While good paying jobs have been hard to come by in much of the Northern panhandle of West Virginia for the past 10 to 15 years. It seems more and more investment is taking place and new jobs are being created all around us while we continue to lag behind the rest of the state as far as investment goes.

The roads to prosperity program has little if any impact on our area. We see some progress towards four lane completion between New Martinsville and Moundsville, but it is slow coming and broadband is even slower.

While both have been in the works and celebrated by local, state, and federal agencies for the past 3-4 years, the actual work progress has been nearly non existant.

Talk about a Fracker plant that according to many elected officials would have brought thousands of jobs and millions in revenue to the area has relatively disappeared.

Unemployment still ranks high compared to other parts of the state, which is not a good sign when taking into consideration attacks on the unemployment program currently under consideration in Charleston.

Fortunately, some good news for the immediate area is the recent announcement at the Tyler County commission meeting that a new hospital is being considered for Sistersville, by Memorial Health Systems of Marietta. According to reports included in the deal will be new Satellite clinics in Middlebourne, Paden City and St. Marys. Should created some construction work and good paying permament jobs.

While we’re talking about opportunities it should be noted that the roads to prosperity program would have been the perfect opportunity for local politicians to campaign for a bridge linking Monroe County, Ohio and Tyler County, West Virginia. If we want to see real growth we’re going to have to do something big like that to entice major business to the area.

We have the river and railroad to our advantage, but we’re severely lacking when it comes to highway transportation. With all the heavy traffic from the oil and gas industry, it only makes sense to expand our transportation system any way we can, and a modern four lane, along with a connecting bridge to Ohio would be the way to go.

It’s been over 20 years since the 1-68 committee was formed and not one inch of progress in our direction has occurred. Also the four lane connecting 1-77 and 1-70 between Wheeling and Parkersburg should have already happened and is need of a strong advocate in Charleston to keep the ball moving in the right direction.

In the meantime we will continue to struggle to attract new industry that brings us up to par with other parts of the state.