High School for holding seminars to discuss “sextortion” with student-athletes. It’s an important subject that needs attention.

Stay Safe For St. Patrick’s Day

One of our state’s biggest holidays for cultural appropriation (suddenly everyone is Irish) is just around the corner as many of us make our plans for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. The Governor’s Highway Safety Program has rightly chosen March 13-17 for a “Buzzed Driving Is Drunk Driving Campaign” to remind us to observe the holiday responsibly. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data showed between 2019 and 2023, nearly 38% of traffic fatalities on St. Patrick’s Day involved a drunk driver. Two hundred eighty-four people were killed. The excess of many St. ...

A Focus On Education

In his final State of the State address, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was right to spend so much time on education — particularly reading. If we aren’t giving Buckeye State children the best start possible, it’s hard to see how public officials are going to be able to get much else right. They’ll just be playing catch-up. But there are bright spots on that horizon. DeWine’s persistence regarding the Science of Reading may be helping our youngest readers improve their reading performance. The governor and his team at the Department of Education and Workforce must be seeing evidence ...

Charles Ballouz Advocated For All Of Wheeling

Strong, civic-minded communities are often defined not by those who hold office, but by those who show up — the men and women who believe deeply enough in their hometown and its residents to speak up for it again and again. For more than five decades in Wheeling, one of those voices belonged to Charles Ballouz. Ballouz, who died March 9, was a familiar and unmistakable presence in Wheeling civic life. He never held elected office — though not for lack of trying. Ballouz ran for Wheeling City Council seven times over the years, once coming within a single vote of victory. While ...