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City of Huntington Acts To Improve Communications With Citizens

The City of Huntington's modernized website includes an on-line Citizen Report Center. Citizens can now sign up at the Center and have direct access to the City for submitting requests for services, asking questions about the various city departments and receiving direct contact from the city about progress being made on submitted service requests. The site includes tools that provide citizens and business people with an excellent system for communicating with our city government.

To sign on to the Citizen Report Center, click on this link:

http://mygovhelp.us/HUNTINGTONWV/

Once there, click on the "Residents" tab at the top of the page. You will need to create a free account, requiring your first and last name, login ID and password. Then, you can submit new questions, or service requests. So, if you are aware of a street pothole, you can now report it at the website and get a report back on the progress of the service request. Crime tips may be reported anonymously at the site.

A tip of our collective hats for this creative and positive move by Mayor Kim Wolfe and the City of Huntington.

Meeting of City, State and Local Officials Will Improve Community Relations

Yesterday's meeting arranged by the Huntington-Cabell Branch of the NAACP, during which a panel of state and local officials discussed alleged racial profiling, will result in much better community relations between the Huntington Police Department and members of all of Huntington's neighborhoods. A better line of communication has been opened and all citizens should strive to improve cooperation between citizens and our police department and city government.

In our view, each citizen has the responsibility to immediately report any incident of racial profiling to Chief of Police Skip Holbrook by filing an official report with the police department. Chief Holbrook pledged that every report of profiling will be investigated thoroughly and, if confirmed, remedial action will be taken.

These meetings strengthen community-wide communications and are critical to our city's future and should continue. Our compliments to our NAACP chapter for its leadership, and the City of Huntington for demonstrating its continue concern for all citizens of Huntington.

Citizens Need Kept Abreast of City's Infrastructure Planning

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a combined sewer (CS) is a type of sewer system that collects sanitary sewage and storm water runoff in a single pipe system. Combined sewers can cause serious water pollution problems due to combined sewer overflows (CSO), which result from large variations in flow between dry and wet weather. This type of sewer design (CS) is no longer used, but many older cities, including Huntington (WV) continue to operate combined sewers.

The EPA reports that about 772 communities in the United States have combined sewer systems, serving about 40 million people. CSO discharges during heavy storms can cause serious water polution problems in these communities. Pollutants from CSO discharges can include bacteria and other pathogens, toxic chemicals, and debris. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a policy in 1994 requiring municipalities to make improvements to reduce or eliminate CSO-related pollution problems. In 2000, Congress amended the Clean Water Act to require the municipalities to comply with the EPA policy.

Some U.S. cities have undertaken sewer separation projects—building a second piping system for all or part of the community. In many of these projects, cities have been able to separate only portions of their combined systems. High costs or physical limitations may preclude building a completely separate system. What are the City of Huntington’s plans to mitigate this infrastructure issue? If we had funding, what course of action is physically possible? Are there written plans for the best possible long-term solution? Is there a current cost estimate for implementation? An informed citizenry will support our governmental leaders, if kept abreast of on-going efforts in planning to rebuild our infrastructure. If additional stimulus money, or other federal funds, become available in the future, will we be ready to build?

(Click on "Post Comments" at the end of this posting, and have your say. If you wish, after clicking on "Post Comments", click on the available "Anonymous" button, which is provided for your privacy.)

Voluntary Drop Off Recycling Program Can Work In Cabell County

Since 1995, the Berkeley County (WV) Solid Waste Authority has been striving to provide a convenient, efficient and cost effective recycling program for the residents of Berkeley County. Their dedication to the environment has resulted in the development of one of the most comprehensive voluntary drop off and curbside recycling programs in the region.

Why Recycle?

• If all morning newspapers read in the United States were recycled, 41,000 trees would be saved daily and 6 million tons of waste would never end up in landfills.
• 
  Recycling an aluminum can saves enough energy to run a television set for three hours.
• 
  Each year, steel recycling saves the energy equivalent to electrically power about one-fifth of U.S. households for one year.
• 
  The aluminum beverage can returns to the grocer's shelf in as little as 60 days after collection.
• 
  Americans buy over 85 million tons of paper per year-that's about 700 pounds per person.
• 
  Most aluminum recovered is used to manufacture new cans.

Citizens of Cabell County must develop the will to voluntarily recycle, and they must support the efforts of the Cabell County Solid Waste Authority as it addresses the issues of future solid waste disposal in our county.

