By Stephen Smoot
As Seneca Rocks Regional Development Authority closes another year of joint operation for the economic benefit of Pendleton and Grant counties, it marks a number of achievements as it readies for calendar year 2026.
One recent move brought together West Virginia State Treasurer Larry Pack with Pendleton County commissioners and other local officials for a midday gathering at Fisher Mountain.
Pack, along with other recently elected additions to the West Virginia Board of Public Works, has pledged to visit every one of West Virginia’s 55 counties in his opening year of office. He was joined by Sherri Mongold of SRRDA, Carl Hevener, Pendleton County Commission president, Roger Dahmer, Pendleton County commissioner, and Karen Pitsenbarger, Pendleton County administrator.
Fisher Mountain was represented by Laura Brown and Jay Christian.
Hevener updated Pack on the EMS Salary Enhancement Fund passed as a five-year program, but only funded in its initial year. He shared that Pendleton County stepped in to fund the program for year two. Dahmer stated, “It’s not sustainable” to do on a permanent basis.
One of the current developments expected to help at the local level is the emergence of data centers along with the creation of added power production capacity to keep them running. While a number have ideas on where best to select sites, Pack warned that the companies have their own rubric to determine where to best place them. Factors include nearness of power plants, transmission lines, and other infrastructure considerations.
“They’re making their own decisions,” said Pack, who added that the State of West Virginia has a poor track record of suggesting where best to place major facilities.
Pack also expounded on one of the state’s biggest economic development barriers. He shared that “we make it hard to do anything. We’ve got to make it easier.” Although more than a decade of Republican control of state government has led to some improvements, Pack explained that the state still has too many legal barriers to entry that frustrate entrepreneurs and corporations alike seeking to create development.
“So many entrepreneurs, so many young folks with ideas,” Pack stated, and that they need access to capital and they need West Virginia to not “be the most regulated state in the country.”
Pack also gave an example of state government waste connected to the West Virginia Turnpike. He shared that near Beckley, the state constructed “probably one of the nicest truck stops in America” for approximately $60 million. He added that “Sheetz could have built it for $15 million.”
Pack then discussed the numbers crunch affecting, as he put it, not only West Virginia, but a number of states across the country. County school systems across West Virginia, facing dropping enrollment, have taken the difficult decision to close and consolidate schools. The impact in many areas sees schoolchildren in remote communities forced to spend more time on school buses, less playing on their own, participating in activities, or doing homework.
He went on to explain that many in the state wrongly blame the HOPE scholarship for pulling children from the traditional system into alternative formats. Harrison County merged Liberty High School with Robert C. Byrd last year. Randolph may close Harman and Pickens next year.
“People are having less children,” stated Pack, who emphasized that is a global issue for industrialized nations. He added that the aging population of the state also will produce fewer children.
Pack added that the numbers of children using the HOPE scholarship to pay for homeschool, microschools, private school or some other format did not add up to enough of a drop to explain consolidation choices.
The treasurer did have positive news for the county commissioners. He stated that the January 2025 budget worries of Governor Patrick Morrisey may have been overstated and that “the money is there” for certain priorities. “You just need to be polite and respectful” in the request, “but don’t accept that we don’t have the money,” he urged.
