Will the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram get serious about Editorial Blight?

You’d think it was April Fool’s Day rather than March 1. James Logue is overburdened with the responsibility of writing an editorial. He must have been up all night tossing and turning for a topic. Does he write about anything the State Legislature is doing, or the local economy, or the state of taxation, or how to help your neighbor? No! He doesn’t choose to write about anything that requires some measure of thought.

Logue chooses to criticize the City for doing something positive. After seven paragraphs of piling on about how only the newspaper saw the issue of “Fighting Ugly” back in 2001 finally someone is doing something about cleaning up the City. And get this, “We don’t rightly understand why it is Clarksburg City Council is now all of a sudden in such a lather about the city’s appearance”, says Logue. Clarksburg, like almost all central cities in WV has been in decline. Too bad that the Exponent-Telegram only sought to write about it in 2001, after all, the paper claims that they have been publishing since 1861. Where were their good ideas before? The City may have been in decline since the first Heck’s discount store opened up on Bridgeport hill which marked the beginning of the end for C’burg as a center of retail. But I bet the paper benefited from all of the advertising circulars as retail moved out of the city, all the while, decrying the lack of leadership in the City.

The Exponent-Telegram missed the biggest story of the last six months. Clarksburg does have new leadership! Patsy Trecost pushed to have a city council meeting held in North View on February 9. It was not Jim Hunt’s idea so the newspaper missed the story. Council met over there and had maybe 50 people in attendance. The people laid out in specific detail what they saw, where they saw it and how they wanted it cleaned up. Our new city manager, Martin Howe, which this paper does not seem to support, laid out an executable plan with his department heads including the police department and set out to make things happen. All of this without the benefit of having read any Exponent-Telegram editorials. James Logue was not at that North View council meeting, nor was he at the last one, nor does he ever attend any. So now there is a better understanding of why, “we don’t rightly understand” over at the Temple of Intellect on Hewes Ave.