The future environmental and economic sustainability of our area is dependent upon our resolve to reduce solid waste, while reusing as much as possible through a convenient, efficient and cost effective recycling system, which must be an important element of our solid waste disposal planning.

To see a copy of the Berkeley County voluntary recycling ordinance, click on this link:

http://www.berkeleycountycomm.org/docs/ordinances/recycle.pdf

(Click on "Post Comments" at the end of this posting, and have your say. If you wish, after clicking on "Post Comments", click on the available "Anonymous" button, which is provided for your privacy.)

Classic “Public Good” Requires An Informed Citizenry

Cicero said, “The welfare of the people is the highest law.” He was speaking of the classic “public good”. It is what the public needs and wants. The radical approach in preparing and putting plans into action is to keep the public fully informed, including the systematic implementation of plans for resolving public issues.

Huntington’s citizens are woefully uninformed about these issues:

· The court-ordered closing of the Dietz Hollow landfill
· Plans for a solid waste transfer station and solid waste disposal
· The separation of the currently combined storm water/sanitary sewer system

"Journalism is a classic 'public good'", the January 25, 2010, issue of the magazine The Nation declared in an article. In the magazine's spirit, we encourage our local investigative journalists to review the existing records/historical background and report the status of these infrastructure needs to the citizens of our city. We call for this, as we consider the possibility that there are no written plans, because of the oft heard, “We don’t have the money.”

Unless our government leaders have plans to acquire construction documents and cost projections, they will not be in a position to proceed if, and when, another round of stimulus funds became available.

What is going on? America’s oldest understandings: that a free people can govern themselves only if they have access to independent information about the issues of the day and the excesses of the powerful, and that it is the duty of government to guarantee the free distribution of its inner-workings and planning to fulfill its duty of accountability.

Journalists have the power of inquiry and a bully-pulpit. The people of Huntington deserve a full disclosure of the City of Huntington’s plans to resolve these particular infrastructure issues. If the City of Huntington does not continuously disseminate full details of planning and progress, journalists are honor-bound to acquire the information and report it to their readers.

(Click on "Post Comments" at the end of this posting, and have your say. If you wish, after clicking on "Post Comments", click on the available "Anonymous" button, which is provided for your privacy.)

County-wide Smoking Ban Will Require Attention to Unintended Consequences

Unintended consequences will continue, as the Cabell-Huntington Board of Health implements its new proposal to ban smoking in bars and gambling parlors in Cabell County. As with the earlier ban on smoking inside of designated businesses, and other public places, many smokers will be required to exit the bars and gambling parlors to smoke each time they wish to light up.

Since initially enacted, the original health department rule requires all smokers, both customers and employees of affected businesses, to smoke outdoors. The intent was for smokers to deposit their unspent cigarette butts in a disposal unit. Some businesses have chosen to provide cigarette disposal containers for the convenience of smokers; many have not. The Downtown Huntington Rotary Club has been providing the containers as a public service. Some smokers have chosen to use the disposal containers; many have not.

What have been the unintended consequences? The sight of cigarette butts lying all over public areas, even with disposal units present and available, mars Huntington and Cabell County retail shopping areas! The misplaced butts are obvious in the cracks of sidewalks and in adjacent landscaping and parking areas. As we have reported over the last four years, cigarette waste is the most littered item in Huntington and Cabell County. The just expanded smoking ban regulations will require thoughtful action on the part of the City of Huntington City Council and the Cabell County Commission.

We suggest legislation by both bodies to require all business owners to provide cigarette disposal units at each entrance to their businesses and the further responsibility to keep the area around the units and the sidewalks and grounds along the front of their businesses clean and clear of cigarette waste and other litter. Approved exterior smoking areas should be required and properly equipped to accommodate employees who wish to smoke. Proper penalties for non-compliance must be a part of the proposed ordinances.

Now, for the smokers who refuse to dispose of their cigarette butts properly, there must be a consequence for their unlawful actions. The city and county governments must assume responsibility for enforcing the current state and city laws related to littering. Other cities successfully maintain clean and attractive streets and highways. Our local government leaders must have the will to place the required monitoring system in place to neutralize the unintended consequences of the ever-expanding ban on public cigarette smoking and one of its obviously inherent negatives - improper disposal of its waste.

(Click on "Post Comments" at the end of this posting, and have your say.)