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dadt on Bridgeport just look it up on Bridgeport Developer on Bridgeport Developer on Clarksburg dadt on Bridgeport
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Congratulations are in order to the Clarksburg architectural team of WYK Associates, Inc. and Ralph Pedersen for winning a prestigious award for Achievement in Architecture from the West Virginia chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
The award was for design for Clarksburg’s West Pike Street Parking facility in downtown Clarksburg.
According to the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram, “The AIA was looking for projects that were extraordinary, where the design effort went beyond the scope of the client’s requirements, according to Chris Morrison, AIA of Washington, D.C.” “Morrison described the West Pike Street Parking Facility as a “really interesting project, particularly in the area of urban renewal. It transforms a late 19th and early 20th century downtown block into a true 21st century streetscape.”
Congratulation Bill and Ralph. Great work…..Hopefully,now that you have built it they will come to downtown Clarksburg. It really is a lovely design
It is a beautiful facility. Sure looks better than what was there previously. However, it did cost we citizens far more than it is worth due to lawsuits.
Are those lawsuits you are talking about in regards to Councilman Shaffer suing for way more than his property was worth?
You’ve got to be kidding?
He’s suing for something there too?
KARMA, it’ll get him.
Janet,
The lawsuits of which I wrote were from Bernard Folio. He sued the City of Clarksburg because his businesses located next to the pool rooms and at the corner of W. Pike and 4th Street were left out of the property buyout for the originally proposed parking area which was to be 2-3 stories. The City promised him to buy his property and ultimately did not. He sued and won quite a bit of money. That is why the parking facility is one and half levels. If you recall, the parking garage was originally proposed to be built to accommodate the hoped for gambling casino in a renovated Waldo Hotel by Congressman Mollohan.
Concerned Citizen,
You are sort of right, but Mr. Folio had property purchased and he took what was offered. I would have to commend him on that, all he is fighting about is some sort of rights to the property that he sold. Now, Mr Shaffer had sued for and recieved an additional couple $100,000 in his suit for those old pool rooms that were horrible to even look at. The city should’ve have demolished them and sued him for not keeping up his property. Why does he think that his property is above the codes and doesn’t need to be kept up?
Dear Readers,
I just wanted to let you know about unfair assessments in Harrison County by our current Assessor. It seems as if certain wealthy residents have not had their property assessments increased on certain parcels of property in over 10 years while almost all other people are receiving increases in their assessments regularly. In the past two years, over 25,000 letters have been sent out informing residents about increases in their assessments in excess of 10% which is terrible considering the cost of living increases we all have incurred including increases in gasoline($3.65 per gallon), milk and bread. I think we are all under assault as our wages are not keeping up with inflation especially senior citizens as this rise in inflation has been especially hard on them and at the same time our current assessor has continued to increase assessments at an alarming pace. I would like you to review the information contained at http://www.harrisoncounty.com as it contains information that most residents need to be aware of including suspicious assessments and accusations by your county commissioners regarding inconsistencies in assessments across the county. Even if you don’t like the candidate that published the website, you have to believe the research he has conducted is true as he is a local attorney and would be opening himself up to civil lawsuits had he published information that is incorrect. Again, the website ww.harrisoncounty.com contains all the information residents need to be aware of concerning unfair property tax assessments in our county. Pass the information on to your friends and family including the website address http://www.harrisoncounty.com!
Thanks for tax info, who knew?
Janet,
I cannot speak to what Mr. Shaffer does or does not think. But, I do know that if the Code Enforcement Division of the City and those responsible for maintaining the City, at all levels, do not do their jobs those people who will abuse the system will continue to do so. Every piece of property the Shaffers own looks ramshackled, no one has ever tried to stop them.
Maybe the city could start by removing the burned out shell of a house on Lee Avenue. it’s been sitting there for nearly 4 years. It looks far worse than anything that has already been torn down.
Clarksburg Citizen,
you are right, his property on Main Street is a disgrace, but now imagine the lawsuit the @$$^*)$ would file if the city did tear it down.
good thing other people in the community still have integrity and take responsibility for their actions, instead of blaming others and suing.
and this guy is one of our leaders? how did this happen?
To He takes the cake: Like it was said before, Martin Shaffer is a puppet to 2 land owners in Clarksburg, he does exactly what they say, Shaffer doesn’t have the b—s to take actions of his own, if you recall anytime he opens his mouth it is about someone elses property, just like the building he is talking about that happen 10 years ago, who put him up to that, I think it may be the left string, Martin take care of your property or get it torn down, it is an eye sore, all by the way lose some weight you are becoming an eye sore to the ciitizens of Clarksburg!!!
