Thursday, August 28, 2014

Interim session in North Central West Virginia comes to an end



The legislature’s trip to North Central West Virginia has come to an end.
The three-day interim session concluded after legislators participated in various committee meetings and visited locations which have been affected by bills they have passed, including the tax increment financing legislation that allowed for the construction of a baseball stadium in Morgantown.
“We were fortunate enough to be over there where they announced the formation of a minor league baseball team coming to Morgantown,” Senate President Jeff Kessler said. “So again, more jobs, more activity. It’s good to see that sometimes the things we’ve done a year or two ago, now you actually get to see in person the fruits of that legislation.”
House Speaker Tim Miley was pleased the session could take place in the area which he represents, so they could see first hand the reason for the recent success.
“I was glad that my colleagues in both the House and the Senate got the opportunity to come here to this part of the state to see what’s occurring, what’s prospering and what’s working so well that it might allow them to identify something or come back with ideas to their own parts of the state and their own counties and districts,” he said.
The interim session was also the first chance to look over the issues as a collective leading up to the regular session in January.
“We’ve still got six more months to go before we get into January for our first session. We’ll still have several more monthly meetings,” Kessler said. “This is just the first one we’re really starting to look at things substantively.”
Once the regular session does come around, Miley hopes the legislators remember their time in North Central West Virginia should the occasion arise.
“Things that we legislate such as the tank bill, oil and gas drilling, Marcellus drilling, horizontal drilling, they’ve had the opportunity to see some of those types of things here,” Miley said. “If they are ever called on to legislate those areas, they will have a perspective and know what they’re legislating.”

The next interim meetings are scheduled for September 8 through September 10.