……….”I am only one: but still I am one, I cannot do everything; but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” (Edward Everett Horton)
………Being a mayor or a member of council in a small town with limited resources is the hardest job in government. Harder than being President, or Governor, or Senator? For sure! Those officials have funding and resources at their disposal. In a small town, a Mayor often just has himself/or herself and Council. It’s easy to throw up your hands and succumb to the “We haven’t the money, the tax base…etc.” frame of mind. But, I think Edward Everett Horton’s famous quote says it all. You are one. Get busy!
………Let me tell you a story about a Mayor who refused to let his enthusiasm for the town he loved be dimmed by naysayers. The late Jack Harris was always researching ways to benefit New Cumberland and when he came upon an application to build a hydro plant right outside New Cumberland, the wheels in his mind started turning. This was 30 years ago. Some Mayors might have said, “That’s a shame, it’s not in New Cumberland.” Some may have lamented our bad luck. But not Jack. We had a problem. Let’s fix it.
………That’s where I came into the story. I was a legislator trying to keep my head above water (and I couldn’t swim) with Weirton Steel and Mountaineer Race Track in my district. Jack came to me with an idea. Annexing an area is normally an involved process, but he had heard of being able to do so through something called “minor boundary change” where if there are just a few property owners and they agree it can be done quite simply. Problem was, it wasn’t legal in West Virginia.
……… Jack needed me to sponsor a bill to make that process legal. He also knew I had to be motivated to focus on it and tell our story. He had the area surveyed to make sure the parameters were correct. He talked a friend into taking us up in a small plane so that he could take pictures and I could understand what we were talking about. He had the plane almost go sideways so he could get his pictures. He got the pictures. I got airsick and shut my eyes thinking it would make me better (plus I thought I was gonna fall out of the plane). All in all, it was an adventure, but it was just the start of our efforts with the hydro plant.
…..Jack was relentless. He hired a bus and took council, commissioners and legislators to New Martinsville. They had a hydro plant for several years and he wanted us all to see what they were able to do with the funding they received. They had built a building which housed their city building and West Virginia Northern Community College. We had dinner with their council, commissioners and legislators and they explained to us about the pitfalls they ran into and the solutions they came up with to make their hydro plant a reality.
…..The solution was a bill that required a fee in lieu of a B&O be negotiated before operation of the plant. Weirton Steel had informally been doing that with the City of Weirton for years. It just wasn’t required. In fact, my late husband Bill Kiefer was Weirton Steel’s chief legal counsel and was in charge of negotiating that fee. Problem was everytime something went amiss, one of the Mayors would constantly threaten to institute a B&O.
……..So, so now we had minor boundary change and Jack and the City Attorney got busy getting signatures. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds because some of the families who owned the property had members who needed to be tracked down.
……..The hydro bill passed despite detractors, but the climate had changed and the developers were unable to get financing and thus FERC did not grant a license.
………That didn’t discourage Jack. He had things to do in this small town and a few months later he died in a car accident. It was a tragic loss for his family and friends, but I can tell you it was a huge loss for New Cumberland. He was our biggest cheerleader and although he was only one Mayor from a small, broke, little town, his enthusiasm and determination would have lit up New York.
………Thirty years later, the hydro plant will be built and when New Cumberland begins to reap its benefits we all need to say a silent “thank you” to former Mayor Jack Harris.
