Opinion

Going on two years with new city administration, what is the face of Wheeling?

Local Columns

Editor's note: This opinion piece from Wheeling resident J. Arnold Roxby appeared in the Tuesday, Feb. 10 print edition of The Intelligencer. What is the face of Wheeling this year? The triumphant new Fire or Police headquarters? The collapsed Washington Avenue bridge or the crumbling stretch of National Road at McColloch’s Leap? Or is it the ground-level Market Street parking garage storefront — an $11 million public investment sitting empty, symbolizing both our development ambition and fragility? A year has passed since the last State of the City address, when I acknowledged the ...

Punishment Must Always Fit Crime

Editorials

Public corruption should always trigger outrage, regardless of the offender. When people entrusted with public dollars abuse that trust, the damage goes far beyond the financial hit. It erodes confidence in institutions that rely on credibility to function. That is why the stark contrast between two recent public corruption cases in our region is impossible to ignore — and deeply concerning. In one case, a former Marshall County assessor, an elected official, was sentenced to two to 15 years in state prison for embezzlement. That sentence properly reflects the seriousness of the ...

Primary Colors

Local Columns

When it comes to contesting statewide and legislative races, the West Virginia Democratic Party should be commended for its candidate recruitment efforts heading into the 2026 elections. I don’t say that because I have a specific bias one way or another. But I do believe that a healthy two-party system is important to making our democratic republic work, because the political parties hold each other accountable. According to the state Democratic Party, there are 22 Democratic candidates seeking nomination to 17 of 19 state Senate seats on the ballot for the May primary, some of ...

Time To Recharge West Virginia’s Workforce

Editorials

Governments have only a limited number of ways to support private businesses — large or small. Whether we like it or not, spending taxpayer money is one of them. The question becomes whether the return is larger than the investment — whether that money is being spent prudently. So, one can understand one of the objections to state House Bill 4004, to create the Recharge West Virginia program, from a few who wondered whether it was a good use of taxpayer dollars to support private businesses by incentivizing them to upskill existing employees. (It is harder to understand those who ...

Decisions Must Now Be Made on Bridge, Island

Editorials

With it now official that the Wheeling Suspension Bridge will no longer support vehicle traffic, the years-long wait for that aspect of the bridge’s future is over. A new conversation about the future ­ —not just with the bridge, but with Wheeling Island as well — must begin immediately. We all had to wait through studies and discussions with state departments about what can cross that bridge, be it vehicles or pedestrians. Now we know the answer: feet and not wheels. So what now? How does the Suspension Bridge fit into the future of Wheeling? And how do we help the residents ...

A 10% Tax Cut That Puts West Virginians First

Local Columns

West Virginia is proving something powerful right now: when you focus on the basics, tighten the budget, and let the free market work, good things happen. That progress puts us in a position to do what the government too often forgets to do: return money to the people who earned it. That’s why I am calling on the State Legislature to pass a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut. Over the past year, my administration has made difficult but necessary choices. We tightened spending, restructured government, reduced costs, and focused relentlessly on fixing our state budget. Those ...