Congratulations, West Virginia, In 2 Weeks You Elect Congress Members And A US Senator Who Promise NOT To Do What We Desperately Need Them To Do

West Virginia is only weeks away from electing a brand new US senator and electing or re-electing US Congress representatives and, I'm sad to say, they are all looking earnestly  into the camera and promising not to do the very thing we desperately need them to do. They are promising that they will not change West Virginia's way of life. That's a shame. West Virginia desperately needs elected leaders who will tell us the truth about why we can't attract business, why we are one of the few states with a declining population and why we lead the nation in bad things like smoking and obesity and why we lag behind in good things like the college graduation rate. 

We're losing population and failing to attract business investment precisely because our way of life needs to change. For that to happen, we need politicians with the courage to refuse to validate the way of life that our children and grandchildren flee and businesses avoid. 


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Higginbotham At Large does not read or publish pseudonymous or anonymous comments. When you click the "submit" button your comment is not yet published it is merely sent to me for my approval or deletion. Commenters who hide behind "handles", nicknames or other pseudonyms will not see their comments published here. If readers won't know who you are, I will delete your comment. No Ring of Gyges for you. I like email addresses that include the submitter's actual name like mine does: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com.

West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, branding, naming, home rule, Charles Riffee, Chuck Riffee, dog tethering, Betty Knighton, Paul Gilmer, Mar Parsaye, Catherine Moore, What's Next, WV? , What's Next, St. Albans?, Emily Wall, Cheryl Thomas, Chris Withrow, Destination 2040, Speak out Lexington, Vision 2030, visioning , Kay and Associates, 

Making The Opaqracy Transparent In St. Albans

St. Albans city government is an opaqracy, the opposite of a transparent democracy. Committee meetings (where the real decisions get made) are held at times and places which are both inconvenient and unknown to the vast majority of St. Albans' residents. When you choose the time and place of a meeting you have also chosen that meeting's attendees. 

The opaqracy which keeps St. Albans in the dark gets away with it because the residents of St. Albans are an apathariat, not an electorate. Six of St. Albans' 9 wards were uncontested races in 2013 meaning that the incumbent had only to go vote for himself to win the race. In 2009's ward 2 race a grand total of 4 votes were cast. Since the race was uncontested, political newcomer, Xris Hess, won that race with only 4 votes. All she needed was 1. Yes, the apathariat of St. Albans complains that their council members don't represent them, don't inform them and don't do anything for them but very few citizens vote against the do-nothings and almost nobody runs for office. In every city election, the Apathy Party wins by a landslide. 

St. Albans city government is not only opaque to the apathetic citizenry, it's even opaque to members of the government. City department heads are not notified about committee decisions that affect them. Members of council who weren't at a committee meeting don't get so much as an email telling them what a committee discussed and what was decided. 

At the end of this submission I'll post the names and the phone numbers of St. Albans city council members. I urge the residents of St. Albans to contact their council representatives and tell them to start a blog, a website, a facebook page or other means of informing residents when and where various committee meetings occur, what was discussed and decided in the last meeting and what will be discussed in the next meeting.

Councilwoman Cheryl Thomas has already taken that challenge with a Facebook page called St. Albans Direct but, frankly, she hasn't yet posted much on it. As a member of her ward I have asked her to rectify that and she has assured me she will do so.

St Albans City Council

Next election : 2017
Mayor
Dick Callaway
2325 Washington Avenue
1499 MacCorkle Avenue
Home)  304/722-1273
(Work)  304/727-2971
Council-at-LargeJohn Boles, Jr.
2330 Jefferson Avenue
(Home)  304/722-3612
Council-at-Large
Jerry C. Cogar
441 Kanawha Terrace
(Home)  304/727-6785
Council-at-Large
John Caudill IV
2014 Adams Avenue
Home)  304/727-2038
Ward 1
Robert J. Keiffer (note: Mr Keiffer ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
822 Fifth Avenue(Mailing Address:  324 Sixth Avenue)
(Home)  304/722-6473
Ward 2
Jason Philabaun414 Weimer Avenue
(Home)  304/767-4874
Ward 3
Ronald K. Colby, III (Note: Mr. Colby ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
366 Scenic Drive
(Home)  304/727-2667
Ward 4
Cheryl Thomas (note: Ms. Thomas ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
220 Vine Street
Home)  304/552-3377
Ward 5
Christopher Withrow (Mr. Withrow was appointed after the resignation of Dan Cain who ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
2028 Lincoln Avenue
(Home)  304/722-1789
Ward 6
Loretta Griffith
919 Baier Street
(Home)  304/727-9153
Ward 7
Desper Lemon (Mr. Lemon ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
2737 Forrestal Avenue
(Home)  304/727-5344
Ward 8
Kevin Pennington (Mr. Pennington ran UNOPPOSED in 2013)
2843 Madison Avenue
(Home)  304/727-5790
Ward 9
Garry Pennington
926 South Walnut Street

(Home)  304/727-2748

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Higginbotham At Large does not read or publish pseudonymous or anonymous comments. When you click the "submit" button your comment is not yet published it is merely sent to me for my approval or deletion. Commenters who hide behind "handles", nicknames or other pseudonyms will not see their comments published here. If readers won't know who you are, I will delete your comment. No Ring of Gyges for you. I like email addresses that include the submitter's actual name like mine does: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com.