Dear Concerned Citizen:
Please name these 2 land owners to whom you refer. I can only think of one (the F family). I can’t imagine who the other is.
thank you
what was the name of that old band?
the mama’s and the ?
To ravishing Rick Rude you hit the nail on the head, so to you Anonymous, do you remember the band that Rick Rude had mentioned, just in case you forget the first letter is a “P”, thank you!!!
Oh year, how could I forget-I guess I was California dreaming and forgot about that character…I never think of him as a person of import -and I don’t mean to be demeaning.
WOW, I go away for a few months and nothing changes. I am saddened to see that the same uniformed people are still slinging mud and hiding behind their screen names.
Why don’t some of you (Anonymous and Concerned Citizen) offer some kind of solutions to the problems that Clarksburg faces? If you think replacing Martin Shaffer is the answer, you are sadly mistaken.
Seems that several villages have lost their idiots and they have planted themselves in Clarksburg!
Janet, thanks for correcting Concerned Citizen’s innacurate post concerning my family’s lawsuit regarding the RIGHT OF WAY on Pike Street. Seems that the truth is not required when posting on this site!
Geeze….uninformed people, not uniformed.
Hats Off Watch WEEK #926
[ Yikes, now what the heck has the anarchocapitalistic atheist of Harrison County got to complain about !!!!]
So, we’ve all had a chance to do our Saturday morning newspaper reading — specifically : The Clarksburg Telegram. And we’ve all got a nice warm feeling having read “Hats Off”. Yeah, the thin, innocuous column, conveniently buttressing arguments from the left part of the page, and which purports to “recognize positive efforts from people throughout our readership area”. So, let’s examine this weeks’ winners and their efforts :
1. Organizations…..to honor fallen veterans…through parades…and visits to local graveyards.
2.The city of Bridgeport…working together…to block traffic…
3. Local law enforcement….advisory board…some …growing problem
4. The FBI Criminal Justice Services Complex ( Whew — what a mouthful )…paid tribute….died in an automobile crash
5.The Upshur County Commission, Board of Education and Buckhannon officials…working together …to battle…Three recent accidents…
So, Pravda and Izvestia have again this week refused to identify individuals — “people” in state lingo — favoring, instead, several of the the state’s systems with the attendant bureaucrats, just basically, goin’ about doin’ their jobs. Or, in state lingo: efforts
[Aaah, one is expected to feel all good and yummy. One should feel so...so...so altruistic (and patriotic to boot !) that one should just want to...mmm...that one just want to sacrifice your body and your property and your family at the altar of the collective.]
It makes you just want to spit.
So, here is the challenge to the paper.
1. Admit that individuals think and act — not state systems. Here is a clue : individuals have a first and a last name
2.Admit that well intended efforts are meaningless, but results and productivity matter. Here is a clue: results and productivity usually describe actual measurable changes in wealth (from an idea that was widely used ), lives saved (like at a swimming pool by a courageous individual who had to jump in with his street clothes), improvement in academic skill results or competition awards(such as found in — GASP — private schools), charity to other individuals (such as gallons of blood or kidneys )
Go, on set a real example for your readership. Starve the state of any further attention they crave for their forceful, fraudulent and fanciful notions.
Yes, Simon. I also L’d MAO about the newspaper’s hats-offing to Bridgeport for the Crystal Ridge situation.
Patrick
Where do you go for a few months that you don’t have internet? Hibernation?
Why does Martin Shaffer not offer positive input, or as you put it, some kind of solution to the problems that Clarksburg faces? Well one solution would be to quit digging up stuff that he perceives happened to his and your family over the last 20 years. It’s in the past. In fact, both your family and his have had their terms on council over the last 20 years and have amounted to Zero! Second…. his house on Main St. sets the tone for how serious he is about code enforcement. He should be ashamed about that once beautiful home he has let go. He’s not serious about reform or enforcement across the board. And another issue, for such a “big idea” guy, Martin Shaffer has offered much more MICRO managing then trying to implement real policy changes. Shaffer’s suit against the city is not about freedom of information; it’s about grinding the city administration to a halt with petty request of information; not for policy change, but to play “gottcha” with some of the political hacks that are still left around (including you).
It seems as though the village has not lost their idiots, they still live on Meigs Ave. and Main St.
Top secret confidential memo to the Editorial Board of the Clarksburg Telegram from an anonymous individual, hoping that it wll be translated into “productive results” by way of educating its readership scattered around this great Consitutional Republic.
