Letter to the Editor in Rebuttal to Upshur Co. Development Authority "Response"

The following Letter to the Editor appeared in the August 27 edition of the Record-Delta. The text of the letter as submitted is as follows:

Dear Editor:

Forgive me if I take a moment to laugh. So, here the citizens of Buckhannon sit waiting for a response to this whole silica silo debacle since a cone of silence has been in place for the past four weeks, sitting and waiting to hear something from our city council or Weatherford to the tune of: “OK citizens. We respect you and your property and your families and your will to stick this out, so we are going to have the public meeting that we promised way back on July 9, the same public meeting that was scheduled for July 22 (because Weatherford threatened to pull everything out by August 7) and was cancelled at the last minute leaving the city attorney and Delegate Bill Hamilton standing alone outside the Church of God.” But no. The first response in four weeks doesn’t even come from the City. It comes from the Upshur County Development Authority Board of Directors. What? Huh? Forgive me if I have this wrong, but since when did our citizens start electing the Dev. Board of Directors. Oh, that’s right. We didn’t!

I also got a snicker when I read last Wednesday’s “Response” (Aug. 20) to my letter printed in the July 23 edition of the Record Delta when in it, the term “voice of reason” surfaces. This is certainly an oxymoron as there has never been anything close to reason in this whole ordeal. If you reason that people come second to industry, if you reason that the years residents labored at building family homesteads, spending money at local merchants to do so, and paying city taxes and levies to maintain their property right is insignificant to a “promise” by unknown entities that will pay nothing to the city for the existence of silos in North Buckhannon, then “reason” has evidently been purchased by the uncaring.

As a reminder, those who signed this “voice of reason” and should be held accountable for its indoctrination are as follows. It should also be revealed the members of the Board whose names are not signed to the Response. Additionally, one name appears that was not a member of the Board on August 20. And, none of the Board members live in North Buckhannon.
The signatures were:

• Connie Tenney (President of Progressive Bank)
• Mark Harper (Owner of Harper Lumber)
• Creed Pletcher (Upshur County Commissioner)
• Dennis Klingensmith (President of First Central Bank)
• Glen Hawkins (Owner of Rock Cave IGA)
• Elaine Abel (Diana Hallmark)
• Andrew Duncan (Executive for Corhart: St. Gobain)
• Rosemary Wagner Ex-Officio (Region VII Planning & Development Director)
• Dennis Xander (Board of Directors at Independent Oil & Gas Association of WV)
• Don Nestor (Partner in Toothman and Rice; Board of Directors at Independent Oil & Gas Association of WV)
• Steve Foster (Exec. Dir. Upshur County Dev. Authority)
• Dave Thomas (City Councilman)
• Terry Reed (Attorney with Hymes & Coontz)
• Bill Wellings (Airport Authority)
• Terry Ware (Owner of Sears)
• Sharon McNemar (President of Chase Bank)
• Tony Atkins (St. Joseph’s Hospital)
• Bryson VanNostrand (owner of VanNostrand Architects and architect for the Weatherford Project in N. Buckhannon)
  

One name listed is not on the Board: Tony Atkins

The following are Board members but were not signed to the Response letter to the editor:

• Dr. Pamela Balch (President of WV Wesleyan College)
• Scott Lampinen (Superintendant of Schools)
• Kenny Davidson (Mayor of Buckhannon)
• Ex-Officio members: Bill Hamilton (WV State Delegate), Randy White (WV State Senator), Nancy Shobe (City of Buckhannon Recorder,) Willie Parker (Upshur County Commission), Dee Tomblyn (President of City Chamber of Commerce).

Because there is limited space in the newspaper to fully argue the individual items “selected” from my original letter, I will make the rest of my response available at the Protest Coalition’s blog site: http://silicasilos.blogspot.com/.

First, let’s reason some things that you may not be aware of and I make these observations from the point of view that there has always been a contention that there is some connection between jobs and the location of silica silos in North Buckhannon. One necessitates the other, the argument has been. If there are no silos in North Buckhannon, Weatherford will leave. You can read it in the Board’s Response. You can hear it every time you listen to pro-Weatherford activists. And the contention is that we (North Buckhannon) are against jobs. This is the PR spin that is a part of the pro-Weatherford campaign. NOT TRUE. That connection does not exist. And all residents want good jobs for their friends and families.

Weatherford threatened to pull out “Everything” if the City did not allow the silos to be located in North Buckhannon. That ultimatum ended on August 8. Instead of pulling everything out, Weatherford has already begun working in Upshur County. Their temporary staging ground is located next to Shop n’ Save in Tennerton where you will find a sign promoting “Now hiring”. So, did you catch that? Did you reason what is going on? Did you disconnect the silo-equals-jobs argument? Weatherford is hiring and there are no silos in North Buckhannon. Jobs are being created right now without the suffering of Buckhannon residents. Further, if Weatherford is hiring in Upshur County, anyone who tells you that “they could still pull everything out [and move to Washington, Pa.]” is either continuing the misinformation campaign or is assuming that Weatherford is such an irresponsible employer that they would hire local residents only to move their operation two hours north and leave those new hires hanging.

Reason takes time and effort and a willingness to look at and question everything. I feel that a great veil of mistrust has fallen upon Upshur County and those who claim to be a “voice of reason” may be allowing personal investment to cloud their judgments.

Thank you to those of the Coalition who have sacrificed much for the well-reasoned cause.

-Peter Galarneau, Jr.
Spokesperson for the COALITION AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF
WEATHERFORD SAND SILOS IN RESIDENTIAL NORTH BUCKHANNON