The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

November 5, 2009

No Grinch on the ’pike this year

By Mannix Porterfield

CHARLESTON — No, Virginia, the Grinch hasn’t stolen Christmas from the West Virginia Turnpike, even in these money-tight times.

What it boils down to is that some decorations simply aged so much over the years they no longer were usable, so some were carted off to a dump.

For years, Yuletide lights and decorations have been a common sight at toll plazas along the highway.

In times past, the West Virginia Parkways Authority got into the spirit to the point that decorations also were installed in the medians.

“Then we cut back on that with tight operational costs,” Manager Greg Barr said Thursday.

Barr, however, disputed a report passed on by a toll worker to a southern West Virginia lawmaker that usable decorations were hauled off to a landfill in Beckley.

“Decorations were very old and deteriorated from the salt and weather exposure,” Barr said after consulting with maintenance personnel.

Most of the old decorations were taken to a recycling center, but others beyond use were hauled to a salvage yard, he said.

“We did receive money from the recycle center for some of it,” he said.

Delegate Daniel Hall, D-Wyoming, said he was told last week by a toll collector that the turnpike discarded some workable decorations.

If that were true, he said, the authority should have donated them to a children’s home or women’s resource center.

“I didn’t see this with my own eyes, but I trust this person explicitly,” the legislator said.

“He said it happened and that employees were pretty upset about it.”

Hall said if any decorations were in good shape, they could have been given away to give the authority a better image after raising tolls last summer.

Barr, however, said the authority didn’t toss anything that could have been used.

He said the authority would continue to permit workers to place decorations during the Christmas season.

“We’ve done that in the past,” he said. “A lot of that is volunteer effort on the part of our employees. Being a state agency, you have to be cognizant of some of the rules of what you can and can’t use as decorations.”

Other than that, Barr pledged, the turnpike would try its best to stay in the Christmas spirit.

“No Grinch,” he added.

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com

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