Whether you like it or not, it is not an individual, but rather an organ of the state, if its name includes any of the following:
1.Complex;
2. Agency;
3. Department;
4. Board;
5. Commission;
6. Committee;
7. Office ;
8. Council;
Whether you like it or not, a well meant intention is never a productive “effort” if it is associated with the following:
1. Group think ;
2. More taxes ;
3. More funding ;
4. More restrictions ;
5. More legislation ;
6. More state government employment ;
7. More state force, fraud or fantasy ;
8. Disdain for liberty, reason and reality ;
9. Holidays and more parades.
…and, so the local newspaper of record should be able to separate HEROES (and their results) from NONHEROES (and their hopes and intentions) for future Hats Off columns. OK, now, let’s see how we all do with these examples, shall we:
1.Hats off to Mr. John Smith who pulled a stranger from a stream.
2.Hats off to the Department of Highways which is planning to enforce Click-it-or-ticket rules to ensure that people who would NOT ordinarily wear seatbelts feel more secure and allow them to feel confident driving more recklessly at higher speeds . The Department hopes that it will improve highway safety.
3. Hats off to Mrs. Mary Jones who is feeding a family who had recently lost everything in a housefire.
4. Hats off to the School Board which is finally requesting much needed funds for new programming and teachers. With their latest plans to promote fiscal management and teaching policies there is every reason to think this plan might finally work for all the kids and parents and taxpayers who are still waiting for the last plan to work.
5. Hats off to James Johnson who won a highly sought out scholarship to an elite college based entirely on his grades. When asked to what he attributed his good fortune, he replied “Lot of hard work so that I could be better than everyone else. Also it helped that I was homeschooled and I didn’t have to share credit with a whole bunch of strangers during Group ThinK class”.
6. Hats off to Mrs. Nancy Adams who gave a slice of her liver to a good friend who shares a lot of her values. While riding a bicycle, she was hit by a driver who had finally been compelled to wear a seatbelt by virtue of the new Click-it-or-ticket law. The friend understands that the local hospital will pay for immunosuppressive chemotherapy as long as she stops drinking. The friend thinks this will be a better carrot and stick than spending weekends in jail for an old DUI.
7. Hats off to the Board of Health which has plans to build a new Public Health Complex which will need staffing with more employees trained to regulate liver transplants.The old building will be redesigned to accommodate veteran state employees who will be in charge of measuring, recording, and approving these personal, intimate values.
8. Hats off to Mr. Richard Smith who has discovered a new immunosuppressive chemotherapy in his basement which has caught the attention of several large pharmaceutical companies and they are now raising their bids on the patent.
9.Hats off to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources and the West Virginia Tax Department which both have plans to visit Mr. Richard Smith in vehicles purchased through receipts from the Click-it-opr-ticket program.
So, how did everyone do ?
OK, now let’s see the paper run with it!!
Smiley Face,
I wish I was hibernating! Work takes up a fair amount of my time and I just don’t troll the net like other seem to do.
Smiley, you make me laugh! Political hack, me? Come on, all that I am is a citizen who doesn’t hide behind some screen name when expressing my opinion. Do me a favor and provide me with some examples of my hackness!
I stand behind what I said in my 31 May post, same people hiding behind their screen names and slinging mud.
I have known Martin Shaffer since I was a teenager, and I find it hard to believe that he, or any other member of council, would want to bring the city to a standstill. I am not aware of all the information that he has requested, but recent city records shoud be digitized and readily available to the general public.
Smiley, everyone is to blame for the mess that the city is in. We are all part of the problem and part of the solution. Martin’s request for information is not the problem and we are all losing sight of the real problems by focusing on this issue. I am not saying that it should be ignored or addressed, however, we have to prioritize what is important, devolop a plan to fix the problem, and then work that plan.
BTW – spelling aside, I am not an idiot, really!
Regards,
Patrick
Patrick,
Ronald Regan once said…
“There’s no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
Does this quote apply to your man Shaffer?
Please don’t put Shaffer and Ronald Reagan in the same phrase anymore.
It’s just not right for the ole gipper.
So, let’s stick this Saturday’s Hats Off column into Shockdoc’s personalized IBM 4300 mainframe and calculate the Heroism Score.
This advanced neurocyberbioticprogram examines — at present — each of the five (and every week there are five, no more, no less) claims by the local paper which would encourage the readers to doff their hats.
Each of the claims will be examined to see if there is :
1. An individual’ s first and last name. If an individual cannot be identified in a confident and timely fashion by the paper, the term ‘anonymous’ can be substituted.
2. Description about what the person did.
3. Understanding that the action unexpectedly put the person’s property, honor or life at risk.
4. Clear analysis how this will improve circumstances ( wealth or health or liberty ) for any other similarly identifiable person(s) to whom no preexisting duty was owed and for which no ‘real’ compensation had never been expected.