West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, branding, naming, home rule, Charles Riffee, Chuck Riffee, dog tethering, Betty Knighton, Paul Gilmer, Mar Parsaye, Catherine Moore, What's Next, WV? , What's Next, St. Albans?, Emily Wall, Cheryl Thomas, Chris Withrow, Destination 2040, Speak out Lexington, Vision 2030, visioning , Kay and Associates, 

Apathariat, Apathocracy, Callagarchy, Opaqracy; New Words For Old Problems In St. Albans, WV

New Words For Old Problems In St. Albans, WV: Apathariat, Apathocracy, Callagarchy, Opaqracy (First posted on 12 April 2011)

Here are some new words for some old problems in St. Albans, WV:

Apathariat - Those ruled by a government whose power is dependent on the apathy of the governed.

Apathocracy - The government that results from an apathetic citizenry. An apathocracy is arrogant, unaccountable, opaque, unresponsive and perpetuates itself by restricting the flow of information in the well-founded belief that the apathariat won't notice or won't care.

Callagarchy - Rule by the few St. Albans residents who agree with or fear Mayor Dick Callaway. This includes council members who think they work for Dick Callaway and not for the people.

Opaqracy - The opposite of a transparent government. In an opaqracy, such basic information as which ward you're in, who your council person is, what's going on in your ward, how to participate in your city's war on crime, where your neighborhood watch meets,  audio and video (or at least minutes) of the last city council meeting, and an org chart of who does what in city government are not made available on the taxpayer supported website.
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In my weekend posts I called upon St. Albans city council members to insist that the Callagarchy upload the ward map to the city website so residents can figure out which ward they're in and who their council members is. I'm happy to report that one city council member emailed me to say he supports my "suggestion". We'll see. If he's willing to go on the record as a supporter of uploading a ward map to the city website, I'll publish his name so that voters who Google him in the next election year will find that he is a transparent government man, not an advocate of opaqracy. 

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Higginbotham At Large does not read or publish pseudonymous or anonymous comments. When you click the "submit" button your comment is not yet published it is merely sent to me for my approval or deletion. Commenters who hide behind "handles", nicknames or other pseudonyms will not see their comments published here. If readers won't know who you are, I will delete your comment. No Ring of Gyges for you. I like email addresses that include the submitter's actual name like mine does: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com.

West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, branding, naming, home rule, Charles Riffee, Chuck Riffee, dog tethering, Betty Knighton, Paul Gilmer, Mar Parsaye, Catherine Moore, What's Next, WV? , What's Next, St. Albans?, Emily Wall, Cheryl Thomas, Chris Withrow, Destination 2040, Speak out Lexington, Vision 2030, visioning , Kay and Associates, 

Will St. Albans Choose An Intentional Future Or Will We Wait For An Unchosen Future To Happen To Us?

A visioning project doesn't have to start with a meeting or a series of meetings at which citizens get to publicly share how they'd like to see their city improve but , if the organizers of that visioning project want to get the citizens engaged and "bought in" to it, that's exactly how it will start. That's how the two visioning projects I was involved in started. In 1991 Lexington Mayor, Pam Miller, hired a consulting firm to lead the "Speak Out Lexington" visioning project and in 2008 Lexington Mayor, Jim Newberry, asked a member of his staff to head up "Destination 2040." In both cases, the city of Lexington did a great job of soliciting the input of "average citizens" by asking trained facilitators to lead public meetings at churches, businesses, schools, subdivision clubhouses and many other venues. This raw data became the stuff of Lexington's long range planning.

Unfortunately, there aren't many city governments leading their communities in such visioning projects which may be why The West Virginia Center for Civic Life has been offering workshops on how "average citizens" can convene and facilitate such visioning projects. I attended the Charleston workshop a few weeks ago where a team of trained, experienced facilitators demonstrated how to get a roomful of people thinking and talking about how we would like to improve our cities, how we would like to create an intentional future that is brighter, more prosperous and more livable than the kind of future that may otherwise happen to us if we don't plan. 

These visioning projects are being offered under the moniker "What's Next, WV?" and attendees are encouraged to convene meetings in their own cities for the purpose of discussing 3 big questions: 1. "Where are we now?" 2. "Where do we want to go?" 3. "How will we get there?" You can download the complete discussion guide at :
http://whatsnextwv.org/sites/default/files/WNWV%20Discussion%20Guide.pdf

If you think the city of St. Albans needs to have a visioning project where we plan our intentional future instead of waiting for some random future to happen to us, please, do two things: 1. Join a "What's Next, St. Albans?" discussion group on Facebook  or Linkedin and 2. Tell your city councilperson. 

What's next, St. Albans? Do you want to plan what's next or do you want to trust dumb luck to give us the future we want? Tell us at What's Next, St. Albans discussion groups on Facebook and Linkedin.

Here are the links:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/807067216004702/

https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2053370&trk=anet_ug_hm

Higginbotham At Large does not read or publish pseudonymous or anonymous comments. When you click the "submit" button your comment is not yet published it is merely sent to me for my approval or deletion. Commenters who hide behind "handles", nicknames or other pseudonyms will not see their comments published here. If readers won't know who you are, I will delete your comment. No Ring of Gyges for you. I like email addresses that include the submitter's actual name like mine does: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com.

West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, branding, naming, home rule, Charles Riffee, Chuck Riffee, dog tethering, Betty Knighton, Paul Gilmer, Mar Parsaye, Catherine Moore, What's Next, WV? , What's Next, St. Albans?, Emily Wall, Cheryl Thomas, Chris Withrow, Destination 2040, Speak out Lexington, Vision 2030, visioning , Kay and Associates,