Several southern West Virginia lawmakers say they are reserving judgment on a proposal by Gov. Joe Manchin to expand the West Virginia Parkways Authority.
A measure offered in the Senate earlier this week would increase the size of the authority by another two members, and would expand the bonding capacity of the agency to oversee toll collections along other roadways across the state. At the present time, the only toll road in West Virginia is the 88-mile turnpike extending between Princeton and Charleston. However, the measure would allow the authority to consider other roadways in the state as possible toll roads.
Likely candidates at this point for toll roads are U.S. Route 35, and the Mon-Fayette Expressway. Neither the Coalfields Expressway or the King Coal Highway are being considered by the state at this point for a toll road.
Senate Majority Leader H. Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, told the Register-Herald, that he has several concerns with that idea.
Chafin argues the authority, and its 400-plus employees, have failed to maintain the Princeton-to-Charleston toll road properly. Chafin is also questioning the current debt incurred by the authority, and the board’s expansion into other projects that are not related to what is supposed to be its core mission of maintaining and upkeeping the toll road.
He said the measure introduced in the Senate “gives me pause for great concern.”
Chafin is apparently not alone in his worries. Sen. Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, said he wants to carefully scrutinize the proposal to expand the Parkways Authority. However, Browning said he does support the idea of imposing toll collections elsewhere in the state since “southern West Virginia is already paying a toll, anyway.”
Under Manchin’s proposal, the authority would drop the terms “economic development and tourism” from its title. We believe that is long overdue. The authority has been saying for years that it is getting out of the economic development and tourism business. But we just learned last year that the board was playing a role in the advertisement of pre-solication notices for a project near Tamarack that was proposed to involve a shopping center, hotels and multi-family housing.
The authority also pledged several years ago to divest itself of Tamarack, transferring the artisan center instead to the Department of Commerce, a state-agency better suited to nurture the still struggling arts center near Beckley. However, that has yet to occur as well.
Given all of these concerns, we can see why some southern West Virginia lawmakers are a little nervous about the latest proposal to expand the Parkways Authority and allowing it to oversee toll collections elsewhere across the state.
Until all of the questions regarding the Parkways Authority are answered, lawmakers should proceed cautiously with this latest proposal to expand its scope and duties.