5. The paper can discuss more deeply how the action promotes values — whether they be of the hero specifically (if known — SO JUST ASK THEM !!), or for society in general.
So each of the five claims every week(and, again, as we know, there always, always, always five — never two or six ) can generate 5 points, and the column can get a total of 25 points. Hats should be doffed if any one claim scores 4 or more points
So, hmmm… I calculate the score for the latest 6/7/08 column [crunch, crunch, crunch] to be…hmmm :
6/25 !!
Remember, if we doff our hats unnecessarily, there will be missed opportunities — we could be making money instead !! We could be doing something heroic !!
We have all heard that here is a marketplace for actionable ideas — and rightly so. But my contention is that there is also a marketplace of values. We know what collectivist values the local paper have promoted to date. We need the values of heros — and their concomitant supportive actions — recognized. It shouldn’t take too much courage for the paper to put its barrel of ink to good use.
So, does anyone have any clear information about the fate of our fellow traveller/citizen who was charged a few months ago with possession of three boxes of pseudoephedrine? I imagine the facts of the case are clear after the guy invited the cops into his house — “Yep, your honor, right after I was invited into the house, I carefully navigated my way around a whole bunch of sniffly kids and it was then that I clearly spied upwards of three boxes of the contraband — and here they are clearly labelled exhibits A and B and C “.
Does it now clearly rest on the discretion of the prosecutor ?
Does anyone have any clear notions about this matter?
Does anyone care ?
G-d help this country — or at the least “We, the people”.
Well Mr. Shaffer’s time is runnin’ out for his property on Main Street. I remember Mr. Shaffer stating here that he was glad that the city’s Code Enforcement made a ‘list’ of corrections needed and that he was going to ‘git’er’done.’
Well BOCA has given him a timetable for completing necessary repairs and as of to date, he is a loooong way away from completing. Perhaps he’ll get the same sweeet deal as Gene Papa and keep getting additonal timetables to complete; then leave the mess for the city.
Nasdaq : +50.15
Latest weather : hot and dry
Traffic : light
Today’s Clarksburg Exponent Heroism Score is: 5/20
I’ve just seen in the legal notices that the city has now put the Oak Hall site out for clean-up, did anyone else see this? Does this mean that the City is taking a stance and taking back our city to clean it up?
The taxpayers get to pay for Mr. Papa’s lack of responsibility again. This slug needs to pay up or sell some of his slums. He has some of the worst property in the county, yet he keeps buying more junk.
They say that he has been this way his whole life. It would seem that he would care more. I guess not. Thank goodness the city isn’t letting him get away with this mess.
What’s been going on at the City Council meetings lately?
Nasdaq : – 55.97
Latest weather : hot and muggy
Traffic : light
Today’s Clarksburg Exponent Heroism Score is: 4/25
Nasdaq : – 5.74
Latest weather : hot and muggy
Traffic : light
Today’s Clarksburg Exponent Heroism Score : 3/30
I just heard that Council passed the cleaning up of the Oak Hall property 5-1 with Martin Shaffer voting no. Now as I see this how could he vote any other way after having his house, along with 2 of his brothers on a city demolition list. Is this guy really trying to clean-up the city for development or is he just making us go backwards?
Nasdaq : – 6.08
Latest weather : hot and dry
Traffic : light
Today’s Clarksburg Exponent Heroism Score : 4/20
Since we are talking about cronyism,neopotism and the good ol boy networks here,does anyone know why the Harrison County Commission has suddenly taken an interest in the Salem water project. Could it be the smell of money?
It pains me to drive downtown Clarksburg at noon and look at all the empty buildings. When I attended WI High school some 4 decades, we used to sit on the Courthouse Wall and watch the bevy of beautiful women that came out on their lunch breaks to do some shopping. Now at noon you are lucky to see more than three people on all of Main Street. There is very little shopping left because even with the White Elephant Parking Garages there are few places to park that are close enough for seniors or others with health problems to walk to the business they are going to. Much of downtown looks like the pictures of Europe at the end of WWII.
dadt – yes, you are 40 years out of date. Go sit at East Pointe – WalMart, Kohls, many other places including the restaurants – your 60 year old eyes will see plenty of woman. And yes, All that shopping is in the City of Clarksburg and they pay more B & O tax there then if they were in the smaller buildings down town.
Go to down town Bridgeport and sit on the funeral home wall that your tax dollars paid for and count the woman walking by. You’ll stay lonely there too.
Major retailers do not go to down town areas in rural America.
Check your History Channel again for pictures of WW II bombed out cities … after one property owner was forced to get out of the way so the city could clean up his lot there are no remnants of what you describe.
It is the property owner who has to decide what risk he wishes to make with his property – not a Clarksburg or Bridgeport City government.