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Right-Sizing School Budget

It’s only been a handful of years ago that Ohio County Schools spent $65 million in a year to educate students and operate facilities, school buses and the other items necessary for a public school district. That was 2017. This year, that same budget is $89.3 million. During that span, the number of students in Ohio County decreased by 550. In 2017, to educate 5,269 students, the county spent $12,336 per student. In fiscal 2025, that cost increased to $18,923.50 per student for the 4,719 children enrolled in the system. What changed? For one, property tax valuations on ...

Happy Birthday, Wheeling Park!

Wheeling is a special place. Its history, its role in serving as a gateway to America’s westward expansion, its Victorian-era architecture, and so much more factor in to making this such a unique spot. At the top of that list has to sit the city’s incredible public parks system. Wheeling Park, nestled in a quiet neighborhood along U.S. 40, is part of a parks system for the people built and maintained by the people that, frankly, is unmatched across the nation. Wheeling Park today officially marks 100 years of operation. In the past century it truly has grown to become the ...

Center Wheeling Project a Priority

City leaders in Wheeling have a upcoming decision that will be imperative to the growth and development of what soon will be the city’s hotbed of economic activity. City Manager Robert Herron recently informed members of City Council that he soon will be seeking developers to consider just what is the right use for the property that previously housed the Center Wheeling Parking Garage and the Wheeling Fire Department headquarters. The site has been leveled and cleared over the past year and with the WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital Regional Cancer Center being planned just across the ...

Broadband Delay Not Good for State

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Kelly Workman, director of West Virginia’s Office of Broadband, are right to keep up the pressure on federal officials over the pace of their review of grant funding for high-speed broadband. “As we have discussed, I am concerned that West Virginia may be told to move back from the 1-yard line to the 40-yard line after the review concludes,” Capito wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “I urge you to expedite not only the review and release of updated guidance but the program as a whole.” The ...

Improve Dental Health in W.Va.

We’ve all heard the jokes about West Virginians’ dental health that plenty of us rushed to call unfair and untrue. They’ve been around for generations. The problem is, there is some truth to the idea that we’ve got a problem here. WalletHub’s “States with the Best and Worst Dental Health (2025)” notes the Mountain State is not quite dead last, but close. We are 49th, ahead of only Mississippi and Arkansas. We are 38th for dental habits and care, and dead last (51st) for oral health. West Virginia is 50th for the percentage of adults who visited a dentist in the past ...

Housing Issues in Ohio

Efforts in Columbus to address the shortage in affordable housing appear to be making a difference, though the momentum must be maintained. According to the 2025 Gap Report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, there is a deficit of 264,083 rental units that are affordable and available to the 438,108 extremely low-income households in the Buckeye State. That’s an improvement over last year, when the shortage was 267,382. COHHIO Executive Director Amy Riegel called on the General Assembly to “maintain forward ...